by Nikki Pink
And I was! I got into three different schools. Mr. Leigh called me to see him, and he handed me three envelopes with a smile. University of Ohio. University of South Carolina. Minot State University, North Dakota.
I laughed and cried and even gave him a hug, burying my bleached blond hair into his shoulder. He held me for a second then broke away, no doubt afraid of physical contact with a student.
I knew where I wanted to go - North Dakota. It had some of the cheapest tuition in the country, and since I wasn’t likely to get any scholarships with my only mediocre school performance the cheapness of the tuition was vital. But even more importantly, it was in North Dakota! It was prohibitively far for weekend or impromptu trips. No one would be coming to visit me without a serious outlay of time and money. It would be perfect.
For the next week I was walking on clouds, smiling at people I didn’t know in the hallways, participating more in class, even making small talk with the cashier at the market.
While life wasn’t good yet, after all I was still with Dewey, I knew it was going to get good soon. I knew it. North Dakota here I come!
But I was wrong. I couldn’t have been more wrong if I’d tried.
Maybe Dewey had noticed my chirpiness and did some investigating, or maybe he’d known for a long time and had just been biding his time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to ruin everything. To ruin me.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
Karen
The school year was ending and it was the night of the senior prom, the supposed social highlight of the year. For many people in our small town - and across the nation - it would be the social highlight of their lives.
Dewey and I had chosen my dress together, and for once he and I had been in agreement about what I should look like and how I should dress. It was a stunning black number that hugged my body in a manner much more pleasant than how Dewey hugged me.
“Wow, love. You look fantastic,” he said, looking me up and down.
I couldn’t help but grin as I stared back at myself in the mirror. The blond hair still jarred me, though not as much as it had at first, but the dress looked great on my body. I even began to entertain thoughts that perhaps Dewey had been right to pay such close attention to my diet.
“You’ll be prom queen, I just know it,” said the matronly sales clerk. I grinned at her, knowing it was impossible, but secretly, just a little bit, entertaining the idea.
Dewey grinned at me too. “We will, you know. We’ll be king and queen of the prom. You’re graduating from being my princess to being my queen.”
I let out a little laugh. Then I remembered that I was planning to flee him, to run away to North Dakota and I was suddenly flooded with guilt. Was I making the right decision, I wondered. Maybe it was just me, maybe I was having some kind of breakdown and I should call the whole thing off.
“What’s the matter, love?” he asked me.
“Nothing. I just can’t believe we’re graduating already.”
He kissed me on the forehead. “The years sure fly by fast, huh?” He looked down into my eyes. “Especially when you’re with the one you love, the one you’ll be with forever.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. As always when he said something like that I felt my heart beat a little faster — not because of the ‘romance’ of his words, but in fear that we really would be together forever. I swallowed and continued to act normal, as I always did.
The night of the prom started off uneventfully. There was no hired limo for us, we weren’t doing it in that kind of style. Most of Dad’s income (aka his disability check) went to simply keeping us in our house, and keeping him in beer. There wasn’t much left for luxuries like a limo.
I had a small inheritance from my mother, but it wasn’t much. Dewey planned for us to use it toward a deposit on a house. I secretly planned to use it to fund my tuition for the first year, after which I hoped to get a scholarship (though I was secretly expecting I’d have to take loans.)
So on the night of the prom I drove us there in Dad’s truck. He hardly used it these days, staying in most of the time, but even though I was the one who drove it most of the time it was still his truck, at least in my mind.
There wasn’t much to say about the night. It was fine, even almost fun in a couple of places. I cringed inside though when the DJ did a small set of songs from his generation, songs from the 70s and 80s.
I knew what was going to happen as soon as he played the first Michael Jackson song. I knew our song was going to be played, like it was our destiny.
Sure enough, the third ‘old’ song the DJ played was Joy Division’s Love Will Tear us Apart. I couldn’t believe it.
“I don’t believe it,” Dewey whispered in my ear, the excitement in his voice palpable.
“Nor do I,” I said to him.
“It’s our song! Come here!”
We put down our mocktails and he grabbed me, dancing us slow to a song that wasn’t really a slow dance song. I could feel his body pressing against mine, and shuddered when I realized it was his hard on digging into my leg. He mistook my shudder.
“Nothing will tear us apart, love,” he whispered in my ear, “Nothing. I’ll never let you go.” He squeezed me tighter and I panicked for a moment, thinking he might have somehow found my plan and he was going to stop me somehow. I regained my composure when I realized how ridiculous I was being. He’d have been a lot more direct and a lot more outspoken if he’d discovered my plan. Or so I thought.
We weren’t crowned at the prom. I wasn’t surprised of course, but I still felt a twinge of disappointment. I had looked good in that dress, I knew. But of course I was glad in a way too. I wouldn’t have wanted to be crowned with him anyway.
Dewey decided we wouldn’t be going to any of the after parties, and that was fine with me. I was ready to be done with that part of my life entirely, and quite frankly, if I never saw my schoolmates again it would have been okay by me. I was ready to move on, start fresh, start new.
“I’ve got something for us to celebrate with,” he said to me as I drove us home.
“Oh yeah?” I feigned some enthusiasm in my voice.
“Yep, it’s in your refrigerator.”
I turned my head and gave him a quizzical look. “Cake?”
He laughed. “Don’t be stupid. You know I’m on low-carb at the moment.” He often told me I was stupid, and often I believed him.
I guessed it was booze of some kind. You’d think I’d avoid it, what with my Dad and all. But no, I didn’t, in fact I often snuck one or two of his beers away. It helped numb my feelings.
“Wine?”
Dewey grinned, pleased with himself. “Not just wine, champagne.”
“Sparkling wine?” I asked.
I saw Dewey nodding again as I glanced over. “Yep, but it’s real champagne, from France. Real special occasion stuff. Pretty expensive, you know.”
“Oh yeah? Awesome.”
Maybe the night wouldn’t be that bad after all, I thought. Maybe I could drink myself into deliciousness numbness. Unfortunately Dewey had a lot more planned than just a few drinks. My hell night was just beginning.
CHAPTER FORTY
Karen
We said “Hi” to Dad who was watching a crappy reality show on TV, before heading upstairs with the bottle. Dad didn’t really notice what I got up to anymore, and didn’t comment about me heading upstairs with Dewey on prom night.
We took the champagne up to my room with two glasses, the tall slim ones with long stems that Dewey called flutes. He pretended to blow into one like it was an instrument, and I pretended to laugh.
“To the future!” he said with enthusiasm.
“To the future!” I agreed with my own brand of enthusiasm as we clinked our glasses together.
He talked about the courses at the community college. He’d worked out exactly which courses ‘we’ were going to take, and when. The college was the only place I applied with my home address, and the acceptance letter was
stuck above the mirror on my vanity where Dewey had placed it the day we both received our acceptances.
My other acceptance letters, the secret ones, were hidden at the very back of my closet, on the shelf, hidden so far back and so high up you needed a step ladder to reach back there.
“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah.” My answer was soft, and I was lost in thought as I sipped the wine.
“It’s okay love. It’s going to be great, I just know it.” He had taken my low voice for sadness at the ending of this stage of our lives, when in fact I had actually just been in deep contemplation, thinking about the logistics of moving half way across the country. How many buses would I need to take to get there? How much stuff would I take with me?
He refilled me glass two or three times, popping downstairs when the first bottle was empty and returning with another one.
“Sorry,” he said, “this one’s from California. It’s not a real champagne.”
“That’s okay,” I said, and it was, truthfully they both tasted fine to me. They were a little different, sure, but the expensive one didn’t seem any better to my immature taste buds.
He ran a hand over my cheek as I lay propped up by pillows on top of my bed. “I love you, you know.”
“I know.” I wondered whether he actually did love me. I knew he loved controlling and manipulating me, but did he actually love me. I considered the thought idly, and came to the conclusion that he didn’t. I believe he thought he loved me, but he didn’t, couldn’t actually love me because he didn’t know me. What he knew was the shell of a girl that he had created.
Inside the Barbie-doll exterior the real Karen, the real me, was fighting to get out. He wouldn’t have loved the real Karen if he’d met her. Dewey couldn’t even have put up with, let alone loved, the strong, independent girl that was fighting to get out and would soon be released once she escaped the prison her home had become and managed to start a new life far away in the north.
After the first glass from the second bottle I rapidly began to grow tired. It was not a slow descent into sleepiness, but a rapid change of state from mild buzz to severe grogginess.
“You look tired, love. Why don’t you close your eyes for a bit.”
I nodded, spilling wine as I tried to put the glass on my bedside before Dewey reached over to help me. Isn’t he going to have sex with me, was my last fleeting thought before I faded away into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
Karen
I was in a deep and dreamless sleep. A sleep of boozy slumber, assisted by the sleeping pill I later learned he’d added to my wine.
The gigantic smash that shook the house was enough to wake me though, even in my messed up state. “It’s an—” earthquake, is what I would have said, but I couldn’t remember the word.
My interest waned almost instantly and I let my eyes close again, thoughts of earthquakes rapidly fading from my muddled mind. Just before I drifted back away to the land of the catatonic he appeared over me, a shadow of doom in the night. “I said I’d never let you go, love.”
Shit. The huge crash from downstairs had barely put a dent in my sleepiness, but his quiet words whispered over me had been like a quadruple shot of espresso, leaving me wide awake and shaky.
My eyes flew open. “Wha—” My mouth still wasn’t working properly and he didn’t give me time to finish.
“You made a mistake. But I’ve fixed it, you won’t be going away to college now, love.”
I was caught. Busted. He knew what I’d been up to, knew about my plan to leave him and start a new life. Fuck.
He slipped his arms under me and lifted me up, carrying me out of my room for the last time. “You won’t be going to college now, love.” He smiled down at me, as if he was doing me a massive favor.
It was over. My dreams, my ambitions — over. I didn’t know what he’d done, but whatever it was it would stop me from leaving him, that much I knew.
With my hopes gone and the shock of his words fading I felt myself fading away back into blessed unconsciousness. “I’ll wait for you. When you get out we’ll be together, and you’ll never leave me again.”
His words didn’t make sense to me, but not much did. I heard the sound of a vehicle door opening and my eyes flashed open again. It was my truck, Dad’s truck. What was it doing in the living room?
I was gently placed into the driver’s seat. “See you when you get out, love.” He smiled at my uncomprehending face. I looked away, out the windscreen of my truck.
“No, no, no,” I moaned as he placed his hand gently behind my head.
Directly in front of me was my father, crushed against the wall ahead of me, the remains of his chair scattered around him. His dead visage glared at me accusingly as I let out my final “No”, abruptly cut off when Dewey slammed my head violently against the steering wheel.
I passed out, and life as I knew it ended.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Karen
“Holy. Fucking. Shit.” Even in the dim light of the shed I could tell that Bottle was staring at me wide eyed.
I nodded my head against his shoulder, which my head was now resting on. Somehow my left hand had become intertwined with his as I’d told him my fucked up story and I had felt his grip tighten and release with each shocking revelation.
I leaned against him, and even though he couldn’t move his arms to hold me he opened his shoulder offering me the comfort of his warm, hard body. “And the cops believed you did it? That you killed your own father?”
“Yeah. Not deliberately, it was an accident. Dewey told them I’d been sneaking away some of my dead mother’s sleeping pills for months, to cope with the stress of it all.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. They found them in my room, hidden away. He’d been planning it for weeks, maybe months.”
“That’s fuckin’ nuts.”
“Yeah. You should have seen the fucker in court, testifying on my behalf and damning me with every word. ‘I love her, Your Honor, I love her I truly do. But she really messed up bad this time, with the sleeping pills and the drink. I should never have let her go. I should have stopped her, but she told me she was fine. I should have stopped her, your honor! Please, send me to jail instead of her!’”
“What a fuckin’ looney toon”
“Oh yeah. He was all over the local papers too. ‘Local fuckin’ wrestling hero defends father-killing girlfriend’, shit like that,” I paraphrased. “He made a big deal of saying how he was going to wait for me until I got out, how he knew I didn’t mean to kill Dad... all that shit.”
Bottle’s voice was soft in disbelief. “I thought I couldn’t hate that fucker any more than I already did when he locked me in here. But somehow, I do now.
I let out a soft laugh. “I’m sorry for dragging you into all this.”
“Shit, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault—” he paused to consider, and after a moment of reflection continued, “well, maybe it’s a bit your fault, but that fucker kidnapped our boy, we couldn’t let that stand.”
“He kidnapped him because of me, though.”
“Well shit, I guess it is all your fault.” He let out a little laugh and I knew that even though I’d dragged him into this fucked up situation he didn’t really blame me. He knew I was a victim.
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
Gauge
Gauge and T-Bone sat in the front of the panel van at the meeting place. There was no one else for miles in any direction.
T-Bone threw the butt of a cigarette out of the rolled down window. “Well, shit, this ain’t good.”
Gauge was staring at the abandoned rock in front of them, the stake they’d tied Karen to earlier was now leaning to the side.
What they should have found was Dewey with a few new holes in him and a happy Bottle and Karen. Ideally, Red too. If he wasn’t there they’d have to go search for him.
Instead there was nothing. No one. This
wasn’t good at all.
“Give me your phone a minute.”
“Again?” T-Bone gave Gauge a look that said seriously?
“Yeah again. C’mon, I don’t know how much time we’ve got.”
T-Bone pulled the phone out of the pocket of his leather jacket and handed it over with a sigh, the chunky smartphone looking like a toy in his meaty fingers. “When are you going to get your own?”
This time it was Gauge that gave T-Bone an are you serious look. “You know I’m off the grid.”
“Yeah, yeah. Mr. Independence. You’re not very off the grid if you keep using my phone though. If the spooks want to find Gauge, all they gotta do is track ole’ T-Bone’s phone.”
Gauge didn’t reply. He touched the screen a few times and a moment he was calling Bottle. For someone off the grid he was remarkably adept with modern electronics.
Neither of them were surprised when there was no answer.
“Well, shit. This ain’t good. This ain’t good at all. We’ve got to call Jase, get his ass back here.”
Gauge didn’t reply, and instead was reaching down into the green canvas bag that was between his feet. A moment later he pulled out a slim notebook computer.
T-Bone raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck’s that?”
Gauge gave a chuckle. “This is how we’re going to find Karen, Red and Bottle.”
“No shit?”
Gauge gave a little chuckle as he furiously worked the computer. A moment later a map appeared on the screen with a red dot marking a location.
“What the fuck did you just do? Did you Google ‘where the fuck is Bottle?’”
The ex-military man gave a chuckle. “This shit is why I’m off the motherfuckin’ grid. Your phones, tablets, computers — all that shit can track you. Like this.”
