by Cox, Paula
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised. “Neither are you.”
Sally pulled away from him, and she smiled through her tears as he kissed her brow.
“Except with me,” he said. “Always… only with me. Okay?”
As he pushed his fingers under her chin, Sally nodded, and Ken pecked her cheek as he passed her back to Sophia.
“Look after her,” Ken started. “Tend to Lily.”
Sophia gathered both girls under her arms and stood taller than seemed possible given her squat form.
“Don’t worry. The girls are in good hands,” Sophia said.
“That’s what I want to hear.”
Ken was nearly gone when he stopped in his tracks, and he succeeded where Michael had failed. Turning around, he swept back to their side, and he took Sally’s tear-stained cheeks in his hands.
“We’re heading out to start a new life,” he promised her. “Everything I promised you is gonna come to pass.”
Sally shrank into his shoulder and whispered into the leather covering his arms.
“You swear?” she asked.
“I would never lie to you.”
Ken lifted her lips to his, and he kissed her lightly. Lily saw her cringe ever so slightly under his hold, and she wondered just how intimate they truly were.
He touches me. He kisses me. But mostly he’s just been real sweet. I… I know it’s crazy, but I think it’s kind of like lucky that I’m here.
Wanting to feel that with Michael, Lily started to move into the darkness when Sophia grabbed her arm and pulled her back to her side.
“Nuh-uh,” she chided. “Michael wants you cleaned up, and that’s just what we’re gonna do.”
Before she was led into Sophia’s tent, Lily saw Ken run his hands down Sally’s back. His palms settled at her waist, and Ken gazed into her teary eyes.
“You go, too,” he said.
“But… you need to sleep.”
“Come here.”
His lips met hers again, and Sally seemed stiff for all of a second. But then she appeared to melt in his embrace, and Lily watched her arms surround his body. As they clasped each other close, Sally moaned into his mouth, and when Ken ended the kiss, their smiles met, and Sally sighed.
“You’ll be back soon?” she asked.
Ken kissed the top of her head and stroked her cheek.
“Not a damn thing in the world can stop me.”
As soon as he disappeared into the shadows, Sally bit her lip and wiped her eyes dry.
“Come on now,” Sophia said. “Fucking cold out here.”
Sophia’s makeshift home was a burst of pink and purple. It seemed soft and somehow homey against the desert winds despite the clutter of clothing strewn about the bed and a small table sitting before a rickety chair.
“Let’s get you out of this,” Sophia said as she peeled Michael’s jacket from her arms. Sally gasped at the sight of her torn dress.
“It’s nothing,” Lily assured her.
“Let me be the judge of that.”
Sophia followed her words with a careful inspection of her bare back, and Lily winced when she touched her exposed skin.
“They were going to whip you,” Sophia said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Am I right?”
Unable to deny it, Lily murmured the answer that Sophia already knew.
“Lucky the guys got to you in time then, isn’t it?”
Pushing her hands into her pockets, Sophia revealed a handful of safety pins, and she went to work repairing the dress.
“Far cry from what you’ll have to do make it like new,” she sighed. “But it’ll do for the moment.”
“I… what I have to do?” Lily asked.
“You think I’m doing the patch job?” Sophia asked as she continued to pin.
“But I don’t know how to sew,” Lily confessed.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Sophia said with a hearty laugh. Finishing the task at hand, she turned Lily to face her. “Guess you’ll just have to learn,” Sophia said.
Lily started to speak when Sally pressed her lips to her ear.
“I’ll teach you,” she promised. “As soon as we’re safe. Now come on. Sit.”
Sinking into a pile of pillows, Lily basked in the softness, and she peered into Sally’s eyes, calm and tranquil now that she knew that Ken was back, now that he had held her close. Why couldn’t Michael love her like that? Was it really so wrong that she had gone after him? Even if it was, shouldn’t he just be relieved to have her away from the Mad Angels and back in his arms? But one look towards the flapping fold of the tent gave no sign that Michael was returning, and Lily sighed sadly as Sophia knelt before her and twirled a lock of her hair between her fingers.
“Boys are doing what they have to for you,” Sophia said. “For us.”
“What does that mean?” Lily asked. “Where are we going now?”
Sophia filled a basin with water and flung a cloth over her shoulder. Sally took Lily’s hand in hers as Sophia stroked her face.
“Deep cover,” Sophia said. “It happens.”
Lily started to ask why when Sally beat her to the punch.
“So you’ve done this before?” Sally asked.
Sophia’s face clouded over with a memory, and her voice sounded flat as she recounted a waking dream.
“Once,” Sophia started. “Leo said that we needed to lay low when another crew started to close in.”
“Mad Angels?” Lily asked.
Sophia shook her head sadly.
“Another crew,” Sophia said. “Even rougher if you can believe it.”
Just the thought seemed impossible, and Lily started to press the point when Sophia stroked her face and shot her a sweet smile.
“Not now,” Sophia said. “Let’s clean you up.”
“But I need to—”
“Right now you need to rest,” Sophia continued. “And I need to bring this swelling down. Can’t have Michael’s girl looking anything less than pretty.”
Lily relaxed into the feel of the cool damp cloth pressing against her flesh. Sophia wiped around her bruise, and Lily’s mind turned to the other parts of her body, her back, her breasts, her cunt. Maybe they hadn’t been completely violated, but she still trembled when she thought of unwanted hands pressing against her skin.
Into her flesh.
“Lily?”
“I’m fine,” she said. Lied. Michael wouldn’t be surprised, and as she hung her head, Sally was at her side, her whisper warm against Lily’s ear.
“You will be,” Sally promised.
Sophia filled the cloth with a generous handful of ice. Tying the fabric off at the end, she crafted an ice pack and held it to Lily’s cheek.
“Christ,” Lily said through gritted teeth as the cold seemed to burn through the cloth as it assailed her sensitive skin. Sally held her hand tighter, and soon Lily’s battered flesh acclimated to the cold, and there was no stinging. Just a soothing cool that nearly made her forget what had gone down and the mysterious destination lying ahead.
“Feels good, right?” Sophia asked.
Lily nodded, and Sophia took her free hand and centered her fingers on the cold cloth.
“Can you hold that there for me?” Sophia asked. “Just like that.”
“Sure,” Lily said. “No problem.”
“That’s a good girl,” Sophia said as she patted her leg. The stout redhead was suddenly on her feet, and Lily watched with Sally at her side as Sophia resumed what had obviously been an interrupted task. As Sophia clumsily folded her clothes, basically stuffed them into two battered suitcases, Lily strained her ear to the sounds of the breakdown just outside the tent. She heard Ken giving orders and various Diesel Devils answering him with affirmatives. But not one answer sounded like it came from Michael.
Where is he? What if he’s not coming back?
The thought of that brought a lump to her throat, and Lily was about find her way to her feet. Injury or not, she would try
to find him.
I have to…
Sally slipped closer to her side and spoke in a hushed, worried voice.
“Where did they take you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Lily confessed. “Their clubhouse or whatever I guess.”
“They… they didn’t…”
As Sally’s voice trailed off, Lily was quick to shake her head and reassure her.
“No,” she said. “Ken and Michael got to me time. For that I’m grateful.”
“You should be,” Sophia said. “Last thing Michael needs is for you get yourself fucked up.”
Lily narrowed her eyes as Sophia zipped up one case and turned her attention to the other.
“Excuse me?” she asked. “Last thing he needs?”
“You heard me,” Sophia said. “That poor boy’s been through enough.”
Even though she knew that there had to be a story attached to the marks on his back, Lily pushed those thoughts aside and sprang to her feet.
“ He’s been through enough?” she challenged. “What about what happened to me?”
“Haven’t heard you complaining,” Sophia said. “Night after night, sounds like he’s keeping you pretty damn satisfied.”
Lily blushed. Even after Sally had told her that everyone could hear her screaming every time Michael rode her to climax, Lily couldn’t suppress her cries of ecstasy. No matter how hard she tried. But that didn’t mean…
“I’m still here against my will,” Lily spat. “And it sounds like this whole cut and run thing is to make sure that I stay his captive. No matter what I want.”
Her eyes blazed over her throbbing cheek, and Sophia looked up at her with what felt like a condescending stare.
“And what do you want?” Sophia asked. “Rescued? Go home? Maybe spill the whole story and put us all at risk?”
“Yeah,” Lily challenged. “Maybe I do. Maybe this crew and those other freaks and those sickos at the auction. Maybe I want to bring them all down.”
Sophia seethed and started to speak when Sally rushed to her side.
“No please!” she cried as she gripped Lily’s arm. “Please don’t do that!”
“Sally, you’re a prisoner here, too,” Lily said. “And you want to stay?”
“I sure as hell don’t want to back to what I was,” Sally said, her voice growing stronger even as tears filled her eyes.
“You won’t have to,” Lily assured her. “You can tell the cops about Henry. That he sold you. You can get some justice.”
“No,” Sally said as she sadly shook he head. “Justice is the last thing that I’ll get. If the law comes for you, I’m done.”
She started to step away, but Lily seized her shoulders.
“How can you say that?” Lily asked. “Why—?”
A ragged moan passed through Sally’s lips, and she hung her head when Sophia sprang into action.
“Leave her alone,” Sophia ordered.
“Why should I?” Lily challenged. “She knows more than she’s saying.”
“She doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s right” Sally said as she turned her eyes back to them, tears rolling down her cheeks. “But I don’t know how else I can make you understand.”
Sally fell back into the pillows, and she held her face in her hands.
“I… I told you that I was passed around,” Sally started.
Lily nodded and tried to touch Sally when the girl shrank from her hold.
“But before that happened, there was someone else. Someone much worse than Henry.”
What could be worse than the man that was supposed to love and protect her using her like a sex toy for his friends and selling her for a song when he got bored or just wanted some extra pocket change? Lily’s curiosity was piqued, but she held her breath as Sally struggled to speak.
“He didn’t pass me around,” Sally muttered. “He wanted me to all to himself. All night. Every night. I…”
Her voice started to crack, and Sophia pulled a dusty bottle from a corner and poured a shot of what had to be vodka into a dirty glass.
“Here,” Sophia said as she placed the glass in Sally’s trembling hand. Steadying her back as she tilted the glass towards her lip, Sally drank deeply and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. As Lily watched her choke the bitter taste down with a shudder, Sally appeared to calm, and she steeled herself to continue.
“See… see, the thing is…”
Again she hesitated, and Sophia wrapped her arm around Sally’s quaking shoulders.
“You don’t have to tell her,” Sophia assured her. “If it’s too hard, you—”
“No,” Lily said as she moved to her side and took Sally’s trembling hand. Maybe it was wrong; maybe she was pushing her too hard. But she had to find a way to shake Sally out of this. So what if Ken was good to her? Like her, she had to have a family desperate to find her. If she could just make her understand—
“Sweetie,” Sophia started, her voice weary. “Isn’t it enough for one night? Can’t you see that—?”
“It can’t be as bad as she’s making it sound,” Lily said. “And if someone else hurt her, she deserves the chance to face him in—”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” Sally asked in an anguished voice. “How am I supposed to face my father?”
With a gasp, Lily pressed her fingers to her mouth, her body suddenly racked with horror.
“Your… your father?”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE Sally took another sip of her drink before she nodded, and Lily felt as if she would vomit. Her father? Bad enough that she had the misfortune to hook up with a boyfriend who abused her. But her father? Even in his most vile moments, Craig Nielsen would never had done anything to her like that.
Her soul suddenly filled with a longing ache to see her father, hold him close, and tell him that she was sorry that she hadn’t been the child that he wanted and that she was grateful for the man that he was.
“It started when my mom died,” Sally muttered. “First it was just, come in bed with me. Let me hold you. Let me feel you close and safe. I thought he was lonely. Thought it was what my mother would have wanted.”
Tilting the bottle, Sophia freshened her drink, and Sally took another gulp before she continued.
“Then it was touching,” she said. “Fondling. I was young.”
“How old were you?” Lily asked.
“Eleven,” she whispered.
Eleven? What kind of sick bastard would do that to his daughter?
“First time he… he put it inside me… nothing ever hurt so much. Not even when Henry’s buddies were at their worst.”
Barely breathing, Lily listened as Sally recounted seven long years of having lay at her father’s side as he raped her repeatedly and brought her so low that she took off with Henry when he did little more than flash her a smile and promised that he would take care of her.
“Guess I’m not the best judge of character,” Sally said with a mirthless laugh.
“Wait,” Lily finally blurted out. “Why didn’t you tell someone what your dad was doing? Go to the cops or—”
“Like his own squad was going to take my word over his,” Sally said.
Lily’s heart thudded rapidly in her chest as she started to connect the dots in her mind.
“You mean… you…”
“For Christ’s sake!” Sophia cried. “Yes. She couldn’t go to the law because her old man was the law. This world ain’t the black and white picture that you’ve spent your whole life staring at, never once realizing that it’s a lie. So don’t pretend that you know what you’re talking about.”
Nodding, Lily let the reality of Sally’s confession seep into her veins, and as she peered down at Sally, she fought to blink back the tears brimming in her eyes. This girl’s entire life had been a horror show, and Lily felt a stab of guilt penetrate her heart. She had fled because she was bored, restless. Compared to Sally’s lot, it was nothing that she sh
ould have ever felt the need to run away from.
“I’m so sorry,” Lily whispered as she lightly touched her shoulder.
“Thanks,” Sally said. “It is what it is. I can’t change it. Any of it.”
