Twisted Love (Stockholm Syndrome Series Book 1)

by R. Linda

  “You, you s-sa-s-said you…” She started to cry. Bringing her knees up to her chest, she began rocking back and forth.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered, at the same time, grabbing her wrist and yanking her to her feet. She stumbled and gasped. I didn’t mean to be so rough. But there were cameras everywhere and I knew he’d take sick pleasure in watching and re-watching the footage. “Sorry, love. Still acting for the cameras.”

  “Cameras?” she stared at me with wide eyes as I dragged her to the other wall.

  I set her on her feet by the door, where I knew there was a blind spot in the cameras and slammed my palm into the wall, creating a loud thump and making her jump back and scream in fright. Hopefully, Ray would hear it from where he was no doubt standing on the stairs listening.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Scream, groan, cry, protest, shout. Anything. Make it sound like I’m hurting you,” I told her. She looked at me in shock for a few seconds but when I punched the wall again, she groaned.

  “Get up,” I yelled at no one, making my voice loud enough to be heard. “Don’t fucking cry,” I shouted again before whispering to Lucy to scream.

  As soon as she started screaming, I threw myself at the door. I hoped it would sound like I had thrown her across the room or something. I never wanted to hear her scream like that for real.

  Lucy continued groaning and crying and shrieking, begging for me to stop hitting her as I thumped the wall a few more times, occasionally shouting about her needing to be more careful and not so fucking stupid. After a minute or two, we stopped pretending and I pulled a trembling Lucy over to the bed and lay her down.

  “You did wonderfully, Lucy. I’m sorry you had to do that, but if he didn’t believe I was punishing you, he would come in here and do it himself.” I brushed her hair out of her face and knelt down on the floor beside the bed listening to her cry softly. “And you really don’t want him to do that. He’s already hit you once, and that is more than he should have.”

  This was so fucking hard. I wished there was another way to end this, to get her out of here, but there wasn’t. I began slowly punching the floor beside me. Thump… thump… thump… thump… getting harder and harder with each punch. I didn’t stop punching until I felt Lucy’s hand cover mine and pull it up.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered as she sat down on the floor beside me, rubbing her fingers gently over my red and swollen knuckles.

  “Making it look like I hit you,” I shrugged.

  “You’re hurting yourself. That's silly.”

  “Better me than you, love.”

  “No more, please. I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” she pleaded with me gently, her brown eyes wide and glistening with tears, but in that moment, they seemed to soften as she massaged my swollen knuckles in an attempt to ease the pain. In that moment, something shifted between us. It was like she realised the position I was in, trying to keep my psychotic father happy while keeping both Lucy and Kat safe.

  But I still wanted to hurt myself, punish myself for doing this to her. I deserved nothing less. If she could actually hurt me, cause me pain, I would insist that she hit me, that she punished me for this, but she wasn’t strong enough to do it, so I would punish myself—over and over. I let out a bitter laugh and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

  “Get some sleep. I’ll come back in and check on you later,” I said, not looking at her as I pushed myself up and walked out the door, making sure I locked it afterwards.

  I trudged back up the stairs and to the bathroom, thankful that Ray was no longer hovering outside Lucy’s room so I could wrap my hand. It was really starting to throb. I probably would have busted a few knuckles if Lucy hadn’t stopped me when she did.

  I was running my hand under the cold tap to ease some of the pain when the door to the bathroom burst open revealing my very smug-looking father. I wanted to prolong this moment for a while longer. I wasn’t ready to face him because I knew how the conversation would go, but he was giving me no choice. I shut off the tap and dried my hand on the towel, wincing slightly when I put too much pressure on a bruised knuckle.

  “Don’t worry, boy. It’ll get easier and hurt you a lot less the more you do it. You’ll eventually develop a thick skin and won’t feel a thing, like me,” he chuckled, holding his hands out for me to see how clear and undamaged they were. I didn’t want to develop a thick skin or become immune to the pain. I didn’t want to be anything like him at all. I wasn’t a monster. I wasn’t cruel. And I hated myself for what I was doing. The fact he could act so normally about everything was disturbing.

  My jaw clenched, and I closed my eyes as I tried to control my anger at him. I knew if I didn’t control it, I would end up doing something stupid like hitting him, and if I hit him, he’d beat the shit out of me. Even if I managed to knock him out, I’d still be trapped in this house. He was the only one who had the passcode to the garage door, and that was the only way out.

  “Let me see,” he said, gesturing to my hand. I held it out hesitantly for him to inspect. He smiled and nodded his head in a proud sort of way. “Not bad for your first time. Glad to see you didn’t go easy on her. What about her? How is she?” His lip curled up in disgust when he asked how Lucy was. He loved throwing his authority around. Must have made him feel like a man. He really hated when one of us did something stupid or broke something. It was kind of ironic, though, considering how many things he’d broken and damaged over the years each and every time he’d snapped.

  “Out like a light.” I smiled at him, hoping that it didn’t look forced and that I really did look pleased with myself. He needed to believe I’d really hurt Lucy. He needed to believe that I was doing exactly as he wanted me to.

  “Good. I’ll get your mother in here to help you fix that up,” he said, pointing to my hand before turning around and walking out of the room. That was probably the first time in my life that we had a conversation where he was proud of me, and it was because he thought I’d belted the shit out of Lucy. What had I done to deserve getting stuck with a masochistic psycho for a father?

  Sometimes I’d let myself imagine what my life would have been like had my mother lived. I didn’t do it very often because it only depressed me and made me hate my life even more than I already did, if that was even possible. But now and then, I’d imagine that I’d grown up with loving parents who took me to football games and watched me practice on weekends. I’d imagine I had a mother who walked me to school every day, made my lunch, and read me a story when she’d tuck me in at night; not a different ‘mother’ every time something didn’t go according to Ray’s plan, or a mother who I would have to listen to screaming and crying all day, every day until he finally ended her pain.

  I’d imagine having a father who took me camping and taught me to play catch in the backyard, one that would be proud to watch me kick my first goal and teach me to drive; not a father who taught me the correct way to dig a grave and weigh a body down, or how to clean up evidence after he’d ended the pain of yet another one of my mothers.

  But that was the hand I had been dealt. I was just relieved I hadn’t turned out like him. I would keep fighting every day to make sure I didn’t end up like him.

  A soft knock on the door pulled me out of my depressing daydream and I looked up to see Kat peering around the doorframe.

  “Hendrix,” she whispered, “Ray said you were injured.” I held up my hand for her to see and smiled grimly. She gasped, taking a step back and shook her head furiously. “No, no, you said you wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “Kat, I didn’t. She’s fine.” I rushed quietly and pulled her into the bathroom with me so I could explain what I had done. The look of relief on Kat’s face was hard to miss. She honestly thought I’d hit Lucy. Was it so hard to believe I wanted no harm to come to either of them?

  “I was so scared when I heard all the crashing and banging around down there. I’m glad you didn’t do it, but you kno
w injuring yourself is only going to convince him so much. He is going to expect bruises and swollen eyes, split lips and cut eyebrows. I never walk away from a punishment unscathed, Hendrix. He will know that you lied as soon as he looks at Lucy.”

  Shit.

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of that. It was possibly the stupidest mistake I could have made. How the hell was I going to convince my father tomorrow that I beat Lucy to within an inch of her life when she was going to come out of that room looking perfect? Beautiful. Angelic.

  Perhaps Kat could work wonders in the bathroom with some make-up; give Lucy a black eye or something. She had to be able to do something. We just had to convince Ray long enough in the morning for him to eat breakfast and open the shop. Half an hour. That was all the time we needed.

  “Makeup,” I said slowly, voicing my thoughts. “Kat, you can smudge some of that black stuff around her eyes, make it look bruised, put a plaster on her lip. Anything. You just have to make her look hurt.”

  “I don’t have to do anything. You got yourself and that poor girl into this mess. You can fix it yourself,” Kat snapped at me before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry. I know you didn’t really have a choice. We’re all just victims of his. But I don’t think that’ll work. He’s going to know. You know he’s going to want to see your handiwork.” She shook her head and sighed, taking a seat beside me on the bath.

  “Please, we just have to buy enough time for him to have breakfast. If we keep her busy and out of the kitchen, he won’t have a chance to inspect her,” I pleaded with Kat. I couldn’t let Lucy get hurt for real.

  “I’ll see what I can do. But you’d better get back in there and check on her. She’s probably scared out of her mind right now.”

  “Thanks, Kat.” I stood up and made my way back down stairs to the room where I’d left Lucy. She was fast asleep on her bed, so I covered her with a blanket and sat on the floor beside the bed. I wouldn’t get any sleep tonight.

  Lucy

  I WOKE IN the morning with red, puffy eyes. So swollen I could barely open them. I’d cried until I ran out of tears. I cried for me, for Kat, for Hendrix, everything they had to endure being here. I cried because I was terrified. I was going to die. I knew it. There was no surviving this place. Playing the part was only prolonging the inevitable.

  And it was tough.

  How was I supposed to pretend to love Hendrix when he was the reason I was here?

  He’d kissed me and I’d wanted to throw up, scratch his eyes, and beat him with my fists, and at the same time, a sense of calm washed over me. I let myself imagine what would have happened between Hendrix and me, had we met under normal circumstances, had that been what our first kiss was meant to be.

  I imagined that he kissed me after work one night. Pressed me up against a wall outside the bar and devoured me. My fingers tangled in his, my body pressed against his, while his strong hands cupped my face. And before I knew what was happening, I softened against him and found myself actually enjoying his lips against mine, the warmth of his body surrounding me. I’d forgotten where we were, and the dire situation we were all in. I’d forgotten it was his fault. I lost myself in him until Ray spoke and ripped me through time and back to reality.

  Looking at him curled in the foetal position on the cold concrete floor, made my heart clench. For a brief moment I felt sorry for him, but then I shoved that feeling aside. He didn’t deserve my sympathy. He was the reason I was here. Yet I still warred with myself.

  He was the reason I was here. But, he was only trying to end the torture and death. He was just trying to survive a god-awful position and stop anyone else getting hurt. Could I blame him for that? Not really. I could resent him for choosing me to be the one to put an end to it, but I couldn’t blame. I didn’t know what I’d do if I grew up in his position. His choices were limited.

  Hendrix stirred from his position on the floor, so I darted across the room and hid in the toilet, not ready to face him.

  Once I was sure he’d left, I opened the door and walked back into my room, to the tiny closet in the corner.

  Kat appeared out of nowhere causing a scream to tear from my throat.

  “Shhh, it’s me.” She clapped a hand over my mouth and shot a fearful glance over her shoulder at the door. “We have to hurry.”

  She grabbed my hand and tugged me upstairs to the bathroom with the mirror. “What’s going on?”

  “Hendrix looks like he’s been in a bare-knuckled fist fight, and you, aside from a slight bruise on your cheek look completely untouched.”

  “Okay…”

  “Ray isn’t going to believe that Hendrix punished you, looking like that.”

  Oh. The realisation of what she was saying suffocated me.

  “What’s he going to do?” I asked trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

  “I don’t know. But, we are going to make you look as bruised and battered as we can. And hopefully he won’t notice.” The look in her eyes told me she didn’t believe that. She knew there was no convincing him.

  “How could we have been so stupid?” I looked at my reflection in the mirror. There was a slight bruise on my cheek where Ray had slapped me the night before, but other than a new sharpness to my cheekbones, and black bags under my eyes, I looked completely normal.

  “Nothing to be done about it now, so sit and let’s see what we can do.”

  By the time Kat had finished, my arse was growing numb from sitting on the edge of the bath, but I was impressed with her skills. I looked like I had been punched in the eye. She played up the bags under my right, smudging eye liner and eye shadow to make it look bruised. She even stuck a butterfly plaster on my lip and added dark red lipstick around it, so it looked like it was split.

  “As long as he doesn’t look too closely, he shouldn’t be any wiser,” Kat said with a smile. “We should make a start. I’ll prepare breakfast, you go downstairs and get started on the washing. It’s darker down there, so hopefully he won’t notice if he does come down to check on you.”

  “Okay.”

  I made my way back downstairs to the basement and put a load of washing in the machine, then I busied myself with ironing and folding until I heard raised voices upstairs. Before I could prepare myself, Ray’s footsteps thundered down the steps.

  “Hiding away, are you?” He sneered from behind me. I dropped the shirt I was folding because my fingers trembled so much. “Look at me when I speak to you.”

  He grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. I tried to angle my head so my hair fell in my face. The more I hid of it the less likely he’d notice that it was make-up. But, of course, I didn’t have that sort of luck.

  “Let me see that pretty face,” he hissed, and pinched my chin between his fingers, tilting my face. His breath wafted over me and I had to try not to gag. He smelled of cigarettes and cologne. And not an intoxicating scent like Hendrix, Ray’s was stale, repulsive. His eyes narrowed, and his fingers tightened on my face. Recognition flashed across his features before quickly being replaced by rage. “Son of a bitch.”

  My stomach dropped and I tensed, bracing myself for the blow I knew was coming, but Hendrix’s footsteps on the stairs left Ray little time to do much harm. He backhanded me across the face, his chunky, silver ring tearing at the skin on my cheek just as Hendrix pulled him back.

  “You disobeyed an order, boy.” He turned and grabbed Hendrix by the throat, pulled his fist back and let it fly at his face, over, and over, and over, until Hendrix’s groans and cries of pain stopped. I hadn’t realised that I was cowering in the corner behind my hands until I heard a thud. I didn’t dare look, not until I was sure that Ray had left, after he spat on me and said, “I’ll deal with you later, ungrateful whore.”

  I stood from my hiding spot and my heart ached. Hendrix was lying in a heap on the floor. Blood completely covered his face, his eyes were already swollen closed, there was a gash on the side of his head that continue
d to bleed. “Hendrix? Wake up!” I said softly, but he didn’t move, he barely breathed. Oh, my God. This wasn’t good. I should have been able to wake him. “Dammit. Hendrix, come on! KAT!” I shouted as tears streamed down my face.

  Hendrix was unconscious, and bleeding because of me. Because he didn’t want to hurt me. If he’d just hit me once or twice, all of this would have been avoided, but I was starting to see it. He was a good man, like Kat had told me. He’d never intentionally hurt me or anyone and that made this so much more fucked up. He didn’t deserve this life. “Kat!”

  Hendrix

  “HENDRIX.”

  I couldn’t see anything but I could hear her voice, hear her calling out to me, but it was muffled and far away. I tried to answer her but my voice wouldn’t work. My throat was dry and my lips wouldn’t move. I tried to move toward her but I was too groggy, somewhere between sleep and waking.

  “Hendrix, please.”

  The harder I tried to get to her, the faster the sound of her voice faded. It was getting softer and further away. There was a shadow settling over me. My limbs were heavy, as though they were weighed down with concrete. Wouldn’t be a shock if that were really true, knowing my father. Maybe he’d finally decided to give me concrete boots. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t move. I struggled and willed my arms to reach for her, but my body wouldn’t respond to my wants. It was giving in to the darkness, to the shadow settling over me. He really had snapped and was killing me.

  “Come on, please,” she cried and begged. For a moment, I thought I could feel her hands touch my face, but I knew it wasn’t real. He wouldn’t let her anywhere near me. He’d enjoy watching her suffer as he slowly ended my life. I wanted to reassure her and make her feel better about what was happening. I wasn’t in any pain. Death is peaceful.

  I could hear it in her voice, the fear and the sadness. The darkness was taking over. I was slowly fading away into the quiet and the unknown. It was serene there. There was nothing. Time didn’t matter and there was no hurt, no fear, just nothing. It was relaxing, calm, quiet.