by Hart, Callie
The sky was hazy and white, a thin layer of clouds stretched thin between horizons like teased out cotton wool. And hot. It was too damned hot. The afternoon air was cloying and thick, threatening to choke me as it shoved its way down my throat. I’d already sweat through my thin, gauzy white shirt by the time the SUV pulled up and hugged the curb. Thankfully Sam didn’t bother sitting in the back of the car and making the journey across town to come and get me anymore. He waited for me back at the apartment above the bar, usually throwing back shot after shot of whiskey and singing along to old Frank Sinatra tunes that he blasted from an ancient Sony stack system in the living room.
As always, Peter sat in the driver’s seat, drumming his fingers against the wheel. I climbed inside and he didn’t even turn around to look at me. He’d played ball in high school, but he’d never been truly athletic. God only knew why Sam had hired him. He was hardly body guard material. I often thought about it: what would Peter do if I reached forward, grabbed the handgun he always wore in a holster, strapped to his side? What would he do if I pressed the muzzle to my temple and I pulled the trigger?
There had been a thousand opportunities for me to grab his gun over the weeks that I’d been taken back and forth to the bar. Weeks that had turned into months. And still, I hadn’t done it. Every time I contemplated how heavy the weapon would feel in my hand, I thought of Amy. Every time I daydreamed about the bullet firing from the chamber, exploding down the barrel, meeting my flesh and ripping through me like it was a hot knife through butter, I remembered that I’d be leaving my sister behind.
So, I didn’t grab the gun. I didn’t kill myself in the back of the SUV, and I didn’t kill myself in any one of a hundred other ways I imagined when I was at home or at school, either, because I knew Amy wouldn’t survive without me.
That didn’t stop me from daydreaming, though. Most teenaged girls fantasized about the boys they liked, becoming famous pop singers, or being the most popular kid in school. I regularly daydreamed about downing a quart of bleach and passing into a blackened abyss that no one would ever be able to wake me from.
But Amy.
Always…
Amy.
I didn’t believe in any sort of afterlife. If there was an afterlife, Mom would have come back somehow and told me she was all right. Nothing would have stopped her; she would have found a way. But even though I didn’t believe in heaven or hell, I knew I’d never be able to rest easy in my grave if the burden of Sixsmith and Sam’s attention fell to Amy once I was gone. She just wasn’t strong enough to bear it, and that’s what I loved about her most. Her innocence, and her softness, and that sense of oblivious fairytale that lingered over her, as it had since she was seven years old.
“You…you’d better be careful today.”
I looked up from my hands—knuckles white, fingernails gouging into my palms—to find Peter glancing nervously at me in the rearview.
I cleared my throat. The air conditioning in the SUV was cranked up as high as it would go, and the frigid air made me want to cough. “What?”
He studied me for a second, then his eyes went back to the road. He didn’t look at me again. “Sam. He lost a fuck load of money at poker last night. He’s seriously shitty. I’m just sayin.’ You oughta be careful when we get there. He’s already smacked Julia.”
Sam hitting his daughter was nothing new. He banished her to her room every time I came over, and I knew why. Just as he didn’t like seeing the bruises, cuts, scrapes and teeth marks on my body, he didn’t want anyone else seeing the marks he left on Julia’s body either. I didn’t doubt for a second that he whaled on her every night until he was so tired he couldn’t lift his own arm.
I turned and looked out of the window, leaving Peter hanging. What would I even say to him, anyway?
Thanks for the heads up?
Sure, I’ll be very careful.
Sure, I’ll obey Sam and give him absolutely everything he demands of me from the moment I step through the door?
I already did that. I was meek, and I was subservient, and no matter how hard the fat bastard slapped or kicked or thrust his cock inside me, I didn’t make a goddamn sound. It didn’t matter. Sam’s fucked up sexual proclivities didn’t end at girls forty years his junior. He liked them young, but he also liked them bleeding. He liked them crying. He liked to see the despair in their eyes, and at the end of the day, there was nothing I could do to hide that.
The apartment was buzzing with a tense, uncomfortable silence when Peter ushered me through the door and closed it behind me, locking us inside. In the bar downstairs, numerous palms and fists slammed against tables, a chorus of muffled shouts and cries rumbling beneath my feet—the sound that usually accompanied a local sports team losing an important game. The commotion below did nothing to cut through the wall of deafening silence that filled the hallway I now stood in.
Looked like Peter’s warning had been legit. Sam definitely was in a bad mood. I could feel it radiating through the dry wall, plasterboard, the insulation, and a couple of layers of cheap matte paint from three rooms away.
Peter’s face, usually a deep tan from so much time spent outside running errands for Sam, was ashen. “Listen, Sera—”
Oh, for fuck’s sake, Peter. Really? Now? You’re going to suddenly develop a conscience now?
I shook my head as I walked away from him, toward the door with the chipped paint on the right, at the end of the hallway. “Don’t sweat it, Peter. It’s okay. If I need you, I won’t shout.”
I could have looked back, but I didn’t. I already knew what frightened, spineless Peter looked like when he knew something bad was going to happen and he didn’t plan on doing anything about it. I knocked on Sam’s bedroom door—three small, timid taps.
From the other side of the door, the word, “Come.”
Sam did that a lot, ordering me to come. When he was inside me, it was his favorite command. ‘Do it. Do it, you stupid bitch. And don’t fake it. I can tell when you fake it. Your pussy doesn’t grip my cock the way it would if you were having an orgasm.’
I hadn’t known it was possible to reach climax through sheer terror alone, but somehow I’d trained myself to do it. Mercifully, once he was ready to fuck me, usually after an hour of ‘toying’ with me, as he liked to call it, he didn’t last very long. His pride was insurmountable. He was a piece of shit rapist who forced himself on me twice a week, but he never wanted to come before I did, as if the orgasm he insisted I endure made whatever messed up bullshit he did to me okay.
It wasn’t okay. It was never okay. Before Sam, no one had ever made me climax before, so I had no idea how it was supposed to make you feel, but with him, it brought me no release. It didn’t make me feel good. When that searing, tingling surge of pure sensation hit me, I wanted to rip my own skin from my body. I wanted to cauterize my nerve endings and deaden every single one of them, so Sam Halloran could never make me betray myself so heinously again.
When I entered, Sam’s room was turned upside down. His bedside lamps were smashed on the floor. The garish piece of modern art he prized so greatly, worth well over thirty thousand dollars according to him, had been slashed, the canvas rent wide open like a yawning mouth, it’s frame shattered into pieces. The blue vase that had sat on top of Sam’s chest of drawers for the past year, always containing a bouquet of fresh flowers, was now in seven or eight pieces on the floor, and long stemmed red roses, stripped of their petals, had been trodden into the carpet. The glass coffee table, normally positioned in front of the flat screen TV, was upended and destroyed, and large shards of tempered, smoky grey glass glittered maliciously on the carpet, diamond-shaped and dangerous.
All those broken shards of glass needed was someone with enough imagination and grit to come along and transform them into knives.
I looked away.
I knew better than to open my mouth. Instead, I dropped my backpack at my feet and I dropped to my knees, sitting back on my heels and placing my hands on
top of my thighs, bowing my head, assuming the position Sam told me I must always assume whenever I entered his domain.
I hadn’t even looked in Sam’s direction, where he perched on the end of his bed, wearing his maroon, silk dressing gown and his slip-on house shoes.
Shit. This wasn’t going to be good. I flared my nostrils and drew in a calming breath, closing my eyes.
“Well? Aren’t you...going to say…anything?” Sam snapped. His voice came out rough and slurred. He always drank before I arrived, but this was something else. Today, he was drunk, and from the stale, acrid stink that was hanging in the air, he’d also been smoking too. Didn’t smell like cigarettes, cigars, or weed. The scent was pungent, chemical-rich, and it bit at the back of my throat.
I shook my head. No, I wasn’t going to say anything.
“That’s rather rude. A man’s in obvious distress, and you’re not going to ask him if he’s all right?”
Sam wasn’t all right. He was fucked up and out of his goddamn mind, and any words that passed my lips right then were going to be wrong. If I asked him what the matter was, he’d strike me for being nosy. If I asked him if I could do anything to help him, he’d punch me in the face for being so stupid. If I told him everything was going to be okay, I’d be beaten within an inch of my life for being an uncaring little shit who didn’t take his problems seriously. There was no positive outcome here. I clenched my teeth together, tensed my shoulders, braced myself, and I did not say a single motherfucking word.
Sam’s top lip curled back, revealing his stained, jigsaw puzzle teeth. I saw his expression sour out of the corner of my eye, and it sent a frozen chill of panic skittering down my spine.
“Ungrateful little bitch,” he snarled. “After everything I’ve done for you and your family, you’d think I’d receive a little more respect.” He kicked out with his slippered foot, and his heel connected with my hip bone, unbalancing me, sending me sprawling onto the carpet. I let myself go limp. No sense in trying to stop myself from falling. That would only make him madder, so I laid there, my face pressing into the weft of the carpet, and I didn’t move an inch. I didn’t even blink.
“No point playing fucking dead. I already know you know,” Sam spat, getting to his feet. “I already know your piece of shit father must have told you.”
My father must have told me? My father must have told me what? Sixsmith had woken me up at two a.m. and informed me I was to come here today, that I was to be downstairs and waiting for Peter at eleven a.m. sharp. Uncharacteristically, he’d left my bedroom without so much as sneering in my general direction. He’d been sober, too, which had come as a shock. Once he’d gone, I’d laid in bed, unable to get back to sleep, thinking about what Sixsmith must have traded for me this time. I’d paid off his original outstanding debts with my pussy about six months ago. Now, he mostly used me as a line of credit on a weekly tab at the bar, but sometimes I was good for the occasional bit of help with the authorities, whenever Sixsmith found himself in trouble with the law and he required Sam’s influence to get him out of trouble.
Other times, Sixsmith traded me for cash, so he could fix up his car. The Beretta broke down more often than it ran; I must have blown Sam enough times to pay for an entirely new engine block by now.
Sixsmith hadn’t shared what he was getting out of today’s visit, though, and I hadn’t asked. I’d simply thanked my lucky stars that he hadn’t been in a more volatile mood and I’d waited for the dawn.
Grunting with the effort, Sam stooped down beside me, crouching by my head. He brushed my hair back out of my face, and then he cupped my cheek tenderly in his hand. Fear stabbed at me, sending a spasm of electricity through me; when Sam was gentle, it meant he was going to be extra rough later. “You come from weak, sullied stock, Sera,” he said in a monotone voice. “Your father is bottom feeding scum. A liar, and a cheat. Did you know? Did you know what he was planning to do?”
A thousand thoughts reeled and cartwheeled through my head. What the fuck had Sixsmith done now? How had he upset Sam this badly? The man had never liked my father, was always cursing him and calling him every name under the sun, but this level of hatred was new.
Out of nowhere, Sam slipped his hand around the back of my neck and grabbed a fist full of my hair, yanking my head back so hard that I yelped. He shoved his face into mine, his teeth bared, breath reeking of rye as he yelled, “Did you know he was going to take the bar? Did you know he was going to fucking clean me out? Huh?” If he wanted an answer from me, I’d never know. My teeth crashed together as he picked up my head and smashed it against the floor. My field of vision shrank, darkening around the edges, like the screen of an old television as it powered down. For a second, I thought I was going to pass out, and relief hit me like a fist in the gut.
Then I realized that, no, I wasn’t going to lose consciousness. I was going to remain wide awake. And it wasn’t relief hitting me in the stomach. It was Sam. He pulled back his fist and then drove it forward again, putting so much force into his punch that I bowed, curling inward, my body curving itself around the unexpected pain and shock.
“Who was he?” Sam hissed. “Who was that fucker Sixsmith brought to the game last night? Where the fuck did he find him, Sera? He told you, I know he did. That drunk moron can’t keep a secret to save his life.”
He was right: as a rule, my father couldn’t keep anything quiet. But this time, I had no idea what Sam was talking about. I was still fighting to pull in a much-needed breath when he launched himself at me again, this time rearing back so he could lay into me with his feet. He didn’t kick me. That would be too kind a term for what he did next. He stomped on me—my stomach, my chest, my head. Over and over again, he stomped down as hard as he could while he screamed at me, demanding answers I couldn’t supply.
“How did he beat me? How did he fucking do it? How did he get that guy to play for him? I mean it, Sera. Tell me now!” He was gone, lost in a sea of hysteria, and there was nothing I could do but ride it out.
The pain consumed me.
The pain…became me.
I was made up of it. Every part of me. Every fiber. Every molecule. Every cell.
Bones broke.
Skin split.
I bled.
I bled.
I bled.
And then…everything stopped.
“He thinks he’s a big man now, huh? Thinks he can make me feel small? Gives me a week to get out of my own goddamn house, and he thinks he’s going to fucking get away with it?” A flat, eerie calm replaced Sam’s fury. His words were whispered, and worried me far more than the violence he’d just inflicted upon me.
I needed to get up. I needed to get the fuck out of here. I had no clue what had happened last night, but it sounded like my father had pulled something incredibly dumb and incredibly dangerous at a poker game, and he’d somehow won Sam’s bar. If I stayed here, Sam was going to kill me. I was going to end up too broken to crawl my way out of this apartment, and then I would be well and truly screwed. I had t—
A sound stopped me dead in my tracks.
A sound I knew very, very well.
The scrape of metal on metal.
The sound of Sam’s favorite handcuffs.
Oh god.
I cracked my eyes open, and...fuck. Sam had dropped his robe to the floor. He stood naked at my feet, his gut bulging, his cock hanging flaccid between his legs, his eyes filled with pure fire. He scissored the cuffs back and forth in his hand, a brutal smile blossoming on his face.
“Your daddy knew what would happen to you if you came here today. He doesn’t care if I cut you up. He doesn’t care if I make your ass bleed. He doesn’t care if I strangle the last ounce of life out of you while I come inside your bruised cunt. That’s the kind of man Sixsmith Lafferty is. I hope you’re fucking proud of him, girl.”
Even as he talked, his cock was growing harder and harder. He was emasculated and angry as hell, that much was clear, but the idea of causing me
so much pain while he fucked me was obviously tempering the sting. I looked into his eyes, and I knew he was going to do it. Every dark, sick, perverse, fucked up thing he’d ever wanted to do to me and had held himself back from…he was going to do them all. Panic hit me, a tidal swell of terror that made the roof of my mouth prickle and tingle.
Move. Move, damnit!
Kicking back, my legs screaming in pain, I shoved myself away from him.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Sam lurched forward. I tried to roll, to shift myself out of the way, but every movement was agony. I wasn’t quick enough. He landed on top of me, grabbing me, trying to get hold of my wrists. If he pinned me, he’d slap those cuffs on me and my chances of fighting him off would be zero.
I fought.
I kicked.
I screamed.
I bit.
I scrambled through the pain, and my burning lungs, and the shell-shocked silence inside my own head as I wrestled to free myself of Sam’s weight. He was a man possessed, strong and determined. My efforts were wasted. He grabbed my left arm, grinning like a lunatic, and held it above my head. His dick was fully erect now. He ground it against my stomach, panting, sweat dripping from his forehead down onto my face.
“This won’t be quick,” he rasped. “It’s not gonna be painless. I’d save my energy if I were you. For fuck’s sake, just give up, you stupid bitch. It’s over. It’s…all…over.”
His words were a trigger. At the sound of them, something reacted inside me.
Sam was a worthless human being who could only feel good when he was making someone else feel bad. He wasn’t smart. He wasn’t important. He was nobody and nothing. Who the fuck was he to say my time was up? What gave him the right?
No…
No, this wasn’t over.
My admittedly pathetic, miserable existence wasn’t much, but the occasional patches of joy I shared with Amy made it worth something. Worth more that Sam Halloran’s greasy cock and his pinching handcuffs. Enough was enough. For the first time in my life, as Sam held my arm over my head, preparing to snap one of the cuffs around my wrist, a spark of rage ignited in the pit of my belly. That spark took hold, and within seconds it had ravaged me, the flames of my wrath consuming every fiber of my being. Sam saw that fire raging in my eyes, he must have done, because he peeled his lips away from his teeth in a cruel, warped smile.
