Hard Roads

by Lily White

  “Yeah, babe, I call that alive. You’re fighting again. I’m not sure if you remember the night we took you back. You weren’t yourself, you weren’t fighting. This entire fucking week, I’ve been scared shitless that we’d lost you. Sure, you were breathing, but you weren’t yourself. You weren’t the person I remembered from the side of the road.”

  Her chest heaved and her eyes narrowed. She didn’t look like she’d calmed down, but that was fine by me. I didn’t want her calm. I wanted her angry. She needed to be in order to fight whatever still haunted her thoughts. Those men had done more than physically hurt her. They’d built a cage inside her that had imprisoned her spirit and everything that made her what she was. She needed her anger to break free of that cage and I wanted to stoke it so high that, not only could she bust out of it, she could destroy it and never allow herself to get trapped inside it again.

  “Tell me how much you hate me. Call me every goddamned name in the book. Tell me every fucked up thing that you were put through so that I can carry that pain right along beside you. I deserve it more than you and I’ll take whatever you want to throw at me. I don’t fucking care. Not as long as it makes you better. I’ll carry it, Holly. I’ll take the blame and the guilt and all the fucking pain that comes with it, just to get it out of you.” My voice was raised. I wasn’t asking her, I was telling her.

  I wasn’t being an asshole by doing it either. I was being smart. If I could keep her talking, if she would purge every fucked up thing that happened to her by blaming it on me, it would help begin to free her of what those men had done to her.

  The tears stung. Hot and wet, they rolled down her cheeks, dripping from her jaw to the floor. I couldn’t stand those tears and I wanted to cry right beside her, but I needed to keep her angry.

  “TELL ME!”

  She jumped at my booming voice, her face twisting even more into anger at the sound. Good. She was still fighting instead of shrinking back inside herself. I was risking it all by scaring her even more, but goddamn, this girl was still fighting.

  “You think you can fucking handle it? You think there’s anything that will make this right? NOTHING can make this right! Not you, not my father, not even the deaths of those fucked up bastards that tormented me and LAUGHED while they did it. NOTHING! You want to know what they did? Will it make you feel better to know exactly how they broke me?”

  She screamed and I scooted closer to her. I watched as her body shook and I wanted to be close enough to grab her if she started to do anything that could cause her to hurt herself. I wouldn’t let another man lay a fucking finger on her, not even the ones that lived inside her because of what they’d done.

  “What did they do?” I asked her softly, prodding her to release all the emotion she had locked up inside of her.

  Her eyes grew distant and I could tell she was retreating back inside. I couldn’t let it happen, so I stoked the flames.

  “Tell me, Munch. What did they do? What happened to you because of what I did to you? You want me to know, right? Because I’m the reason it happened.”

  Anger, violent and pure, suddenly lit her face. “You fucking left me to that man. You knew what he was like and you left me! You lied when you said I shouldn’t fight. He tortured me anyway. You did that shit on purpose, you sonofabitch! Fuck you. Fuck whatever game it is you’re fucking playing because I’m not falling for it this time.”

  The anger in her voice didn’t surprise me, but when she launched herself across the room at me, I was caught off guard. Her fist caught the side of my head and her knee caught me in the stomach. They were two opposing blows that knocked me back against the floor.

  She crawled on top of me, scratching and clawing, screaming about how much she hated me. Everything was coming out of her: pain, sadness, anger, fear. It was a full and cataclysmic release of emotion.

  I took it without fighting back. Blocking the blows that would cause damage, I allowed the ones that I knew would sting. She needed an outlet and I was providing one. I was letting her beat away her pain, while at the same time, beating away my guilt.

  “They fucking raped me. Three men. THREE!” I took another blow to my stomach with her fist, while taking a blow to the heart with her words.

  “They killed men in front of me, tore them the FUCK APART! And when they were done doing that…” Her chest heaved as she screamed her story out to me. “…They fucked me in the blood. I threw up when I saw the blood and they thought it was funny, so they dragged me to it and fucked me in it!”

  Tears dripped down her cheeks and her voice broke apart with the horror of what she’d seen, what had been done.

  “And it’s all your fucking fault JD because you left me. You didn’t fucking care! They could have fucking killed me and you wouldn’t have CARED!”

  I took three more hits to the head, but I noticed her energy was draining. Her tears fell harder and her breath became faster and more shallow. After a few more hits she collapsed all together. Straddling my waist, she fell forward, curling her upper half into a ball on my chest. Her body convulsed with sobs. Slowly, I wrapped my arms over her, but she screamed as soon as I did. Pulling them away, I held them out to the sides and just let her cry.

  Eventually, the sobs calmed but then she kept repeating the same phrase over and over, at first, strongly speaking the words but trailing off with each new time she said them.

  “It’s all your fault.”

  Over and over, she blamed me while breaking apart on top of me. The sight was so sad, so fucking heartbreaking, that my soul shattered right there on that dirty floor. I let my head fall back against the wood and I listened to her and felt her physical pain.

  My thoughts went to what those bastards had done. Pain shot through me as my body clenched with rage. I wanted nothing more but to drive out and kill Diablo and his guards myself. But that would mean I’d have to leave her alone and there was no fucking way that was going to happen.

  It was a roller coaster to finally get to a point where she was calm. She would grow quiet every once in a while, but within seconds, another round of pain would creep up on her and she’d be yelling and crying again. Eventually, time passed and with it, Holly’s tears.

  We sat in silence for a while, even though neither of us was sleeping. When she’d grown quiet again, I reached up, wrapping my arms loosely around her. She flinched initially, but didn’t try to move away.

  My voice was barely a whisper when I said, “I truly am sorry for what happened, Holly. But I won’t rest until I make it up to you. I’ll fix everything that I can. If you want those bastards dead, I’ll kill them. If you want me to torture them first, I will. But I’m not going to do any of that until I know that you are strong again. I’m not leaving you alone this time. I also don’t care whether you believe me or not, because eventually you’ll see that I’m trying to help you now.”

  She didn’t respond and I didn’t expect her to. All I wanted was to make sure she knew how I felt. I’m not sure how long we lay there like that, but as quickly as she’d jumped on me, she pushed herself off. Without speaking a single word, she crawled into the bed above me. I stood up slowly, turning to see that she’d balled into a fetal position and pulled the cover up to her chin.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

  Turning, I quietly walked from the room, the flash of light from the living room blinding me as I passed through the doorway. Wanting to make sure that I would hear her if she screamed again, I didn’t shut the door behind me all the way.

  I tried to process everything she told me, the terror in her words and the images they conveyed. It was impossible to wrap my mind around it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it either. I’d known she’d been raped, but what I didn’t know was that she’d been tortured.

  The realization that I would never forgive myself hit me like a lead pipe to the face. I was knocked back by it, dropped to my knees by it.

  Once again taking my post on the couch, I sat wi
th my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. I was bent over, completely flooded by anger and grief.

  Finally sitting up again, I looked over to her door and wondered if I would be enough to help her escape whatever hell she was living and I wondered if her storm would ever pass.

  Chapter twenty-four

  Holly

  The next few days were uncomfortable.

  After screaming my head off at JD that night, I had to admit I felt better. I felt whole again, felt like the strength I’d thought had been beaten out of me had finally returned. I wasn’t the same and there was no way that I could be, but I was better and that had to count for something.

  JD and I didn’t talk after that. A day or two passed and I finally left my room and would walk to the kitchen to eat. I wasn’t starving because he had been bringing me breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday, but I needed to get away from those four walls. I needed to see something other than the bed where I slept and the bathroom. I was scared each time I crossed through the house. When I passed him, he was always sitting sentinel on the couch, his eyes trailing me as I moved, but he never made a move to talk or approach. He always looked like he was brooding. It was intimidating, but I ignored it the best I could, quickly walking through, grabbing what I needed and walking back to my room.

  Days and nights passed and we kept up this stand off where neither of us spoke, yet we held conversations every time our eyes met from across the room. With time, I began to grow restless, stuck in a place where I didn’t truly know if I was being held again or if I was free. JD had said he was protecting me, that he was keeping me safe, but I didn’t know if that was another lie designed to keep me in one place until I could be handed off to the next horrible nightmare that awaited me.

  One morning, I was awake when the morning sun first crawled over the earth, spreading out in long fingers of light that crept along the ground illuminating the small plants and falling leaves in a brilliant display of color. Staring out at the beauty of the forest surrounding the house, I realized I was stir crazy, absolutely itching to see something besides the inside of the small house. I crawled out of bed, dressing in the loose fitting clothes that I’d found in a duffle bag one day at the foot of my bed. They were men’s clothes, but they fit and they were a hell of a lot better than the hooker-wear I’d been given before being dragged out of the white room with the brown and red stains.

  Silently pulling open my bedroom door, I peeked through to find JD sitting on the couch, his hand wrapped around the neck of a bottle of whiskey, his eyes turned down at the liquid. I wondered what he was thinking because he looked so lost. But then anger slithered along my spine and I forced myself to stop caring about why he looked so sad.

  I pulled the door open more and walked through the doorway while simultaneously rolling my shoulders back and staring straight ahead. I was going outside to walk around the forest and I wasn’t going to let JD stop me. Maybe I was testing him or maybe I was simply wanting to push boundaries to determine if I was really being protected or if I was a prisoner. Either way, I strolled past him and the couch, making a quick right turn to reach for the front door handle.

  He was on his feet in seconds and I didn’t bother to look at him when I pulled the door open and started walking down the steps. The morning light dispersed through the canopies of the tall trees, creating a shimmering effect of mist that still hung heavily in the air. Forgetting that JD was behind me or that I’d just gone through what could only be described as hell, I stepped out into the cold air, playing my fingers through the fractured light. I slowly spun, attempting to take it all in, not believing that such beauty could exist. I’d never really seen anything but the arid, beat down earth of the Arizona desert, so standing below these tall trees and seeing how the sunlight could be broken apart into something beautiful instead of cruel, was a distraction from reality.

  I’d been instantly transported to a world I’d never known existed. Sure. I knew that not every place in the world was as hot and bleak as where I’d grown up, but I never understood just how different other places could be.

  A throat cleared behind me and I turned to see JD. The smile on my face instantly turned to a scowl and his eyebrows raised up, the skin of his forehead wrinkling in silent question.

  I didn’t speak to him, instead just simply tilting my chin up in disdain and dismissal as I set out on a small path that led between the trees.

  We must have walked for a half hour, JD never coming too close, but always staying within a distance where he could keep an eye on me. He never spoke or moved to stop me from walking and my fear that I was once again a prisoner started to dissipate like the mist that floated beneath the heavy canopy of trees.

  Another half hour passed and as my legs grew tired from strenuous exercise after days of rest, I found a small lake hidden in the middle of paradise. The water over the top was smooth, only barely rippling as the cold breeze blew across it. Within seconds it would return to a mirror-like surface, still as a glass, reflecting back at me a woman who had aged years over the course of a few weeks. I sat down, relishing the feel of the soft, damp sand beneath me. Pushing my feet out, I let it squish between my toes, smiling at this secret place I’d found.

  A branch broke in the distance and I glanced behind me to see JD stepping out into the clearing around the lake. He didn’t stop when I looked at him, just kept walking to take a seat on a large, smooth rock about ten feet from where I sat. Still not speaking, his eyes flicked between me and the lake, eventually locking onto the still water that spread out before us.

  Minutes passed and my curiosity, all the damn questions that I wanted to ask but was too stubborn to voice, starting battering around inside me head.

  I started with something simple, testing the waters of communication between us.

  “What does JD stand for?”

  He didn’t respond immediately and I glanced back to see if he’d even heard me. He wore a white undershirt, the material stretching over his broad and smooth chest, bunching where his abdomen narrowed down into a tight ‘v’. His hair had started to grow back and a dark shadow of stubble fell over and defined the contours of his head. He wasn’t looking at me at first, just staring out over the water. When he finally glanced over, the light caught his amber gold eyes, making them sparkle like jewels. He was beautiful. Despite everything he had said and done to me, I couldn’t deny him that.

  “What do you think it stands for?” Deep, rough and grumbly, his voice echoed through the trees, shivers running along my spine by how deep it vibrated through me. He wasn’t being a dick and he genuinely sounded like he wanted me to guess.

  Shrugging my shoulders, I turned back to look at the lake and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “John Denver?”

  He chuckled behind me, the sound soft and deep as it rolled up from his chest. “Uh, no. Try again.”

  “James Dean?”

  Another soft laugh. “No.”

  Remembering the whiskey bottle I always seemed to see in his hand, I finally gave in and said, “Jack Daniels.”

  He was quiet for only a second before answering, “That’s it.”

  “It’s your favorite, right?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Nodding, I let silence fall between us again as I built up the courage to ask my next question.

  “Am I a prisoner?” So soft, my voice wouldn’t allow me to ask the question any louder than a whisper because, inside, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

  It seemed like it took forever for him to answer, “No. We’re just staying out here until you’re better. Then, once a friend of mine finds your dad, we’re going to give you back.”

  “He’ll kill you.” The words slipped out without my even thinking about what I was saying. Here I was being told that I’d get to go home and I responded with a threat of death. It wasn’t my brightest moment.

  However, rather than taking offense to what I’d said or becoming angry with the threat
, JD answered, “I probably deserve it.” True regret was laced into those four words and my heart sank.

  When it came right down to the basic truth of how I felt, I didn’t hate him. I wanted to and at one point I thought I did, but I didn’t. I blamed him, yes. I was hurt and disappointed in him, but I didn’t hate him. More questions pressed my thoughts and I asked them, accepting this time as a moment where walls could come down. I was ready to know what would happen to me, to find out where my life would travel next.

  “Why did you leave me, JD? What had I done that was so bad, I didn’t even deserve a chance?”

  Holding my breath, I waited anxiously to hear why he’d hurt me so bad.

  “I thought it would free me of my life. I’m not part of Hell’s Rebellion anymore, but I owed them a debt that had to be repaid before I could break free. After leaving you with Diablo, I ran the drugs to Big John and climbed on my bike to head east. But after the things I did to put everything behind me, I couldn’t just leave knowing that those men had you.” Pure melancholy, his voice was so sad that it caused burning tears to well behind my eyes. I was confused by his words, by a confession that didn’t make sense.

  “I’m not important. Never have been. Just another club brat, stupid and worthless.” Glancing back at him, I smiled a shy grin. “Guess that makes you stupid too. You should have kept going.”

  He returned the sad smile, shrugging one shoulder as he stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Maybe. I just couldn’t leave you like that. We both grew up in clubs. You didn’t deserve what was happening to you just as much as I didn’t deserve what has happened to me.”

  I was surprised by his words and my eyebrows lifted on my forehead. “Wait…you were raised in a club?”

  “Yeah. Hell’s Rebellion. I didn’t think you would remember me so I never mentioned it. Not that we had a lot of time together to get to know each other.” The corner of his lip curled and he reached up to rub his hands over his bald head.