by Jette Harris
“I’m fine,” Witt repeated in the same curt tone.
“He won’t hurt you, you know, if you don’t fight,” Monica pointed out in a small voice.
Barely audible, Heather hissed between her teeth. Proud, iron Heather.
“I don’t fight.” His voice was less gruff, but more dejected. “He didn’t beat me. I’m not hurt.”
“I don’t see how you do it,” Heather muttered. Her voice was hoarse, almost alien.
“Do what?” Monica’s voice had a defensive edge to it.
“Just let him do what he wants.” Heather lowered her voice and added, “It makes me sick… just thinking about him.”
“And that’s why you get carried back and thrown around instead of… of just being allowed to sleep,” Monica snapped.
Heather stammered a few times before she squeezed out, “Sleep? ‘Allowed to sleep’? How the f—What? How can you sleep?”
As Heather spoke, Z could hear Monica shift around through the wall. She let out a whimper. Z had never seen the girls fight before, but he was certain it was not something he wanted to escalate. The last thing he wanted was for Monica to start crying again.
“Heather, not everyone can turn themselves off like you can,” he said.
“I can’t turn it off,” Heather replied. “If I could turn it off, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
“Som—Sometimes he lets me fuck him.”
Everyone was shocked into silence. They all had their own reasons for keeping quiet: Despite his revulsion, Z knew what she was referring to, but he couldn’t imagine admitting it aloud. In the silence, Heather’s breathing became ragged. Witt made a strange noise and started to sniffle again.
“It’s not—It’s—” Monica sounded like she was having trouble choosing her words. Her voice began to shudder. When she finally got it out, her words jumbled together. “If I can forget that it’s him, it’s prettydamngood.”
Heather didn’t hiss this time as much as growled. Z couldn’t believe what he was hearing, either. He couldn’t imagine forgetting who it was. He couldn’t stop staring at that scar, that pock on Rhodes’s side.
“Nobody wants to fucking hear this,” Witt grumbled.
“Heather, you should—should stop fighting… try it sometime…” Monica trailed off.
Why the fuck would she say something like that?
His question was answered when his door opened silently. He shot to his feet as Rhodes slid inside. He grabbed Z’s face, covering his mouth, but released him when he made no attempt to struggle or make a sound. Rhodes let his hands slide down to the boy’s neck, pulling him close and pressing against his body. He began to whisper into Z’s ear.
Now everything Monica had said made sense. Z closed his eyes. His stomach twisted in knots. He had to fight to keep his voice even. “It—it’s true,” he said. He could hear Monica begin to cry.
“What’s true?” Heather grumbled. She was oblivious to the wolf in their midst.
“Tell her,” Rhodes whispered, his lips brushed Z’s face.
“Sometimes he—he’ll make me fuck him.” He took a deep breath and hung his head in shame.
“That’s disgusting,” Monica said between sobs.
“You shouldn’t say that,” Heather hissed.
Rhodes sniggered at Heather’s new-found sensitivity. “Go on,” he prompted. His hand drifted down Z’s body until his fingers curled around his testicles. Z tried hard to focus on anything else, raising his head to stare at the ceiling.
“Tell her you like it,” Rhodes demanded, squeezing.
“I—It—” Z stammered. This would be so much easier if Rhodes were feeding him lines. He turned to the man beseechingly, but Rhodes simply grinned. “I li—I enjoy it…” Rhodes nodded. Z swallowed hard. He braced himself. “But not—not because it feels good or—or anything, but it gives me a chance to hurt him.” He managed to get it out without stammering. “And he has no idea,” he added, turning to stare into the man’s dark eyes.
Rhodes’s grin faded, then twisted into a sneer. Covering Z’s mouth, he mercifully released his genitals, but twisted the boy’s arm back until the shoulder bulged in the socket, threatening to pop out. Z whimpered as the tendons began to tear. He gasped with relief when Rhodes paused. He pressed his cheek against Z’s.
No longer concerned with silence, Rhodes shoved Z into the wall. “I guess we’re not playing that game anymore.” He slammed Z’s door shut, yanked the outer door open, then slammed it as well. If Z hadn’t known any better, he would have thought Rhodes was making a point in revealing his presence.
“What the fuck?” Witt breathed. “Was he here the whole time?”
Z clutched his shoulder and did not reply. No one replied. They were all convinced he was still in the room.
31
Heather’s knuckles were pearly white. Her fingers chafed and wrists ached from the force with which she clutched the metal bars of the headboard. But she refused to let go. Perhaps if she focused on the pain in front of her, she could drown out what was happening behind.
“Do you like that?” Rhodes panted.
“No!” she cried out from where she was hiding her face under her arm.
“C’mon!” He thrust more violently. “Say you like it!”
“No!” She managed to make her voice sound less desperate, more bitter.
“Tell me.” Rhodes, softening his pace, reached around her hip to massage her genitals.
A jolt—almost a tickling sensation—shot through her loins. “Go to Hell!” The desperation returned. She had to clench her jaw to keep from crying out.
He grinned. “Say it…” he murmured, “and I’ll give you clothing.”
“No…” Beginning to sob, she buried her face in the mattress.
****
Heather clutched the toilet seat, retching. Nothing but water came out, clouded yellow with bile. When the sickness subsided, she spit. She wondered if these visits to kneel on the bathroom floor were becoming a ritual.
“Just Heather.” Rhodes leaned against the door frame. A white robe dangled from his hand. “You earned it.”
Heather discovered she was not quite done heaving.
“You get sick a lot,” he observed. “I must be feeding you too much.”
“Ha ha ha… ha ha…” She spit again. “I haven’t eaten since I got here.”
Rhodes nodded absently. Heather rinsed her face and mouth at the sink. He draped the robe across her back on his way to the toilet. She hurried out of the bathroom, pulling the silky material over her shoulders. Her throat was tight with shame. It was bittersweet, finally being able to cover herself—at the cost of her dignity. But what does that matter anymore?
When Rhodes emerged, he found her standing at the Bedroom door. She had no desire to be dragged or thrown right now. She waited for him, eyes cast down, scrutinizing the door like a work of art. She reached out and touched it with the tips of her fingers. She imagined her hand sinking through it like liquid, but the wood held solid.
Rhodes studied this behavior and sighed. He wasn’t breaking her; She was cracking. He put a hand on each of her shoulders and steered her back toward the bed. She attempted to hide a shuddering breath, but he could feel it through her bones. He spread the linens across the bed. Holding them up, he beckoned her underneath.
She stared at the bed for a moment, then looked at him askance. She was so overcome by exhaustion, the thought of being teased like this set her on the verge of tears.
“Get in.” Softening his tone, he said, “I’m not hurting you. Get in.”
With another shuddering breath, she slid under the covers. Rhodes flicked off the lights and climbed in after her.
****
Heather didn’t know how long she laid awake with Rhodes’s arm across her chest. Just as the others reported, he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
A storm started in the dark hours of the morning, invading Heather’s dreams. As the rain fell
in torrents outside the window, she perceived the room filling with water. She could hear it rising and felt it soak its way up the sheets. Rhodes continued sleeping, oblivious.
Drowning would be a fine way to go, she thought.
The cold hit her first, making her teeth chatter as it saturated the sheets. She gasped at the shock as water rushed over the top of the mattress. Rhodes didn’t seem to notice. He was lying on his side, his arm still draped over her. As the water rose over his face, Heather was surprised to feel a pang of concern.
Maybe you should wake him up?
But it was too late for that. As the water closed over her face, she closed her eyes. She held her breath as long as she could, but it became too painful. She inhaled, pulling the icy water into her lungs.
****
Coughing and gasping, Heather shot up. The rain outside had subsided to an early-morning shower, the beautiful kind, with the sun shining through somewhere. The raindrops clinging to the window became tiny prisms.
The room was as it had been when Rhodes turned off the light. He had rolled over and thrown off the covers at some point during the night. His bare back glistened with sweat, despite the air conditioning making goose-bumps rise on her arms. Her feet and hands were stiff with cold. The heavy blanket had fallen off the bed.
Without disturbing him, Heather sank down to the floor and pulled the blanket around her body. She sat with her back against the bed, staring through the window at the cloudy sky. At that moment, she felt safe enough to cry.
She didn’t know Rhodes had gotten up until he stepped around the foot of the bed. He moved without a sound, pulling on a red Thierry Noir t-shirt. He didn’t say anything. Heather hugged her legs to her chest, wishing she could remain there. Her wish was granted: The Bedroom door opened and closed. The room was silent and still.
When the door opened again, Heather sighed. On the floor, against the bed, watching the rain patter on, life didn’t seem so bad. She was certain Rhodes had returned to ruin it.
But Rhodes is a man of surprises. He came around the end of the bed, a large plate in hand. He sat cross-legged, facing her.
“Omelet?” He offered her a plate heaped with egg, assorted vegetables, and pieces of bacon. The rich smell hit her. She had to turn her head. The sudden stimulus threatened to turn her stomach inside-out. He sliced off a bit with a fork and shoved it into his mouth. He cut a smaller piece and held the fork up to her face. Heather eyed it, trying not to betray how desperately she wanted it.
“I’m still not hurting you,” he said, pushing the fork closer.
She held up a hand. “Have the others eaten?”
“I didn’t have that many eggs.”
Heather turned her head away.
Giving up on feeding her, he ate the piece himself. “They just got oatmeal.” He took another bite.
She glanced at the omelet. He speared another bit and pushed it toward her mouth as if she had accepted his offer the first time. She ate it anyway. It was incredible.
“You had a nightmare,” he said. “Tell me.” He pushed another piece of omelet toward her and she accepted it without further protest.
“I was drowning,” she told him once she had finished chewing.
Rhodes nodded, picking at smaller bits of omelet and feeding them to her. “I was fucking this guy once,” he began as if they were the kind of people to sit on the floor and have a casual conversation, “and he was really into astrology and dream interpretation and bullshit like that.” He paused to bolt down a piece, then gave another to her. “I told him about this dream I keep having, in which I am underwater in a river—I’m not drowning, but he took it to mean that I was—and he told me that it must be because I was feeling overwhelmed, like I was in over my head.”
“Were you?”
Rhodes shook his head and took another bite. “I wasn’t drowning,” he repeated around the egg. He was surprised to meet her coffee-colored eyes, giving him her full attention. His chewing slowed. He glanced over her, wondering if he was giving away too much in his effort to disarm her.
Heather could see the cogs in his brain turning. “Tell me about your dream,” she said.
Rhodes snorted. (Me? Share?) But Heather held his gaze and he felt compelled to tell her, as if she were drawing it out of him. The stables, the river, the child. He had to stop himself before the words—his entire history—tumbled out of his mouth. He distracted himself by slicing up the remainder of the omelet, deciding the safest way to explain.
“In the dream, I’m a soldier on a mission,” he began, “and to reach our objective, we have to travel down a river, through—” he paused, back-tracking a bit. He covered it up by feeding her some more. “The river was too deep in certain places, so we just walked across the bottom, completely submerged, until it shallowed out again. I was, literally, in over my head, but I was never afraid, especially not of drowning.”
“That was your dream?”
“That’s all I’m going to tell you.” He smiled teasingly. (That’s all I’m willing to remember…)
Heather looked back out the window. The rain was a light drizzle now. She didn’t see Rhodes frown. He had never told anyone else about that dream. He was never really sure why he had told his lover in the first place. He must have wanted a favor.
“I dreamt the rain was getting into the room and flooding it. I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to drown.” She paused, hanging her head. After a moment, she added, “I was actually worried about you.”
“Worried I was going to hurt you again?”
“Worried you were going to drown.”
The fork slipped out of Rhodes’s grip and clattered onto the plate. He snatched it back up. “Why would you worry about me?”
She shrugged. “You were in the room.”
Rhodes snorted. Amused and slightly confused, he shook his head. Feeding her the last bit of omelet, he put the fork and plate aside. “Well, now that we are friends,” he said with a smirk, “you should do something for me.”
“What’s that?”
“You should suck my cock.” His hand found her thigh and snaked upward.
Heather was almost fast enough. He caught her wrist with the fork inches from his eye. He pulled her against his chest and twisted her arm until he forced her to press the tines against her own throat. His lips brushed her ear.
“Just in case you did not get the hint, Just Heather,” he whispered, “you are in over your head.”
Heather’s deep breath warned him he should brace. Swinging her head, she knocked her skull into his face. He tightened his grip on her, but she was the one to plunge the fork into her own neck. Stunned, he blinked a few times before he realized the blood on his hand was not his own.
“Sorry…” His fingers found the wound in the tender muscle of the curve of her neck. He pried the fork out. “You missed.”
32
The silence was heavy. Heather’s voice was still rough. Monica felt bad when she asked for another story and heard a croak in reply. Heather tried to be light-hearted about it, to play it down, but it sounded so painful, Monica felt the urge to cry. She began instead to invent her own Br’er Rabbit story.
Monica was not very good at coming up with stories. Spinning yarns was far more difficult than lying to her parents—which had been, in her naïve mind, a matter of survival. Stories were Old Tex’s department. She had lived next door to him for as long as she could remember. The Shatterthwaith children were not allowed to go over there until Heather moved in and Tex sobered up. That never stopped her from sneaking over, though. She had been caught several times sitting on the edge of Tex’s porch as the old man told stories about anything and everything but the Vietnam War (though, pig-headed child she had been, she asked several times).
The story was coming together well. Monica was about to begin—How surprised the others will be to hear her voice spinning yarns!—when a resounding boom! outside made her jump with a cry.
“Was that a g
unshot?” As she spoke, the noise repeated. “Heather?” Although Heather had been in the room moments before, the sound stole Monica’s ability to think rationally.
“Here.” Heather’s painful rasp was suddenly a source of comfort. “Z?”
“Witt?” Monica called.
“Here,” each boy replied.
Everyone’s safety assured, they fell silent again, listening. Monica’s mind raced for an explanation. The noise did not repeat, but after a few minutes, a distant door opened and closed.
“Maybe the police are here,” she whispered.
“Police wouldn’t use a rifle,” Witt replied.
“Or close the door,” Heather added.
“Fuck…” Monica muttered, her hopes crushed.
“Were you about to say something?” Z’s voice was sugary, like he was attempting to distract her by changing the subject.
Monica’s mind was blank. The gunfire had scared the story out of her. “No,” she lied. “Just sighing.”
****
Monica was still jumpy from the gunshot when the door opened. She pressed herself against the back wall, holding her breath. Heather snorted, attempting to draw his attention away.
“You can stop playing that game,” Rhodes said. He opened a door, and—to Monica’s surprise—reached across to open her door.
When she caught sight of Heather, she gasped: her entire neck was purple and yellow with bruises, overlapped with a thin line of red burns and white blisters. A large Band-Aid occupied the area under her left ear. A bright red cloud spread across the white of her right eye. When the shock passed, they looked at him.
“Follow me. I have a treat for y’all,” he said in an exaggerated drawl.
Monica trembled. As soon as Rhodes’s back was to them, she reached out and grabbed Heather’s hand. When she winced, Monica loosened her grip, unsure whether it was because she was holding too tight, or if Heather’s hand was injured. Probably both. Shoulder to shoulder they followed him from the room. The moment they stepped onto the landing, they paused. The most delicious smell wafted upstairs. Noses going like hounds, they leaned over the railing, peering toward the French doors.
