JOSS: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security)

by Glenna Sinclair

  “You’ll do as I say,” he said, unperturbed by my outburst.

  “No, I won’t,” I said. “I’m telling my mom just what kind of person you are. And then you’ll have to leave.”

  I made a move to walk by him, regretting what I was about to do even as I was horrified and appalled at him. My mother didn’t need this kind of stress right now. She was so sick. I hated to imagine what telling her this would do to her. I would hesitate to tell her, if she were healthy, that the man she’d slept beside for all these years had just propositioned her daughter. It might really harm her, but I had to do something. I couldn’t just ignore what was happening, not when it was Carl, standing right here in my room, being a creepy pervert. I had to protect my mother, absolutely, but I also had to protect myself. There was no one else here to do it.

  “If you don’t do exactly as I say, I’ll kill your mother.”

  It was a concept so bizarrely horrible that I almost laughed at him, but Carl’s face was too serious to allow for that, and it stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t know what to do, or what to say. All I could do was stare at him, my brain running through possible responses, possible solutions, examining and rejecting one after the other, each one more implausible than the next.

  Just as implausible as what was happening right now.

  “You don’t think I’m being serious.” I’d never dreaded the idea of Carl until this moment, never realized just how grating that overly calm voice was. How terrifying it was.

  “You wouldn’t hurt my mom because you love her,” I said, my voice sounding small, childish.

  “I would hurt her to get what I want.” It was so matter of fact—that statement. How could someone be so sure of the desire to hurt another human being, one that he’d professed his love for? Carl was helping take care of my mom, for God’s sake. How could he want to cause her harm?

  “I don’t believe you.” It felt selfish and horrible, but I was so horrified by what he wanted me to do that I was willing to, abstractly, put my own mother at risk for my pride.

  “Your mother was vomiting last night,” he said.

  “I remember.” She’d been terribly sick from the treatments. I’d heard her, late, and went to help her, even if she was beyond help. All I could do was keep her waning hair out of her face and mop her forehead with a cool cloth. The illusion of comfort was the only thing I could provide.

  “It didn’t have anything to do with the treatments. All I gave her was an extra little pill with the rest of them. She didn’t even notice. That’s how easy it is to sabotage her health. I have access to everything I need at the hospital.”

  “Why would you do something like that?” She had been so sick, heaving until there wasn’t anything else to purge, continuing to cough and spit over the toilet for what had seemed like ages. I’d done everything I could think of to make her stop. She couldn’t even manage to stomach the water I brought her to rinse her mouth out.

  “To prove to you that I was serious about what I’m prepared to do to make you cooperate.”

  I just couldn’t bring myself to believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. I considered myself to be pretty practical, well equipped to sniff out bullshit. It was true—my mom had been sick last night. Really sick. But it could’ve been any number of things. There might’ve been an interaction with another medication, or the last vestiges of the sickness her treatment caused. Maybe there was something we had at dinner that hadn’t agreed with her, or just a stray mote of a virus or bacteria that one of us had carried back from our last trip to the hospital that had landed on a random surface somewhere in the house that she had come in contact with.

  There were too many variables to know for certain that Carl was telling the awful truth.

  “You’re a bright girl, Meagan, as well as beautiful,” he said, seeming to have read my mind. “Let me prove it to you.”

  “I don’t want you to make my mom sick.” I recoiled even as I doubted him, afraid of the extent of his abilities, the depth of his blossoming madness.

  “And I won’t, starting tomorrow, as long as you do what I say.” Carl checked his watch as casually as if I’d asked him for the time. “It’s been an hour since she took her medication. I gave her another of the vomit-inducing pills, same as the night before. About an hour is all it takes.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, anything. I didn’t even know what was going to come out of my own mind, but then I stopped, dumbfounded. Sure enough, even from all the way downstairs, I could hear my mother in her bathroom, throwing up everything she’d eaten at dinner, including whatever proper medication remained in her belly. She was vomiting so violently that it sounded loud even up here.

  Horrified and hyperventilating, I made a mad dash out of my room, but Carl grabbed a hold of my arm, squeezing and stopping just short of bruising force.

  “Who do you think she’s going to believe?” he asked, his voice still so even, so calm. “Who do you think anyone would believe? You tell her, you tell anyone, you disappoint me…I’ll end her, Meagan. Don’t test me. If she dies, it’s all on you.”

  There wasn’t a choice. I didn’t have a choice. I had to protect my mother. And to protect her, I had to sacrifice myself to whatever whims Carl had in mind.

  I nodded quickly, then pulled my arm free, rushing to help my mother.

  Chapter 13

  “Smile for the camera.”

  I was far away, in the place I went when I couldn’t be in the place I actually was. It sounded confusing, but I found it easier and easier to get there. Easier, and more necessary than not.

  “Smile, Meagan.”

  He didn’t like repeating himself. When I didn’t listen, or do as he said, or was too far gone in that faraway place to understand what he was saying, his voice changed a little — just a little bit — to remind me just what was at stake if I refused him.

  I had to do what he said. I had to do everything he said. If I didn’t, my mother would die. He’d already proven he could make her sick just by mixing up her medications. She trusted him completely, didn’t suspect him at all.

  And I suspected that even if I was able to somehow let her know just what kind of monster the man she loved was, it would probably kill her without any mixup of medications. He’d been a part of her life for so long. She relied on him to help her through her illness, to support her in ways that only a man could support a woman. I wished that I could be enough for my mother, but she needed Carl. Loved him. Thought she knew him so well.

  He had everyone fooled. Everyone except me. He’d revealed the monster that wore his skin to me because I had something he wanted.

  He wanted all of me.

  “Meagan.”

  I smiled as best I could, the corners of my mouth yanking upward, unnatural, but a smile by definition.

  “Touch yourself.”

  It had been hard the first time, but each time he demanded it of me, it got easier. At least there was that. It got easier and easier to comply with something I used to not be able to even comprehend, easier to perform.

  Easier to find that place in my brain I could flee to.

  And if I went away — really away — I could even convince myself that I liked it, that I liked the way the camera looked at me, the way Carl looked at me, the way I felt, my hand against myself.

  And when I came, it would be all over. Carl would leave me alone until the next time he got the urge, and I could start trying to pretend it never happened, and would never happen again.

  Which was ridiculous, of course. It happened all the time. It would happen tomorrow. It would happen the next day, and the next. I couldn’t stop it, because I had to protect my mother. Nothing was more important than her.

  Chapter 14

  Time slowed down when terrible things happened. I didn’t know why. I would’ve thought that life would take pity on a person and speed them through it, just to go on and get it over with, whatever the terrible thing happened to be.


  Perhaps life was just trying to give the person a chance to examine the terrible thing and decide either to run away from it or face it head on.

  Levi and I stared at each other. Somehow, in some completely fucked up way, Carl Prentice, my abusive and toxic stepfather, knew that I was in New York City. More specifically, he knew I was spending time with or was in contact with Levi because he had threatened Levi.

  I felt watched, claustrophobic, horrified, and sick overall. Why was this happening? How could it even be happening?

  I stared at Levi until I couldn’t stomach it anymore, and then I went to the bathroom and emptied my stomach of its contents. It wasn't much, and I did more dry heaving than actually vomiting. I hadn’t had dinner after dropping in on the sex addiction group meeting. The only appetite I’d had after attending that was for sex, and I’d come home for Levi.

  That hadn’t gone well at all. It was just another complication in this shitty knot of a day.

  I groped blindly for a washcloth to wipe my mouth, my head still firmly held in the toilet bowl, and a damp one was pushed in my hand. I took it, ashamed. I hated when people witnessed my weaknesses. I hated my weaknesses even more than that.

  For whatever reason, anytime I thought too hard or got too caught up inside the frightening maw that opened inside of me from time to time, I got sick to my stomach. It was ironic, really. Carl had controlled me by messing with my mother’s medication, giving her certain pills that would interfere with others, making her vomit horribly. There was probably a connection there, between her throwing up and mine, but I wasn’t willing to give it much thought.

  It would probably make me vomit even more.

  “I’ll send out for some medicine for your stomach,” Levi was saying as I mopped my face with the washcloth. “Maybe our chef can make something light, like a broth, to see if we can put something in there.”

  “You fired all of your staff because of me,” I reminded him weakly — a fact I wasn’t proud of.

  “Damn it.”

  “Do you think they’ll come back?” I asked. “I hate that they had to be uprooted so suddenly.”

  “I hope so,” Levi said. “Now that we know who the person is who made the threat, and his relation to you, we know that the threat didn’t come from anyone in here.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand how you could fire them in the first place. You’ve known all of them for longer than you have me.”

  “I would do it again if I thought it would keep you safe,” he said, helping me to my feet. “I will protect you at all costs.”

  “Why?” This wasn’t his problem anymore. It was mine. The threat hadn’t come from some random psychopath jealous of Levi, jealous of his wealth and success. It had come directly from my past, from my deepest and darkest secret. He should’ve simply shaken himself free of me and gone on with his life without having to worry about me.

  God only knew what Carl was planning on doing. Even I didn’t know, and I probably knew him better than anyone.

  “Because I love you.”

  The declaration made me shudder. Levi had no idea what he was getting into. He didn’t understand that I was damaged beyond redemption.

  “You shouldn’t love me,” I said. “You should be disgusted with me. You should tell me to fuck off, to leave, to get out of your life. Carl isn’t your problem. He’s my problem.”

  We sat back down on the bed, the very same bed on which I’d forced myself upon Levi, forced him to fuck me because I wanted to feel good, to vanish my worries, for however temporarily, into a sweet climax.

  Even now, I hated myself. Thinking about his cock inside of my body was turning me on, inexplicably, in spite of all the drama swirling around us. I felt like if we could just have sex very quickly, if I could just spend a few long moments cultivating an orgasm with Levi, I would be able to think more clearly.

  Clearly, though, now wasn’t the time for sex. It was highly inappropriate.

  I sat on my hands, eager to do anything but think about sex, squirming under Levi’s gaze.

  “I know you don’t want to, but we need to discuss some things,” he said.

  “You don’t know how badly I don’t want to.”

  “But you were about to.”

  I had been about to tell him everything. About every twisted thing Carl had subjected me to. But now that I knew Carl was out there again, threatening me through Levi, I shrank inside of myself.

  “I don’t think I want to anymore.”

  “I meant what I said, earlier,” Levi said. “No matter what you tell me, I love you. Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me.” Levi took my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “Let me in. If I can understand what happened with you and Carl before, then maybe I can try to figure out what we need to do now.”

  There was one good thing about me mulling a full disclosure of what had happened with Carl. I was too nauseated to be horny. All of my sexual appetite had vanished.

  The thought that pushed me over the edge, that made me open my mouth and start giving a voice to my horror, was that the worst thing that could happen would be that Levi would be so stunned that he’d kick me out, not want anything to do with me, would end our relationship on principle. That would be a good thing. He shouldn’t be with me, once I told my secret. We’d go our separate ways. I’d disappear somewhere else, somewhere Carl could never find me, and if Carl ever happened to confront Levi about me, Levi could shrug and say he didn’t know where I was.

  It was the most ideal outcome. I had to make it happen with my truth. That’s why I decided to tell Levi everything.

  To drive him away from me.

  Chapter 15

  Once upon a time, there had been a happy family. Right off, just so we’re clear, that’s a lie. There are no happy families. Even the families who play nice in public, take perfect portraits together at Sears, volunteer at soup kitchens over the holidays — they’re not perfect. Out of the prying eyes of strangers, they snap at one another, aiming at the jugulars. They ignore one another, sequester themselves in their respective dens to avoid one another, choose others to spend time with. They get bored of one another, husbands fuck around on their wives, wives fuck around on their husbands, and everyone has secrets.

  My family wasn’t a perfect family. It tried to be a happy family, but there were so many obstacles.

  My parents’ relationship could best be described as rocky. I never knew the particulars of it, because most of that tumult had taken place prior to my conception. Matt didn’t remember a lot of it, and what little he did, he always preferred to keep to himself, choosing not to divulge the details he was privy to even when I asked.

  I was conceived in the hopes that I would be the glue my parents needed to keep the family they’d tried to make intact, but the divorce was over and done with before my nine months inside my mother were up. I never knew my real father — that’s how acrimonious the eventual split was. I never so much as saw a photo of him, or knew what he looked like. I could only imagine, when I got old enough to think to do so, by contrasting certain features Matt and I had from our mother’s — our auburn hair, for example, or Matt’s height, or my propensity to sneak around.

  Well, that last one was dubious. It was something my mother would say whenever I pissed her off or she figured out that I was hiding something from her.

  “You get that sneaking around from your father, not me,” she’d rage. “I always tell the truth.”

  But the three of us did have fun. Money was tight, so we rarely ate out or went to the movies or anything like that. We made happy memories together, cooking with our mother, telling one another stories, just cuddling on the couch, Matt and I doing our homework on either side of our mother, who contentedly read a romance novel, swatting me as I tried to read the pages of the tomes on the sly.

  We would’ve made it, our little family, even with its ups and downs, if our mother hadn’t gotten sick. H
er getting sick was a catalyst for everything that happened next, everything that tore us apart, that led to my personal horrors, to my mother dying, to Matt being killed.

  Her getting sick was how she met Carl.

  She came home from a doctor’s appointment one afternoon after Matt and I had just gotten dropped off at home from the bus. She was dazed, dropping down on the couch distractedly as we bickered about something. I don’t remember what it was my brother and I were arguing about anymore, just that we were going at each other over some superfluous something. My mother would usually nip our little fights in the bud right away, but she let it go on until I shoved my brother. I couldn’t have been much older than in junior high, putting him in the early years of high school.

  “That’s enough,” she said, but even that command didn’t carry the impetus that it usually did. What it did carry was the sense that something was wrong — very wrong.

  Matt and I stopped picking at each other and looked at my mother, who suddenly appeared very frail and very, very tired.

  “I hope you two would learn to get along,” she continued, not making eye contact with either of us, staring into some distant place. “I’m not going to be around forever, you know, to stop your bickering.”

  It was cancer, she later told us, and the treatments would upend everything. The things that were supposed to make her better instead made her so sick, and she’d spend entire days locked in the bathroom, made comfortable at her post in front of the toilet with thick comforters and pillows from her bed. We tiptoed around the house, cooked for ourselves, got food when the refrigerator was bare, went hungry when there was no money for food. We were small bodies in orbit around her illness, trying to tend to her, in vain, in the way children try to do things and fail because they just don’t understand how.

  Then came Carl.