“No, I need to get it out. To tell you what happened, or I’ll keep it bottled up forever.”
“Then we’re here to listen, Veronica,” Josh tells me as he finishes with my hand and moves down to check my feet, tending to the rope burns on my ankle.
“He said…he said I was going to bear his child.” My stomach churns remembering that. At knowing how close I was to that happening. “That he was going to share me with his son.” The words taste poisonous in my mouth. “That he knew I was into it.” My hands begin to shake. “What his son did to me…” My voice breaks completely, and I can’t say anymore.
“Shhh. Baby. It’s okay, take as much time as you need.” Luke raises up in his chair and kisses me softly on my lips.
It’s what I need to finish the story. I tell them about waking up in the room again. The son being there and what he did to me. Neither of them interrupts. Neither of them asks questions. They just sit there, listening, letting me stop whenever the words get stuck in my throat or hard to say. At some point Luke moves to the other side of the bed so that Josh can clean the wounds on my other wrist and ankle. When I finally finish, the room feels suffocatingly quiet.
“Can I have some liquor?” I ask hoarsely. “I need to wash this vile taste from my mouth.”
Luke stands immediately. “I’ll get it.” He turns and heads to the door, making sure to close it behind him as he steps out of the room.
Josh finishes wrapping my ankle and sits down in the chair Luke was in, his eyes locked on me.
“I'm so sorry, baby. That you had to endure that. We should’ve had our heads out of our asses and been there for you.”
He pulls out his phone and looks at something on it. “Luca checking on you. Making sure you’re okay.”
“He’s here?” A part of me wished he was in the room with me. But another part doesn’t want him seeing me like this. I know he’ll feel guilty, as if he let me down in some way as well, since Abraham is from our past.
“Downstairs with the fuckers. Making sure they’re comfortable.” He smiles when he says the last word. I can only imagine their version of comfortable for the people they’re holding captive.
“Okay.”
“He wants you to know he’d rather be here. But he’s making sure the scum can’t get away. Then he’ll be up,” he says quietly.
I look at him. “He’s going to be the one to torture and kill them?”
“One of the people to do it. There’s a line forming.” Something cold flickers in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. A hint to a darker side he keeps hidden. My stomach twists, but the thought doesn’t horrify me the way it should. “If you want,” he continues gently, “you can have your own revenge.”
I stare at the blanket covering my legs. Do I want to? Can I hurt someone the way they did me? Help to kill them? I know Ash took revenge on the prick who hurt her. She’s okay and hasn’t gone insane. She told me once that it helped her to moveon. But she endured more than I did. She suffered more than I did.
“Ohh.” I don’t know what to say.
“There’s something else,” he adds.
I glance up.
“Hank tried to see you.”
My chest tightens. Why would he want to see me after working so hard to push me away? Is he trying to ease some of the guilt he may have over what happened to make himself feel better?
“I don’t want to see him.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
I love that Josh doesn’t argue with me or pressure me to see him. How he leaves it up to me.
There’s a soft knock and the door opens again. Luke steps into the room carrying a bottle of liquor and a glass.
“Just one,” Josh tells both him and me. “She’s had pain medication.”
Luke gives him a curt nod and sets the glass down on his table, then opens the bottle and pours some of the clear liquid into the glass. I can smell it immediately. Tequila.
He hands the glass to me, and I swallow it down in one gulp. The liquid burns as it slides down my throat, scorching all the way to my stomach. But it helps. A little. I hand him the empty glass, and shift my gaze between the two of them.
“Can I go home now?”
