He grabbed her by her arm and sat her on a chair. “I don’t want to be here.” Her words were full of defiance. He hovered over her, his face inches from hers, and his hands on the arms of her chair. His glare made her cower away from him, almost folding into herself. “Rick, I’m not feeling well. I have a headache.”
He chuckled. “This is going to be so fun. Already with the classic excuses?”
“You’ve lost your fucking mind!” she screeched, and minutes of silence passed.
“Also, your fault. Don’t worry. I’ll mold you exactly to what I’ve always desired, and you will obey me.” His fingers caressed where her cheek had reddened. “You should actually get on your knees and thank me.” He pushed himself two meters back. “You think I want that littlegobshite?” He gestured toward the door with his head while still looking at her and started unbuckling his belt.
“He’s your nephew. The only future of your family.”
“Are you still thinking I give a flying fuck?” He chuckled. It was hard to say if the laughter had been real since he was able to stop it so fast. “I don’t. Now get on your fucking knees and thank me for not killing your son.”
She wailed, and I didn’t know what he was planning, but with her reaction, I had a feeling it wasn’t anything good.
“Ricard, please. You need help—”
“Shut the feck up!” His violent yelling scared me. Da had never talked to either of us like that. He’d never made Mum cry.
I ran back to where I’d come from, where the hall split, and screamed, “Mum! Muuuuum!” I crept toward them, attempting to disrupt whatever he was going to do to her but also processing what I’d just heard. My uncle had killed everyone I’d ever known because he was crazy and wanted my mother. Once I forced the thought through my mind, my heart shattered.Dais dead too. He killed him. This psychopathic asshole killed my father.I crumbled, my knees hitting the carpeted floor before I could reach the room. It was too much. I wailed, “Muuuuum!”
After some indistinctive whispering, she burst into the hallway and kneeled to take me in her arms. I was no longer faking anything. All my dreams had been obliterated. All the loss tookhold of my bleeding heart and choked it. With my wet cheek flattened against her chest, and hers on my head, we both wailed.
“Try to escape and you’ll face a consequence worse than death. Or you can live here in the prime of luxury.” Ignoring him, I hugged Mum tighter, not sure which of us was shaking. His sigh clearly carried his annoyance. “Feel free to ask the servants for a meal when the crying gives way to hunger.”
From the corner of my eye, I watched him walk away. It gave me a little bit of relief, but I sensed we were in the pit of evil. I just didn’t know how we could escape it.
Eventually, our sobs quieted into silent hiccups. Mum cupped my cheeks, and we stared at each other's swollen, wet red eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” she reassured, and nodded.
“How—”
“Just do as I say without questions, okay? And you’ll be all right. I’ll keep him away from you. He won’t touch you.” With furrowed brows, I looked at her, confused. This man was a monster. How would she tame him?
“Come. Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we will get something to eat.”
The letter of the day isF.Fis for Fucking Fake.
Forweeksafterthemassacre, I stuck to Mom’s side. I had to be holding on to something of hers, if not her skirt or pants, then her hand, leg, or arm while constantly shifting between terror and needing to put on a brave face for her. It wasn’t hard to do that because for most of the day, she would lie on the couch next to me while I watched TV. She’d always refuse to eat. I watched her shrivel up, and the shadows under her eyes were unbelievably dark, as if she wasn’t sleeping at all at night. No matter how much I held onto her, I still felt she was slipping away from me.
At night, she would fall asleep beside me on my bed, then sometime in the middle of the night, he’d walk in and take her. The first week was especially violent because I fought him forher. I scratched his eyes and yanked her hand away, but that only ended in him knocking me out and me waking alone on the floor sometime later with a swollen eye.
The next day when we were once again alone on the couch, she asked, “Remember what I told you? My job is to keep him away from you—”
“But Mum—”
“Shhhhh...” She pushed my hair back then kissed my cheek. “It’s my job, Killian, as your mother, to protect you, not the other way around. Okay?” She kissed my hand. “You have to let me protect you, because if I lose you, if you get hurt...” She shook her head, with pain oozing through every curve of her face. “It would be a fate worse than death. Do you understand me? I won’t be able to take it, okay?” She swallowed. “Promise me that from now on you won’t try to protect me.”
No! No, I can’t promise that. I can’t lose you either, Mommy!I studied her eyes, which had already lost their sparkle, and after too long, I realized that like Nana, Mum needed to hear this from me. I sighed and with my fingers crossed behind me said, “Okay, Mum. I promise.” She sobbed while pressing me against her chest.
“I can’t lose you. I can’t,” she kept whispering, as if she were chanting some kind of a magic spell. Wishing me to stay safe and alive. Even at my age I knew that wasn't going to happen.
Every night, I fell asleep fast because it was draining to be so paranoid of everyone around me except her, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Then I’d wake up stuck in the nightmare of that night. I’d see their bodies, watch them take their last breaths. We would almost escape but always failed, and I’d feel the horror of being dragged by those men again.
Although the house was exquisitely big, elegant, and beyond fancy with a complete staff of servants, and our captor gone for most of the morning, we were very aware it was still a cage.We weren’t allowed to step outside. The many guards constantly walking around the house made this clear. But it only became obvious to me when I dared to open the front door and the guards yelled, “Get back inside!”
Somehow, that event triggered my obsession with the outside world. I sat staring out a different window each day and quickly figured out we were no longer in Ireland when I saw the rocky shore along the wave-crashing sea. The sea was a different shade of blue, much brighter, almost a neon turquoise, while Ireland’s had been closer to gray. We didn’t have many bright sunny days back home, especially during winter. The flowers in the garden were a kind I’d never seen and almost too bright. It was as if we were on a tropical island.
In the mornings, Mum would wake me, bring me clothes to change into after showering and brushing my teeth, and then we’d walk downstairs to the solarium. The big bad wolf would always be there, waiting for us with his laptop and briefcase full of files, dressed up like a high-end businessman. He’d greet us by taking her hand, kissing it, and saying exactly the same stupid words every single fucking day. “There you are, darling, I missed you.”
The repetitiveness and fake gentleness got to me pretty quickly. It made me grit my teeth and grimace. He never acknowledged me. While he sat at the head of the table, Mum sat next to him, with me on her other side.
