by Sian Rosé
When nobody spoke, Paul’s voice cracked into a humourless laugh.
“Fucking pathetic…” he muttered angrily beneath his voice before storming out of the room, calling out for Annie.
The atmosphere left in the living room remained cold, hard, and as sharp as ice. A few moments of silence passed, with Minnie maintaining her neutral smile, whilst Julie stared shamefully at her feet. Ronnie exchanged glances with his older kids, and Henry farted, then dribbled a bit more.
It was Ross who spoke first. He collapsed into the seat beside his sister and gripped her hand tightly, his face pleading. “Paul is just upset. He doesn’t understand. He has no family of his own, apart from us. He gets so defensive…”
“It’s fine,” Minnie cut in, the edges of her voice as sharp and steely as a razor blade, her smile wide and unmoving as ever. Her eyes flitted towards her parents. “I know that people can be… misled at times. Not believing the truth. Coming to their own conclusions which ultimately make no sense.”
Her words hung still in the air for a moment, falling over the estranged family like spiked snowflakes.
Julie glanced up at Ronnie, swallowed. The sweet, composed demeanour previously fixed onto her perfectly made-up face cracked suddenly. Her brow furrowed. She jabbed a long, wrinkled finger in his direction.
“This is all your fault,” she said coldly. “If she hadn’t gotten all mixed up with you all those years ago…brainwashing her when she was so young and so vulnerable…”
At that, without warning, in just one quick, swift movement, Minnie slapped her mother across the face so hard that a bright red hand mark blazed on the woman’s powdery white cheek. She gasped in shock, the noise of the smack seeming to echo over and over in their ears.
Tears glistened in Minnie’s eyes. “He didn’t brainwash me, Mum. You turned your back on me. You turned your back on your grandson. We were attacked that night, so I stabbed that bastard in defence. Then instead of supporting me, you just wanted to bury your head in the sand. Sweep it all under the carpet. Blame Ron for the murder and abort my unborn baby.”
“Oh, charming!” Zach scoffed, folding his arms tightly over his chest. “Cheers, Grandma.”
“You don’t know the shit we went through,” said Minnie solemnly, shaking her head as dark, tainted memories ran through her mind like a hazy nightmare. “Shit, we went through because we were running. Because we had to.”
“You could have come back,” Julie protested feebly, rubbing her cheek. “We’d have taken you in. No matter what. Even with a baby.”
Her daughter laughed, steely eyes glassy as she stared scathingly up at the woman who had one day been her entire universe. Before they’d entered her old family home, she had wondered if seeing her mother would make all of those old feelings return. In fact, she’d been frightened. Scared that seeing her family would fix the sickness that had been growing and growing inside her for all of these years. Make her a human again. Soft and fragile. Weak and pathetic.
“I’m so glad that we didn’t,” she said truthfully, relishing the sadness that then swam in her mother’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Ross, I think we need to go.”
Before Ross could open his mouth to protest, Paul appeared again in the doorway, his face contorted into a confused frown. Stark panic decorated the edges of his darkened expression whilst his breaths came in short, rapid puffs from his lips as though he had been moving quickly.
“Where’s Annie?”
“What do you mean where is she?”
“I left her in the hallway to play with the other little girl…” said Julie, momentarily distracted from the family drama that was ruining her reunion. “Maybe they went upstairs or in the garden?”
Paul shook his head, “I’ve checked.”
“Maybe Flo took your girl out to see our RV,” suggested Ronnie brightly, glad for an excuse to leave the house. “I’ll go and check. I better check on the dog anyway.” He got up from his chair, his keys jangling in his hand and cold tea left untouched. As he went, he smirked at the wistful gazes of his children, all clearly keen to get the fuck out of the place as well. Much to his annoyance, as he passed him, he became aware of Paul walking along behind him, like a security guard escorting a snot-nosed teenage shoplifter.
“Chill out, mate,” he found himself saying as they formed a sort-of two-man convoy out in the hallway that led back to the front door. “I’m sure Allie is fine.”
“Annie,” snapped Paul, “and forgive me for being concerned.”
Rolling his eyes, Ronnie reached the front door and pulled the handle. He supposed the girl had been adopted, and Paul and Ross had gone through an incredibly long, painful journey to get a baby. Probably why the guy was so overprotective. The thought made Ronnie feel pleased. Ross was okay because he knew that Minnie loved him, but he’d already decided that Paul was a cunt. Images of slashing the bloke’s throat with a jagged shard of glass until blood splattered from his jugular and soaked onto his tongue like melted butter sent a shiver of pleasure down his spine.
Chapter Fifty-one
Summer, 2000
Being screwed was fine.
Obviously, it definitely wasn’t, but Minnie had endured it enough over the last year, so it almost felt like just another part of a routine. Her first instinct, as the disgusting monster who had enslaved her forced himself upon her, was to disassociate. To escape the confines of her own skull and float up into the air, above her own physical body like a ghost hovering above the horrific scene.
But she stopped herself.
Zach’s tiny face crept up into her head.
When she’d snuck in, she’d had no option but to leave the baby in Willa’s car, tucked away in blankets on the back seat. She couldn’t let Steve kill her. She couldn’t leave her son.
So she focused harder than ever. She did her best to ignore the screams of intense pain that reverberated down her arms from her snapped wrists and blinked around at her surroundings. Steve was groaning, slamming himself repeatedly into her, violating her body as if he owned it.
There was only a matter of time before he stopped, and she knew it would be all over. Not just for her, but for Ronnie and Zach as well.
She’d be fucking damned if she went through everything her shit show of a life had thrown at her over the last year, just to lose it all again.
One moment she was gazing up at the ceiling, her brain whirring at a thousand miles an hour as she thought and thought, and the next, some primal instinct buried somewhere deep inside her sprang into action.
Minnie threw her face forward, mouth open, and took as much of the flesh on Steve’s neck as possible between her teeth, biting down as hard as she could, so that her head ached.
“FUCK!” screamed Steve, attempting to jerk away.
But Minnie didn’t let go. She forced the tips of her teeth further into the skin, letting the warm, red gushes of blood flood over her lips and cascade down their joined bodies in a gory waterfall.
“GET OFF!” Steve put his hands on her head and tried to yank her away by her hair, so forcefully that a clump of it came out in his hand.
Ignoring the pain burning her scalp, Minnie released her bite and then went back again, this time deeper. She felt veins and arteries be severed like string between her jaws, and muscle and tissue shred like paper in her vice. She whipped her head back and forth, scarlet red strings of broken flesh tearing loudly between them as she deepened the wound.
Steve quickly began to convulse, his whole body jerking and twitching so madly that Minnie was finally forced to break away, her entire face caked in a thick, deep red layer of his blood. The stunned teenager propped herself up on her elbows and propelled herself backwards with her feet as she watched Steve clutch at the gaping hole in his neck, crimson fluid rushing down his arm and splashing into a pool on the floor. His eyes rolled back into his head as the colour rapidly drained from his face, almost as quickly as the galleons of blood poured from his neck and saturated his clothes
.
On his knees, he wavered and staggered until he finally fell backwards and lay sprawled at Minnie’s feet, his wound leaking all over the carpet. He opened his mouth to croak, and more droplets of blood spilled from his lips and stained his chin.
“Oh my god,” whispered Minnie to herself, unblinking as she awkwardly forced herself to her feet, half completely dumbfounded by the gore laid out in front of her, half-crippled with agony by her snapped wrists. Once she was standing up, she began to back away from Steve, who had stopped shrieking and was now breathing painfully slowly, in and out, in and out.
She could still taste blood in her mouth. It was so strong that she wondered whether she would ever be able to taste anything else from that day forward.
“K-k-k-kill…. me…” mustered Steve in between broken, wheezing breaths, just as more bright red blood leaked from his mouth down his lopsided cheek. “Please.”
Minnie felt a tight twist in her gut. This evil, awful human was begging for mercy. To be put out of his misery. When he’d comfortably, happily watched her be abused, beaten, and raped for his own profit for months on end. Her eyes suddenly felt hot, and she realised that there were bitter, salty tears simmering there.
“Where’s the key for Ronnie’s room?” she heard herself asking.
Steve stared at her, growing more and more delirious by the moment.
“K-k-kitchen…” he muttered.
Swallowing, Minnie darted off in the direction of the kitchen but then stopped herself.
Sure, it would give her tremendous pleasure to know this total and utter piece of shit would have a slow, agonising death. Bleeding out, completely alone apart from memories of the sad, sadistic life that he had led.
But she’d also seen enough horror movies to know that it was never a good idea to leave the villain alive.
She shuffled back down the hall to where Steve lay. She eyed the knife laying discarded on the floor, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to lift it up with her broken wrists. Instead, she lifted her foot as high as she could and slammed it down onto his face with all of her might. Blood spattered upwards, covering every inch of her, but she didn’t stop. In fact, just like that night in the woods, she went into a sort of daze. Over and over, blindly, manically, she stamped hard on Steve’s ugly, awful face. She stamped until she could hear skull splintering and fracturing and until her nostrils felt blocked with blood.
Until she knew for sure that the motherfucker was dead.
*
Ronnie lay curled up on the ground. His skinny body spooned a smaller figure that cuddled up into him in the darkness, shivering. He stroked the girl’s hair, which had long since lost its scent of fruity shampoo, and now just smelled like everything else in his world.
Like pain and suffering.
“I wish I’d met you before all of this,” Stella whispered into his chest.
He swallowed, pressing a light brush of his lips onto the smooth skin of her forehead.
“Me too,” he replied.
It made him uneasy, just how truthful he was being. Up until then, he’d thought Minnie was his soul mate. They were perfect teenage sweethearts, destined to be, written in the stars. He’d grieved her for a long time, but then when Stella had been bundled into the filthy, pitch-black cell, it had given him other things to think about.
And, over the months, he’d learned a lot about Stella. As much as he hated to admit it, he thought that he had fallen in love. Properly this time.
Stella was like him. Not the best upbringing. A little rough around the edges. Not privileged. Not particularly smart or promising in any kind of way. A sort of lovable misfit. The kind which ended up on the run from the police for some misunderstanding. The kind the police suspected, for no good reason, other than wanting someone to pin the blame on.
“I love you,” Stella said quietly, breathing him in as if he didn’t reek of stale sweat and shit.
Ronnie traced her jawline and lifted her mouth up to his, where their lips locked in an intense kiss.
At that moment, there was the sound of metal turning in the lock. Out of habit, the two lovers sprang apart, hearts pounding loudly in their chests as they watched the door swing open, revealing the narrow glimmer of light from the hallway.
For the first time ever, the small room was suddenly drowned in a bright, sickly light that burned both their eyes. Ronnie blinked, temporarily blinded as he held his head. He hadn’t even known that there was a light in that room.
“Ronnie…” a familiar voice crackled, making his head instantly snap upwards, and his heart skip a beat.
At first, he thought that it was a hallucination. Or a dream. Side effects from one of the drugs he’d been forced to take a day or so before. Because there, standing in the doorway, hands awkwardly bent and twisted in front of her, face smeared almost entirely with blood, was Minnie.
Chapter Fifty-three
Winter, 2000
Of course, he would never admit it, but sometimes Ronnie still thought of Stella. Absent-mindedly, he’d suggested that name for a baby girl to Minnie, who was roughly five months pregnant. Perhaps he’d have felt bad, suggesting they name their baby after a woman he’d had a brief affair with. But then, it wasn’t actually his baby.
The library was one of his regular haunts because it was warm and free. He’d read enough books on human biology to calculate that the baby would have been conceived around the night of the escape. Around the night of when Steve had raped Minnie.
And he knew that it was definitely not his, because when Stella had realised they were being saved, she’d thrown herself at him, right in front of Minnie, unknowing that this was the mother of his child, love of his life.
Safe to say, Minnie hadn’t been pleased.
Withholding sex for a good few months hadn’t been his only punishment.
Sighing, he bathed his son in the plastic baby bath, smiling sadly down at his sweet, perfect little face. Flashes of that night still randomly projected into his head, haunting him.
“If you don’t love her, kill her,” Minnie had told him, her voice eerily calm, her face still smothered in blood.
Blood. So much blood.
Stella’s face, smashed and deformed beyond recognition, repeatedly bashed in with a baseball bat that Minnie had picked up in a blind rage from one of the other rooms at Steve’s house. Her shrieks and screams, her ear-splitting pleads for her life ringing loudly in his ears as he blindly battered her into a bloody lump of mush.
“How are my boys?” Minnie’s voice suddenly broke into his thoughts, causing him to turn. She stood in the doorway of the bathroom, smiling adoringly at her little boy as if Ronnie was not even there. She cradled her growing bump with one hand and held onto the doorframe with the other. Her wrists were still covered in a dark shadow, slightly deformed in appearance from where they’d had to attempt to fix the broken bones themselves.
“We’re fine,” Ronnie smiled, forcing brightness into his voice. “How’s the boy?”
Minnie shrugged, “I reckon he’s an immigrant, you know. Probably doesn’t know many people. I think we’ll be okay here for a bit.”
“That’s good,” Ronnie nodded.
She paused, “he’s getting a little noisy, though.”
Their new Polish landlord had seemed too good to be true. He hadn’t asked a lot of questions and had accepted cash for rent. But given their history, Minnie and Ronnie had reason to be suspicious.
And besides, sharing a house with a questionable stranger had never been a part of the plan.
“Maybe it’s time,” Ronnie suggested, smoothing back his son's wet tufts of hair with a sigh.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Minnie walked over to him, her bare feet padding softly on the bathroom tiles until he could sense her presence next to his shoulder, her warm breath tickling the side of his neck.
“I think that you should do the honours.”
A low, involuntary groan escaped Ronni
e’s lips as he felt his gut twist uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. He froze, his eyes connecting with his son as an unpleasant sensation crept up his spine.
“Ronnie,” said Minnie gruffly, placing a hand on his upper arm.
“Okay,” he replied finally, lifting Zach out of the baby bath and placing him in the soft embrace of a fluffy towel. He wrapped him tightly as if somehow this would protect him from the sinister reality that his parents had created for him. He handed the baby to Minnie, who gave him a small smile of encouragement that Ronnie did not return.
Although it had been him who had beaten poor Stella to death, they both knew that it was Minnie who was the driving force. He had been the gun, and she’d pulled the trigger in a fit of jealousy and rage.
Or, at least that what he had thought at the time.
As he walked reluctantly down the hallway, his fists clenching and unclenching, his mind went back into that dark place. The gloomy corner where he’d stored the strange expression of exhilaration that had crept up onto his girlfriend’s face as he’d battered Stella into a sad, unrecognisable pulp of blood and flesh.
It seemed that Minnie had acquired a taste for violence. It was no longer just for survival; it was now a burning hatred for everyone that she came into contact with.
Their poor, unsuspecting Polish landlord had learned this the hard way.
The sounds of his muffled screeches prickled the surface of Ronnie’s skin and flooded out of the master bedroom as he hesitantly yanked open its thin, peeling door.
Inside, the young man was just how Minnie had left him, too paralysed with a mixture of pain and fear to move. The chair that he was tied to had been kicked over so that he was lying down whilst still attached to it. An ugly, black hole gaped where his eye socket should be, a large pool of sticky, dark blood surrounding him like a halo of death. Thick, angry, red slashes decorated the rest of his clammy, naked body, some of them oozing puss and foul-smelling liquid.
