Twisted Love (Stockholm Syndrome Series Book 1)

by R. Linda

  Heaven.

  “Wake up.” I heard her voice again. Louder. Clearer.

  She was slowly pulling me out of the abyss and away from the nothing. I wanted to go back to the nothing, but I wanted to see her again, see her smile, even though it was rare. I fought to get to her, but the darkness was pulling me down, fighting against me — against her. Something was holding me back from the light, from her voice. It didn’t want me to move forward. It wanted to keep me where I was. I almost wanted to stay there too. But she needed me; I couldn’t leave her. I’d promised. I had to keep her safe.

  “Wake up.” Her voice trembled.

  It was a strange feeling being tethered to both the dark and the light. Every time her voice broke through, I tried to escape the black hole that kept sucking me back in. But it was getting harder and harder to fight, and I didn’t want to fight anymore. I wanted peace. The darkness could give me that so easily. All I had to do was break the ties that were pulling me and urging me to fight my way into the light, into hell and back to her. If I could break that tether, I’d be free.

  “Hendrix, please. Wake up. I can’t do this,” she pleaded.

  If I could break that tether, I’d be safe. But she wouldn’t, and I’d promised to protect her. I had to wake up. I had to keep fighting—for myself, for Kat. For Lucy.

  “You sick fuck. Look what you’ve done.” Her voice screamed loud and clear.

  The fuzziness was easing and the darkness was lifting slowly. I was so close to the light I could almost feel it, almost see it. It was grey now.

  “You’ve destroyed your perfect family, for what? For nothing,” she cried.

  I heard a thump and a groan before I felt something soft and warm touch my skin. My hand, I think. It was hard to tell; everything sort of felt numb. My head was beginning to throb now the light was getting brighter. The heaviness that held my body down was lifting as I slowly came back to consciousness. My eyelids felt so weighed down, and every time I thought I could open them, they would shut again.

  “Hendrix, oh my God. Can you hear me?” her voice asked again, sounding soft and muffled once more.

  Was I slipping back into the darkness? I couldn’t have been; everything was getting lighter. I could feel a warm wetness somewhere on my body, on my chest I think. I tried to open my eyes, and for a brief moment, they flickered and I was blinded by brightness.

  “Oh, Hendrix. You’re going to be fine.”

  Why did her voice sound so soft and muffled if everything else was getting clearer? I slowly slipped back into the darkness, but it was different. It wasn’t peaceful this time. It was painful and uncomfortable, not at all like it was before. I didn’t want to stay in this darkness. I wanted to move into the light and to where she was.

  “I think he’s going to be okay. He’s opened his eyes a few times and has squeezed my hand too.” Her voice was whispering to someone else. Whispering; that’s why she sounded muffled.

  “That’s great. I was so scared,” replied the other voice almost as soft as hers while warm fingers brushed across my forehead gently.

  “Hendrix, sweetheart, it’s time to wake up. Please. We need you here,” Kat’s voice spoke, urging me to open my eyes.

  The touch of her fingertips on my head eased the pain slightly and helped to lift the fog. I forced my eyelids to open but was immediately blinded by a bright light, making me squeeze them shut again.

  “I’ll get the lights,” her voice said softly. I heard her footsteps pad lightly across the floor before it was suddenly dark again.

  Slowly peeling my eyelids open once more, I could just make out their silhouettes as my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the room.

  “Hendrix,” Kat cried, reaching for my hand. “I was so scared. You can’t do that to me again—to us.”

  I didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t know why she was so scared about me sleeping. I slept every day. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Sure, this time I didn’t really want to wake up, but living the life I have, I felt like that sometimes. It was never a feeling I acted on though. I don’t think I could go through with it now, but being asleep and peaceful, and not waking up didn’t seem so bad until I heard Lucy’s voice. She was crying and pleading and screaming at me to wake up, so I knew I had to.

  “What’s happened?” I croaked. My throat and mouth were so dry it burned to talk, like I hadn’t drank anything for days.

  “Here, sweetie, take a sip of this. Just a little.” Kat smiled and brought a straw to my lips.

  I almost spat it back out. The liquid was cool and refreshing on my parched lips but tasted revolting; something like cordial but instead of sickly sweet, it was salty. I gagged and pushed the straw away.

  “You need to drink it slowly. You’ve been out for a few days. You’re weak and dehydrated,” Kat said, brushing a hand over my cheek.

  “What?” I asked. Weak and dehydrated? A few days? What the hell had happened?

  “You don’t remember?” Kat asked, glancing over her shoulder at where Lucy was standing in the shadows.

  Why was she so far away when I had heard her talking beside me earlier? I shook my head in response to Kat’s question.

  “Hendrix, you’ve been in and out of consciousness for three days,” she whispered.

  I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and just looked at her to see if she was serious. I didn’t know why she would joke about something like that, but how could I have been unconscious for that long?

  “We didn’t know if you were going to wake up and Ray wouldn’t let us take you to the hospital. We did the best we could here,” Kat cried and buried her head in the mattress beside my arm.

  My limbs still felt heavy, like I couldn’t really move them, I guessed because I was so weak from not eating or drinking for days, but I managed to lift my hand slightly and graze Kat’s hair.

  “It’s okay, Kat. I’m okay. I’m awake,” I tried to reassure her. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Ray,” Kat mumbled into the blankets before lifting her head and wiping the tears.

  “He realised you hadn’t punished Lucy. He hit you for lying and then he hit her for good measure.” Kat sniffed back the tears.

  He hit Lucy. My fists clenched tightly, and I pushed myself up to a sitting position, suddenly gaining the strength I’d lost over the past few days. I couldn’t let him get away with hitting Lucy. I’d promised to keep her safe.

  “Lie down, Hendrix.” Kat rolled her eyes and pushed me gently so I collapsed into my pillow, breathing heavily from the energy I’d just exerted.

  “No, he needs to pay for this. He wasn’t supposed to touch her,” I growled at Kat as I attempted to sit up again. “Lucy, I’m so sorry.”

  “Not your fault, Hendrix. You tried,” she whispered from the shadows, her voice breaking at the end.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, better than you. You need to rest, though,” Lucy said.

  I’d been asleep for days; I didn’t want to rest any longer. I needed to see the damage he’d done to her. “Let me see you.”

  “No, I’m fine. Don’t concern yourself with me. It’s nothing a few plasters and some ice won’t fix. I’m already healing. I’m talking with a lisp now.” She laughed lightly, trying to make me feel better, but it didn’t work. I hated the thought that he’d knocked me out and then hurt her. How could I protect her if I was unconscious? We were going to have to be smarter from now on.

  “Why was I out for so long? What happened?”

  “You pulled Ray away from Lucy the second he hit her, so he turned on you. I didn’t think you were going to survive. He hit you so hard your head smashed through the bottom stair. You didn’t wake up after that. Then, as I was tending to you, he… he…” Kat stumbled over her words and took a shaky breath. “He came back and dragged Lucy into the room and beat her the way you should have done, or at least that’s what he said he was going to do. I fixed Lucy up and we’ve sat here watching o
ver you since then.”

  Well, that explained why my head hurt so much, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the pain he’d caused Lucy, or what else he could have done to her. I didn’t want to think about it, but I needed to know exactly what had happened to her.

  “Thank you for taking care of me,” I said, closing my eyes, bracing myself for what I needed to ask next.

  “No!” they both shouted. I heard movement and felt the bed dip slightly.

  “Wake up, Hendrix. Now!” Kat shouted at me and shook my shoulder gently.

  I opened my eyes again to see that Lucy had moved from her hiding spot and was kneeling on the floor beside Kat, both with wide, scared eyes.

  “Don’t go to sleep yet, please,” Lucy whispered. All I could do was nod my head. I didn’t want to cause either of them any more unnecessary worry.

  I couldn’t talk; I didn’t want to risk it. I had to force myself not to get up and go find my father. Lucy’s face was swollen and completely black and blue. Her lip and eyebrow was split and the hand she had wrapped around my wrist was bandaged.

  “He hit you worse than Kat said, didn’t he?” She nodded slightly and sniffed back a tear.

  “I’m so sorry, Lucy. I never wanted for that to happen.” I frowned. He was going to pay. One way or another, I’d make him pay for what he’d done to her, what he’d done to Kat, to me, to all of them.

  “I have to go start dinner. Drink that slowly and I’ll bring you something to eat soon.” Kat kissed my head and stood up, giving Lucy a reassuring pat on the shoulder as she left.

  We stayed silent for a while, Lucy just holding my wrist. I didn’t know what to say to her. I wanted to ask what really happened in the room, but I didn’t want her to think about it again. I was sure she’d hate me even more now that my father had hit her, but she took me completely by surprise when she turned my wrist over and grasped my hand instead.

  “I haven’t left this room for days.” She tilted her head in the direction of the window where I noticed a pillow and folded up blankets.

  “You’ve been sleeping on your floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” I couldn’t understand why she would choose to stay in here with me when I was the reason she was here. She should be trying to stay as far from me as possible. Though, the idea that she wanted to be near me almost made me smile.

  “I was scared. Scared of Ray. Scared for you. Just scared. I feel safer when I’m around you,” she sighed, looking down at our joined hands.

  “Lucy, I—”

  “Don’t apologise, Hendrix. I don’t blame you for this, for any of it, even though I should,” she said, making me wince and wish I could fall back into that dark place where there was nothing. “I don’t. I don’t understand it. This.” She gestured to her and I. “All I know is I have never been so scared of losing someone as I was when you were asleep. I don’t want to go through that again. We have to be careful. Whatever Ray wants, Ray gets. I can’t lose you because you feel guilty and want to keep me safe.” She started crying, allowing me to see how truly terrified she was.

  I was confused by her words, by what she meant when she said she didn’t understand, didn’t understand why she felt so scared to lose me. It made me think back to all those nights I spent pursuing her at the bar, how happy and friendly she had been and how excited she had looked when I asked her to dance. It made me think if I hadn’t done this to her, would she have actually cared about me at all? I think she would have. There was something between us before I ruined it. And ruined her life.

  “I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe. You won’t lose me. I won’t let that happen,” I tried to comfort her.

  “But it already has. I almost lost you the other day. He was relentless, Hendrix. I don’t want to see that again. I don’t care if he hits me. I can deal with a few bruises or broken bones, but I can’t see you like that again.”

  Lucy

  I DIDN’T WANT to leave Hendrix’s side for those three days that he was unconscious. I was terrified that he wouldn’t wake up. But I didn’t have a choice, Ray locked me in a dark cupboard under the stairs.

  “Solitary confinement for being a disrespectful little whore. You need to be taught a lesson,” he’d said as he chained me to a rusty water pipe and locked the door.

  The cupboard was bare. Cold concrete floor, and full of cobwebs. I screamed until my throat was dry to be let out, but it was no use. I hoped Kat would come, but knew she wouldn’t disobey Ray, wouldn’t risk being thrown in the cupboard with me.

  She came once a day with a piece of stale bread, and half a glass of water which she slid through an opening in the bottom of the door and whispered her apologies.

  I truly believed Ray was going to let me rot in that cupboard. I lost all concept of time, even more than I already had, and didn’t know how long I had been in there for. But Kat was my saving grace and came to free me the morning Hendrix woke up. And I was grateful. I was filthy, hungry, tired and weak. All I wanted was a shower and to check on Hendrix.

  I hadn’t told him about the cupboard because I was afraid of how he’d react. It was bad enough when he found out Ray had hit me, let alone knowing I was chained to a water pipe under the stairs.

  Kat was worried for me and kept trying to tend to the bruises and swelling on my face, and feeding me, but I was too concerned for Hendrix. He should have been awake by then.

  “Lucy, stop fussing. I’m okay,” Hendrix whispered for the hundredth time about a week after he woke up. I lowered my fingers from his face where I was inspecting his wounds. Ray cut him up pretty badly, but he looked like he was healing okay.

  “Are you dizzy?”

  “No.”

  “Feel sick?”

  “I’m fine.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it gently, pulling me down to sit on the bed beside him. He was still in my bed, and I was still on the floor. Ray either didn’t know or didn’t care about our sleeping arrangements.

  “I’m just worried okay. You need to be careful. You need to let him punish me next time, save yourself.”

  “I can’t do that. I promised to keep you safe. You’re here because of me. Because I’m too weak, powerless to stop him.”

  “You don’t step in to protect Kat,” I argued with him.

  “Because she’s not mine. You are. And protecting Kat, means not doing anything. If I try to stop him, he’d likely kill her. He’s done it before. It doesn’t mean I don’t fight every urge in my body to throw myself in front of her and take whatever he’s handing out. I hate hearing her cries.”

  I wasn’t his, but in Ray’s eyes I was. And Hendrix was protecting me out of guilt. He had no say in Ray’s relationship with Kat, and that was the biggest difference. But it didn’t mean he had to risk his life for me. I was sure if Ray got his way, and Hendrix didn’t intervene, things would go a lot easier. It was because Hendrix refused to hurt me in any way that he almost died.

  “Don’t you think that by protecting me, he might resent me more and want to get rid of me? You’re standing up to him, and I’m guessing you’ve not done that before. He can’t be too happy with that. This is dangerous and stupid. I don’t want him to hit me, but I don’t want him to beat you within an inch of your life again because I screwed up.”

  “We just have to try harder to not screw up then. Be extra careful.”

  I didn’t like it. Ray was like a volatile explosive that could detonate with one wrong move and kill us all. We could be careful, but we could never be careful enough. If we were going to survive this place and hope to get out, we needed to do it together, in one piece, and that meant not provoking Ray more than necessary. That meant every man or woman for himself.

  I was determined now more than ever to escape. I just needed a plan.

  “Come on, we better get moving,” Hendrix said and pushed himself to stand with great difficulty. It was a miracle he had no broken bones, though I was sure he had a cracked rib or two, so I had bandaged him up as ti
ght as I could with what little medical supplies Ray kept in the house.

  “Can I ask you something?” I shuffled on my feet nervously, but it was something I had been curious about. Hendrix had lived his whole life being beaten and tortured by Ray, forced to do unthinkable things, unable to escape.

  “You can ask me anything, love.”

  “Have you ever thought about killing him?”

  Hendrix stopped and stared at me, his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. “No.”

  My mouth dropped open, “Not even once?”

  “No. Because it can’t be done. So don’t get any ideas, Lucy.”

  “Why can’t it be done?” I was getting ideas. I could never take a human life, not yet anyway, but Hendrix had been subjected to so much abuse that I figured it must have crossed his mind at least once.

  “I’m weak. Physically, mentally weak. None of us eat enough, none of us are healthy. You are turning to skin and bones, and well…my bones are so fragile from being broken so many times, I don’t have the strength. Ray is a powerful man. He’s strong and much bigger than me. He’d snap me like a twig if I tried.”

  “Has anyone tried?”

  “Yes, once, and after that Ray locked away everything that could be used as a poison, or a weapon. Ever notice how he makes Kat eat from his plate first, or drink from his cup?”

  I nodded. I was too nervous the first night we had dinner and I was formally introduced to him to notice, but over the past week I had seen her take a bit of everything on his plate and a mouthful of his drink.

  “Ensures she doesn’t try to poison him.”

  “But…”

  “No more questions. He’s going to wake soon, and we need to be ready.”

  A heaviness settled in my stomach as I prepared to face the day and Ray.

  Kat was already in the kitchen preparing breakfast when I walked in to help.