Physis (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #4)

by Michelle Irwin

  With my heart pounding in my chest, and my pulse racing in my ears, I slipped my hand into his and led him to the dining room. Everyone was seated around the table, something of an unusual situation lately, and they all turned to stare at Beau and me.

  The attention was overwhelming, and my breathing started to race. I tugged my hand out of Beau’s hold. I half expected him to tighten his grip, but he didn’t.

  “Mornin’,” he said, letting the word drag as his drawl rolled over his tongue. He seemed completely at ease.

  How could he be more comfortable under the watchful gazes of my family than I was?

  Mum and Dad both looked to me, no doubt waiting for me to make the introductions, but I couldn’t do it. My tongue wouldn’t work. I rubbed my hands along my pyjama pants to fight the clammy feeling taking over my palms.

  “For those of ya who don’t know me, I’m Beau. I’m Phoebe’s, uh, friend from the States.”

  “How come Phoebe’s allowed a friend around on a school night?” Brock whinged.

  It was easy to ignore his statement when it came at the same time that Parker frowned and mashed his mouth into a hard line. “Are you the one who hid her away?”

  Mum had explained to Parker that the bad man who took me was gone, but obviously he hadn’t completely understood.

  “No, Beau was the one who helped me find her,” Dad said before standing and rounding the table to my side. He clapped Beau on the shoulder before turning to me. “Are you okay?” he asked in a quiet whisper.

  I couldn’t say yes or no, could barely control my muscles that were all on lockdown as they trembled with fear.

  “Beau, this is Brock, Beth, Parker, and you already know Lys and Nikki.” Dad indicated around the table as he made each introduction.

  Brock pushed up from the table, completely ignoring Beau, and shoved past me. Without missing a beat despite my brother’s rudeness, Beau moved around the table and spoke to each of my siblings individually. When Parker thanked him for saving me, Beau offered him a fist bump.

  Beau knelt in front of Beth and held her hand in his. “Sorry for the scare this mornin’, li’l lady. We’ve met before though, do ya remember? On Phoebe’s computer. I’m the one who talks funny.”

  He looked back toward me with a smile so sweet it made my heart hurt. Why couldn’t it be easy between us the way it used to be? How long could I expect him to put up with someone as broken and damaged as I was?

  Beth narrowed her eyes at him before a smile dawned over her face as she nodded.

  He pressed his lips to the back of her hand. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance in person.”

  She blushed and I couldn’t help closing my eyes and wishing that she only found good men like Beau in her life. At the thought, nausea raced through me and flashes of other faces rushed through my mind.

  I closed in on myself.

  “I . . . I can’t do this,” I murmured to no one in particular before turning and rushing from the room.

  I couldn’t get back to my room fast enough. When I did, I slammed the door behind me and took great gasping breaths as I tried to force the nausea rolling through me to pass. I didn’t want to leave the safety of my room, not even to go throw up like I needed to.

  WHEN I CLOSED my eyes, Bee was there. Bee and the guest he’d brought with him. All of the guests; they merged and melded until I couldn’t tell where one memory started and the next one ended. I couldn’t breathe. In my mind, faces merged and it was Beth in the room with us. Beth passed out on the bed.

  “No!” The word ripped from me without consent. Over and over it rushed over my tongue and spilt from my lips.

  There was a knock on my door. The vibration rattled through the wood and down along my spine. I curled in on myself and let the word, “No,” slip from me again. I didn’t even have the strength to tell them to go away.

  “Dawson, can ya hear me?” It was clear Beau had realised I was on the floor and had lowered himself down to my level on the other side of the barrier. “Will ya let me in, please?”

  “I don’t know if I can,” I admitted. Only, I wasn’t talking about my bedroom. Being at his side was fantastic in some ways, but it brought all the hurt to the surface. With him, I couldn’t bury it deep, shut the door, and pretend I didn’t exist like I could with everyone else. His presence demanded my attention.

  “I just need to know you’re okay. You don’t have to let me in if ya don’t want to.”

  My choice. It was always my choice with him. He was giving me back my control bit by bit, and as much as I needed it, it frightened the hell out of me.

  Using every ounce of the Reede tenacity ingrained in me ever since Dad came into my life, I forced myself to my feet and pulled open the door. The sheer effort of that motion—of acknowledging to Beau that I was going to let him in—was almost enough to make me collapse.

  I stepped away from the open door. “Can you come in?” I asked. “I think we need to talk.”

  A brief flash of an expression echoed on Beau’s face, and in it, I saw all the devastation he’d felt since I was taken.

  In that tiny glimpse, I saw he thought he’d failed. That I was going to send him away. “We need to talk,” the precursor to all break-ups. The idea made me choke on the remnants of the emotions that had been coursing through my body all morning.

  An instant later, he’d managed to set his face into a more neutral expression, but not soon enough not to tell me something else. He was bottling up just as much as I was. There was as much angst and emotion hidden within him as there was in my heart. It made me want to bridge the gap between us more than ever.

  “Sit,” I directed, pointing at my bed. “This isn’t going to be an easy conversation.” It was going to be impossible for me, but I owed it to him. He was worried I was going to push him away again, but I was certain he’d soon run of his own free will.

  He just needed to hear the truth, and then I’d lose him. All of his pushing to get me to let him in would’ve been for nothing and would only leave me more devastated than ever.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked as I paced in front of him. The words came out harsher than I’d intended because I was trying to prepare myself for the fallout of my admissions.

  “What do ya mean?”

  “What do you want? Do you expect us to go back to how we were before? How we might’ve been if things hadn’t happened the way they did?”

  He frowned and looked down at his hands, no doubt trying to frame whatever he was going to say in a way that it wouldn’t hurt me. I couldn’t wait though. Now that I’d started the push, I had to get it all out so he could leave and I could go back to hurting without any respite.

  “Do you imagine us together? Married? Happy and living a normal life? I just . . . I don’t see any of that in my future anymore.” I couldn’t look at him while I spoke. “Just thinking of it reminds me of Xa—him. Of the way he used to tell me things would be better when I had to obey him like the vows said. How our wedding would change everything.”

  Beau was still watching his hands as he spoke. “I don’t care ’bout a weddin’, darlin’. Or marriage. I don’t want anythin’ ya ain’t willin’ to give. I ain’t gonna pressure you into anything you don’t want.”

  “I don’t even know if I’ll ever want to—” I cut off as I sobbed at the thoughts that crossed my mind. “I can’t be a normal girlfriend, Beau. I can’t do the things a normal girlfriend would do. Just thinking about being with anyone intimately . . .” A shudder ran through me and I wanted to stop my sentence, but I couldn’t. Beau had to know. He had to make an informed choice knowing all the information. We’d probably never be intimate. Never be married. Never have kids. Never be normal. “It just makes me think of Bee’s hands touching me.” I forced the words out. “I can’t see that I’ll ever want it again. I’m too broken.”

  His mouth opened and closed a few times.

  “The worst part is, I don’t have anyone else to blam
e for what happened,” I admitted as I moved to sit beside him on my bed. “It was my choice.”

  “Ya can’t say that. You had no choice in anythin’ that happened.”

  A tear slipped down my cheek as I nodded. “I did.”

  “I don’t understand,” he admitted. “The sick creep raped ya, how are you to blame for that?”

  I shook my head and stared at my lap as my pyjama bottoms absorbed my tears. “I wasn’t raped, Beau. He beat the shit out of me from the beginning, but he never touched me like that. Not until I consented. Not until I agreed to it. All of it. Fuck, he even made me beg for it.” I took great, terrible gasps as I tried to say the words and fight away the memories that threatened.

  Even talking about it took me right back there. It was something I hadn’t spoken to anyone about. Dr Bradshaw and I always danced around it—she’d asked for more but never pushed when I’d refused. Beau needed to know though. Needed to know it all before I let him any deeper under my skin. If I let him in, he’d take the last pieces of me with him when he left.

  Far better to get it over with now.

  The urge to vomit built in me again as I told Beau about the way Bee had started to break me down. While the words flowed, the images assaulted my mind, and a moment later, my bedroom fell away and I was there.

  It wasn’t just a story anymore; it was real.

  “You’ll be begging me before long.” Bee’s voice came from behind me like it always did during a punishment. It wasn’t the first time he’d given me a choice, and every time, I’d given him the same answer. Fuck off.

  The cane whipped against the back of my legs. A scream was on my lips, but I swallowed it down as fast as I could—not wanting to give him the satisfaction of my cries. And he’d left no doubt in my mind about the delight each scream elicited within him. When he’d made me call Beau earlier that evening, forcing me to beg Beau to stop trying to find me, Bee had delighted in the tears that followed. He’d grabbed my chin between his hands and licked them off my cheek.

  “I’ll take you down whenever you want,” Bee continued, his voice hot and wet against my ear. “Xavier has asked me to keep punishing you. To make you into a ‘good girl’ for him.” The derision in his voice was clear. He thought as little of his stepson as I did. “But I know you’re a little slut who’s beyond redemption and I’m happy to put the time to better use.”

  The cane struck across my shoulders, stealing my breath and leaving me unable to cry out.

  “I can do this for hours, you know? You can’t believe the pleasure it gives me beating the shit out of the daughter of the great Declan Reede.” He moved so his body was flush against my back. “It makes me so fucking hard, Phoebe.”

  The cane smashed down against the front of my right leg, forcing my body back against his so I could feel the truth in his statement.

  “Fuck off!”

  He chuckled. “I can see this punishment regime Xavier wants for you isn’t exactly working.” He traced his hand over my arse before bringing his hand down hard over me. Then he walked around to be face-to-face with me. He squeezed my cheeks between his fingers, forcing me to pucker my lips. “You’ve still got a filthy mouth.”

  He let go of my face, but the relief was only temporary as his hand slapped across my cheek a second later.

  “It’d be better put to other uses. And the things I’d do to it. But only when you beg me. Until then, she’ll have to do.”

  He made his way over to the unconscious girl on the bed. I squeezed my eyes closed as he peeled away her clothes.

  I tried to block out the sounds of his pleasure, and of her screams as she woke halfway through. Tried to ignore the rattling cry of her struggling for breath as he choked the life out of her when he was done tearing his pleasure from her.

  I had no doubt that would be my end one day too.

  “Dawson.” The name called me back like nothing else could. I wasn’t locked away with Bee anymore. I was in my bedroom, drenched in sweat and struggling for breath.

  My body shook against Beau’s chest; tears soaked my cheeks. I had no idea when I’d reached for him, but it was clear I’d made the move because his hands were gripping the side of the bed—most likely so that he didn’t make it worse by holding me back.

  “It’s okay, darlin’, ya don’t have to tell me anythin’ more.” The horror in his voice warned that I’d been right when I’d worried he’d hate me for the things I’d done.

  I shook my head. “I have to, Beau. You have to know how bad I was. The things I did.” It would push him away. He’d run screaming in the other direction. But I had to tell it all regardless. “Bee—he’d . . . oh God. He’d bring girls back, Beau. Different ones. He’d punish me and then he’d—” I trailed off in a sob.

  Beau’s body stiffened in my embrace.

  Another sob wracked my chest. “He’d use them. All of them. And it was my fault.” I pushed away from Beau. I didn’t deserve his comfort. How many girls had suffered at Bee’s hands because of me? Because I’d refused to give in. Refused to beg. I stood and crossed to my desk, leaning against it as I struggled to catch my breath.

  “No, it wasn’t—”

  “It was.” The face of the last girl filled my mind. Barely a woman. She couldn’t have even been eighteen yet. So young. So innocent. Even then, I’d seen Beth reflected in her eyes. It was her face that had haunted me when I’d made the wish at the breakfast table. She’d sealed my fate, and I couldn’t even hate her for it. “It was my fault because I didn’t say yes sooner.”

  “She’s a pretty one, isn’t she, Phoebe?” Bee taunted as he leant over the unconscious form of his newest guest. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

  The girl stirred as he drew her skirt and panties off her hips and down her legs.

  “Evening, sweetheart, are you ready for some fun?”

  Her eyes widened as she woke. He beat her scream though, mashing his hand over her mouth seconds before any sound could escape. She fought, scrambling and scratching the way I wished I could. The way I would have if I weren’t suspended by the chain and trapped by the dogs outside.

  I wanted to ignore the fear in her eyes as she realised she was powerless to overcome her attacker. That no one was going to save her in time. But I couldn’t. I’d seen the fear overwhelming the innocence and I couldn’t stand by any longer.

  “Stop!” The word didn’t come from the mouth of the girl. It came from me. “Please stop.” I sobbed as I watched Bee freeze. It was then I realised it really was in my control to save her. My voice was deathly quiet when I added, “I’ll do it. Please?”

  With a growing smile, Bee tied her hands together with his belt and shoved her skirt into her mouth as a temporary gag. Leaving her half-naked on the bed, he stalked toward me with a wolfish grin. “What was that, Miss Reede?”

  Squeezing my eyes closed, I repeated my request. If it would save her, and others like her, I would do anything he asked. And I’d do it willingly.

  Just like he’d always promised, a second later, the chains around my wrists released and I fell to the ground.

  “Good girl. Now, get up on your knees, and beg.”

  Beau was behind me, his hands hovering near my shoulders, as though he was itching to grab me and spin me into his comforting embrace. He didn’t touch me though—I wasn’t sure how much was because he knew not to touch me without permission and how much of his hesitation was disgust.

  “So you see, Beau, he never raped me. I asked. I begged. And if I’d done it sooner, other girls would’ve been saved. They wouldn’t have suffered that fate.”

  “So ya wanted it?”

  Another shiver ran through me. “How can you even ask that?” I whispered as I turned to face him. My tone was deadly.

  “Ya seem so certain he didn’t force ya, so you must have wanted it.”

  “You arsehole!” The instant the cry had left my lips, I leapt at him, whacking his chest with my palms and fists. “How can you say that? Of cours
e I didn’t want it! I never wanted it! I never wanted any of it!” My voice was high-pitched and hysterical.

  It was then I noticed the tears on his face, the ones that filled his voice. “Then it was rape, darlin’. He mighta twisted things to force ya to say yes, but ya never gave your consent freely. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

  The reason behind Beau’s words, the ones I’d taken as a callous accusation, smashed into me and I lost control. My legs crumpled beneath me, and if Beau hadn’t been ready to catch me, I would’ve fallen straight to the ground.

  “He took away all of your control and put ya in a situation where ya had to agree, darlin’. He knew that you’re just like your daddy and that you’d take anything onto yourself to stop someone else bein’ hurt. He used that knowledge against ya. That’s on him. It ain’t on you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “It matters to me,” he said, sitting in front of me. “Ya need to know that nothin’ that happened—whatever they did to you—none of it is your fault.”

  Even though I knew it on some level, and Dr Bradshaw had said it often enough, hearing Beau say the words was enough to break me. I’d been so certain it would be the thing that made him hate me—that made him believe I was exactly what he’d accused me of being when I first arrived in the States.

  Needing to feel the calm I could only seem to find when I was close to him, I climbed into his lap and clung to his shoulders as I cried.

  “I don’t want to be broken anymore, Beau. I don’t want to be afraid. I just want to be normal again. I want to be able to love you the way that you deserve. That’s why I’ve pushed you away. How can I ask you to be part of this fucking mess?”

  “Darlin’, more ’an anythin’, I wish things woulda been different. D’ya know how many times I’ve wondered why I didn’t just drive ya up to that damned shoot? D’ya know how often I’ve wished I coulda realised sooner who had stolen ya away? I’ve spent so long regrettin’ and feelin’ guilty, and I don’t think that’s ever gonna go away. But I’ve learned no amount of wishin’ or regrettin’ is gonna change the way things are. We need to make those changes ourselves.”