Matilda Wren

by When Ravens Fall

  She smiled at Rachel and Rachel returned the smile.

  “I am sorry just to turn up, it’s just…” Pausing, she took a good look at James. She forgot how good looking his chiselled features were. He looked well. It surprised her to think that. She hadn’t ever really thought about him like that but right now, standing in his house, she was quite amazed at how he affected her.

  “I need your help. We need your help.” Rachel indicated to James that she had someone with her.

  James wasn’t sure whether he had noticed the boy at first or not. Now he couldn’t help but notice him. Adam smiled at the two adults, whose house they were in. James instantly found himself smiling back. Jane however did not. She was a little miffed at their visitors. She didn’t like the way her husband was looking at this woman. There was something between them that was for sure.

  “Why don’t I take the boy and get him settled in the back room. There is a TV in there, I am sure we can find something for him to watch. Then maybe you can tell my husband and me what this is all about.”

  Rachel took a mental note of the word ‘husband’ but allowed Jane to take the boys hand and he obediently followed her into the other room. Jane returned to where James and the woman were, just in time to hear him ask the question that shattered her world.

  “Is he mine?”

  Rachel just nodded. She didn’t know what else to say.

  * * *

  “Well well well…”

  The man walked through the front door and stood behind Rachel. She turned towards the cockney voice. She didn’t recognise him. She didn’t see that Jane did either.

  “Miss Marsden, Mr Porter and Miss Fitzgerald. All in the same room. That’s a sight I never thought I’d see. All just in time for the main man himself. You just couldn’t keep away from each other could you? All four of you, reunited at the end.”

  “Do I know you?” Rachel searched the man’s face for some recollection of meeting him before. Finally, after a few seconds, the penny dropped. He had been at Maisy’s funeral. The man seemed to know all of them.

  The soft moaning noise that was coming from Jane interrupted Rachel’s confusion, before it then added to it.

  The woman looked terrified, not scared or frightened but petrified. James looked just as baffled. He tried to put his arm around his wife to comfort her and was shocked by the ferocity with which she shook him off.

  She had a wild, defensive look on her face and he instinctively backed away. The moaning continued. It wasn’t loud or penetrating, it was an almost hum. As if she found doing this therapeutic.

  The man stepped forward a few paces. Tilting his head, he looked at Jane.

  “You stayed here… this whole time?

  The humming stopped. Jane nodded slowly. Her fixed stare took a more defiant tone.

  “I thought you would have gone, as soon as you got your ‘ead together love.”

  He spun round to James.

  “You and her? Well… that’s new.”

  James looked at Jane, but she wasn’t seeing him. She was staring back at the front door. He and Rachel both followed her gaze.

  Rachel knew, before her brain had registered it, that it was Sean. James however, was surprisingly quick on this particular turn of events. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a deep blowing sigh.

  “What the fuck is going on?” He said. “First you turn up with a kid I never knew about…” He pointed at Rachel.

  Then he turned to Jane.

  “Then you and them?” Gesturing towards Sean.

  Jane couldn’t stop the vomit that projected out of her mouth. She was sick all over the living room floor. They all stood and watched her, as she composed herself; each waiting and anticipating the next moment. She looked around the room at them.

  Kenny started to slowly clap his hands. “Can always count on you to make an entrance, eh boy! What happened to you staying in the car?”

  Sean didn’t say anything. He was staring, an intent look boring into Jane. Not even Rachel could interrupt.

  James watched his wife and the men who had abruptly and unexpectedly walked into his home; perplexed by the commotion unfolding. They all knew each other.

  Somehow Jane knew Sean and the older guy; James had managed to work that much out, but how, why and where from he had no idea. Rachel had come to him for help; help for what? He needed some answers. Why they were all here and why his wife was acting so strangely.

  She was staring just as intently at Sean, as he was at her.

  James’ mind began to go into overdrive. Had Sean Fergus got their first again? Was he Jane’s first love too? What the hell was Rachel doing here?

  Just when he thought his head was going to explode, from all the mental questions he was forming, Jane dropped Sean’s stare and turned to him.

  “What do you want to know?” It was a helpless defeated response; the sadness in her eyes that had always been there seemed to burn through even more reverently than before.

  None of them predicted what happened next. Sean, pulling a gun out from the back of his jeans, instantaneously leapt across the room, shoving it in Jane’s face.

  “One more word.” His piercing blue eyes dilated in the low lighting of the flat. The threat hung in the air. Nobody said anything. Jane pushed the gun away from her. Her strength shocked Sean.

  For a few seconds the gun had startled her, but after the initial shock, an immense anger took over. She no longer felt scared. The exhilaration of finally being released from the fear she had carried with her, impelled her to fight back. This time she wasn’t going to let him control her.

  “Shouldn’t we explain how we know each other?” She was taunting him. He knew that. “Everybody here wants to know who’s who, so let’s start it all off shall we?”

  He hadn’t prepared for this. The very fact she was standing in front of him was enough to send his mind spiralling. He was struggling to keep it together. She wasn’t shutting up. It was like she was goading him to let out the real him. To exhibit the monster to everyone in the room; the monster that Jane knew first hand lived inside him.

  “It was tough you know… at first… to believe it was me that you raped.” She paused for effect; the slight shift in her eyes told him that. Let the information sink in.

  “I tried to put it to the back of my mind. If I didn’t think about it, it couldn’t have happened. I was in denial.”

  Sean aimed the gun at her once more, warning her not to go on. She had said enough. Rachel took a step forward.

  He had a gun. Where did he get a gun? This all felt too unreal. Adam was only feet away.

  “Rach, No!” James leapt in, interrupting her thinking and making her stop still.

  Jane put her hands up as if to block them both. “Rachel?

  You’re Rachel?” She stared at the woman in front of her and then turned her attention back at Sean. “And it all starts to make sense.”

  He knew he had to make her stop; the crack of her jaw when the back of his hand struck it resounded around the substantial living room. The clump knocked her off her feet and she dropped to the floor.

  Sean had the gun in James’ face before he could even respond. “Do not fucking move.”

  Jane spat out a mouthful of blood and felt the side of her face. It felt swollen already and her cheek was throbbing like mad. She pushed herself up from the floor and forced herself to stand up. She wasn’t finished and she was determined to make him and everyone else listen.

  “I would wake up, not knowing what to expect. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I was scared to go out, in case I saw you in the street. I couldn’t trust anyone after what you did.

  I mean I had trusted you Sean, hadn’t I?”

  She felt her mouth fill with more blood and she spat it out again.

  “But you betrayed that trust so badly. I didn’t have any faith in my judgement any more. I still feel dirty and ashamed. I still blame myself for what had happened. But it wasn’t my fault. I
was eighteen.”

  Sean turned towards the man that had come in just before he had. “What the fuck is she doing here Ken?” He was wavering; the gun trembling from the shakes in his hand.

  Kenny had seen this Sean before; the Sean that gets scared and panic stricken. It wasn’t often he ever let this side of him emerge. The last time was, ironically, when he had to call Kenny because of Ginnie. Here he was again, in nearly the same state as before, because of the same person as before.

  She hardly looked any different. Her eyes were still the dark emerald green they had always been. They still had the orange speckles that made them sparkle. Her hair was still long and the deepest red. She was getting to him. He hadn’t expected to see her again; ever. He never asked Kenny where he had taken her, that night he had called him in a blind fear.

  He didn’t know what he thought had happened; he just assumed Kenny had disposed of her. When he walked into James house not ten minutes ago, he was prepared to convince Rachel to come back with him. He had spent the last four hours rehearsing his side of the whole story.

  Of course he was going to lie his way out of it and blame it all on Maisy. He had convinced himself it was the truth, so he thought it was going to be easy to persuade Rachel.

  Now, Ginnie had opened her mouth and there was no going back from there.

  She hadn’t finished her tirade yet though. Jane had plenty more to say.

  “Four days you kept me locked in that flat.” She then beckoned to Kenny. “Even after he bought me here, the flashbacks were still there.”

  James and Rachel hadn’t moved the whole time Jane was talking. No one dared to stop her. Not even Sean now.

  She had a lot more to unleash on the psychopath that stood before her.

  “The flashbacks were so intense. Sometimes I would scream or shake so violently. Had I reacted that way then?

  Had I Sean? I would beg you to stop, plead for you not to hurt me, crying out in agony as you hurt me more. I sobbed while you took no notice of my cries of “no, please no more”

  whilst you violated me.”

  Jane was releasing memories which she had pushed deep into her subconscious because of the pain and fear she knew she would experience, when she eventually let them bubble back to the surface again.

  “You’re a twisted fuck. That is the only way I can describe the fantasy that you relived over and over, whilst you raped me again and again. You actually believed I was her.”

  Rachel’s heart felt like it had stopped. Jane was pointing at her.

  “You were who your sick mind led you to believe you were. Your eyes were crazed, as you took great delight in describing what you were doing and why. You did it. You.

  I was so scared. Scared because you were no longer the person I thought I knew. It would have been bad enough, just to have had regular sex without consent, but that was something else. It was like you had gone crazy. You couldn’t tell reality from your fantasy.”

  Rachel watched the dead look in Jane’s eyes; it was eerie. Her own face was expressionless. Everything she was hearing was so unreal. Part of her wished so very badly that she had never opened that letter, earlier in the day. Or that Maisy had never written it. Parts of her wished she had never witnessed Sean assault Jane, or hear the sickening words that she was disclosing.

  She needed it to all stop; there was just too much happening today and she felt like she was drowning. Nobody looked as if they were willing to be the ones to stop any of it. Sean, the man she had lived half a life for; for so long he had been the cause of so much pain and destruction. She hadn’t seen it. She should have seen it.

  James looked as if he was frozen where he was standing.

  It occurred to Rachel that he had only moved when she had stepped towards Sean. He was looking at his wife now, like she was a complete stranger. He never was very good with confrontation, she knew that, but he looked just as scared and hesitant as he had the last time she saw him.

  Jane appeared half demented. By the way she spat the words at Sean, Rachel guessed she had never spoke about it before. It was funny but, like herself, Jane didn’t seem scared. James was actually the only person in the room that wore a face of sheer terror. Kenny looked more amused by the proceedings than anything but it was Jane that Rachel was growing concerned for.

  She just kept on with her tirade, of what Sean had done to her. It was like she was reminding him of what he was. She needed confirmation that it had happened, Rachel supposed, but that didn’t make it any easier to listen to. And still she went on.

  “I was the one listening to what you were saying, I was the one who was there; who was having those things done to her. I was the one in the real world. You were lost in your own imaginary world.” She began to pace a little, no longer able to stand still. Her body was pounding from the fall and the smack she had received from Sean, but it spurred her to go on.

  “A world where you could take what you wanted knowing that there was no comeback, after all I was nothing, someone to use and abuse, like it was your right. Your status empowered you to do anything you wanted, to force me to do everything you wanted, to threaten people I cared about if I didn’t do what you wanted…Oh the power you had.”

  Throwing back her head, she spat out at him. It landed right between his eyes; a thick, stringy, blood congealed phlegm.

  “You revelled in it. Now you know why I didn’t struggle, why I didn’t scream out for help. You were crazed, incapable of hearing me, even if I had been able to say anything. I was the one who was there, watching your face, seeing the arrogance, the satisfaction, the hatred that you were showing towards me. The only thing was Sean, it wasn’t Rachel you were making love to; you were raping me.”

  Sean aimed the gun at her once more. She smiled at him then. It was a disturbingly sinister smile that was filled with intimidation. He wasn’t used to this being projected onto him, especially by a woman. To be made to feel inferior and substandard.

  “It was only once you had run out of coke and were on one of the biggest comedowns of your life, that you began to stop. When you sat on the end of the bed, with your head in your hands, was the point where you came back to reality. Does that sound like a man who had consensual sex with someone? No, not in my book. Sean, face it, YOU RAPED ME!”

  She was screaming at him now, tears pouring down her face. “The demons pushed it deep into your subconscious, with a lot of the other baggage that you dare not face because of the consequences. But one day you are going to have to face everything. So you want to shut me up. Pull the trigger Sean. Let’s see what a man you really are.”

  Rachel felt herself move. She walked in between Jane and Sean. She saw the chaos and turmoil in his eyes. She put her hand up in front of the gun and closed it around the barrel.

  Chapter 18

  “Get out of the way.” Sean pleaded with Rachel.

  What was she doing? Was she stupid? Why was she putting herself in front of the gun? He didn’t know if he had what it took to fi ght the beast inside him, the beast that was telling him to pull the trigger and shut the fi ery redhead up for good.

  “No.” She tried to pull the gun down, towards the fl oor, but Sean’s hold was too strong.

  “Please baby, I don’t want to hurt you.” The words were whispered so sincerely, it took everybody in the room aback.

  But Rachel stood fast.

  “No.” She said again; shaking her head. “Th is time no one is getting hurt Sean. You came here for me… right?”

  Sean faltered. Was she still looking at him like she loved him? It had all seemed so simple in the car. He had a plan.

  He had repeated it over and over to Kenny on the way up.

  Kenny was to go into the house and remove James. He would then persuade Rachel to come home with Adam.

  Ginnie was not part of the plan. Why had they not known about her? It was just as much Sean’s fault as it was Kenny’s. Neither thought James needed to be watched any further, as neither saw him as a
threat. Unbeknown to them, in the six months that Kenny had stopped investigating James, Ginnie and James had got married, only Ginnie was now Jane. It was all too surreal.

  “James, take your wife and Adam and get out of here.”

  Her voice sounded a lot more confident than she was actually feeling. Her stomach felt like it was going to empty any minute and she desperately needed to sit down.

  Sean wrenched the gun out of her hands and pointed it at James.

  Rachel grabbed Sean’s face in her hands and forced him to look at her.

  “I was always coming back. I just needed to get Adam safe first… Sean, look at me; I was coming back. Let them go.”He lowered the gun down to his side. She didn’t let go of his face and kept his gaze the whole time James grabbed Adam from the next room and pushed his wife out of the door. He looked back at Rachel at the very last minute; wondering if he would ever see her again. The first girl he had ever loved. She was still holding onto Sean and didn’t see him.

  “What are you doing?” Sean asked the question without really wanting to know the answer.

  She didn’t get it. Even after all the terrible things she had learnt, she couldn’t switch it off. She didn’t know where she had found the courage to do what she had just done.

  Something had taken over her. She couldn’t let him hurt anybody else, yet being so close to him now she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

  “I’m addicted to you.” She murmured. It was such a soft voice, an almost whimper. “It’s like I can’t think, without you interrupting me in my thoughts; in my dreams. You’ve taken over me. I should hate you right now. Why don’t I hate you?”

  Sean leant his head against hers. He could feel her whole body shaking. Her smell was overriding every sense he possessed. He was overcome, that she was so close after what she had just heard. The crushing urge he had to kiss her was becoming more irresistible with every passing second.

  “I can close my eyes to things I don’t wanna see, but I can’t close my heart to things I don’t wanna feel. I want to hate you Sean. You’re evil or possessed or… I don’t know.”