“Two days before we left,” Peaches whispered.
“Do you know what he did to her?” Lance asked.
Peaches nodded but didn’t say anything. Fresh tears ran down her cheeks.
Finally, Deke growled, “Tell this man what the little bastard did to her.”
“No!” Cassie shouted as she jumped to her feet. Her face was pale and she was crying. “It’s my secret to tell or keep and I will not share it with anyone.”
Peaches got up and went to stand in front of Cassie. Putting her hands around Cassie’s face she whispered, “Please tell them. They want to understand why you hurt Robbie. It’s time to let go of your secret.” She leaned forward until her forehead touched Cassie’s. “You’ve protected that little bastard for too long. It’s time the truth was finally told. Please…”
Cassie wrapped her arms around Peaches. Turning her head, she stared at Lance. “After Mrs. Pierce beat the living hell out of me, she tied my hands together and dragged me downstairs again. When she tied the rope to the wall, I thought she’d leave me alone in the dark again. I was in so much pain from the beating I didn’t care. I thought about giving up and letting the darkness take me but I knew Peaches still needed me. Then Robbie came downstairs. He had a nasty look on his face. I could see it because the lights were still on. He came closer to me and began taking his clothes off. My mind went blank and I don’t really know what happened. When I came back from wherever I’d gone he was cutting me. The little bastard liked to cut people. The pain was unbearable and I couldn’t contain it. I screamed and didn’t finish until he was done. When he finally wiped the knife clean he told me everyone would know who and what I was from then on.”
“What did he mean by that?” Lance asked.
“He left scars on my body, just like his mother did that day,” Cassie said. Her words where whispered but everyone in the room heard them.
Deke frowned. He hadn’t noticed the scar she spoke about.
Peaches leaned forward and spoke softly, “You have to show them.”
Cassie backed away and began shaking her head but Peaches stopped her. “If you want the truth to come out, you have to show them what he did to you, what he planned to do to me the night we left.”
Cassie closed her eyes and knew she didn’t have a choice. She turned around and ripped the buttons of her shirt open. As she lowered the shirt from her shoulders, everyone in the room could see her skin. Exposed there on her back was her worst shame. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her whole back was exposed to their gazes.
She heard gasps and could imagine what these people were thinking. Most of her back was scarred by the belt she’d been beaten with. The worst of the scars had faded but were still there and would be until she died. The evidence of what Robbie had done to her was on her upper back along her shoulder blades. The letters were carved deep and had taken a long time to heal.
WHORE was the word Robbie Pierce had carved into her back.
Cassie broke down and ran down the back hall. She tried to pull her shirt back up to cover her shame. The door to Deke’s bedroom slammed and they all heard her sobs.
~* * * *~
Deke’s fingers crushed the shot glass in his hand until it shattered. The glass cut deep and his blood mixed with the liquor in the glass. In all the time he’d been with her, he had never taken the time to really see her. He never knew about the scars she carried. He hadn’t cared enough to look. No wonder she would curl up in a blanket.
Peaches sat down at the table but couldn’t look at anyone. “Robbie cornered me that day,” she continued the story Cassie had started. “There was no one else home. He thought Cassie was still tied up in the basement and he dragged me to the playroom. He ripped my clothes off and tied me up. Then he was getting his knife ready. He kept bragging that I would have the same brand as Cassie.” She swallowed hard. “I began to scream and Robbie was laughing at me. He told me I could make as much noise as I wanted. There was no one who cared, and no one who would stop him.” She shook her head. “He was wrong. Cassie was there. When I started screaming, she had broken through the ropes and came looking for me. I could see the blood on her wrists and at first, she couldn’t even hold the knife. Her fingers couldn’t wrap around the handle and she kept trying to grip it. Then she saw the look of terror on my face and she came after Robbie. I’ve never seen her s-so angry…” Peaches halted as she looked away and seemed to be reliving it.
The people in the room were silent and some looked pale while others looked enraged.
“When Robbie saw her, he backed away from me but she was having a hard time holding on to the knife. He thought she couldn’t hurt him but he was wrong. She cut him good. Rage had given her the strength to do what she thought had to be done. By the time she was finished, he was the one screaming. After she dropped the knife, she untied my hands and got both of us the hell out of there. She made a stop to get some food and bottled water, then she went to get the evidence she’d been collecting the past few months and went into the den. All of us kids knew we weren’t allowed in the den. Mrs. Pierce ordered us never to go into that room, but Cassie went in there and when she came back out, she had the book and some money.”
“What book?’ Lance asked.
“Part of her evidence was a small notebook that listed Mrs. Pierce’s activities,” Deke explained. “Money from sales and money paid out to the people in her network.”
“Sales? What was she selling?” Lance looked perplexed.
Deke stared at the man. “She was selling the babies in her care.”
Lance paled. “Does she still have the book?” he whispered.
Zipper broke away from his spot and grabbed everything he’d been searching through earlier. He dumped it on the table in front of Lance. With a disgusted grunt, he went back to where he’d been standing earlier.
“You can look at that shit but you ain’t taking it out of here unless Cassie gives you her permission,” Deke told him. “She’s trusting you with her life. Hers and Peaches and if you fuck her over, we will return the favor. Each man jack of us will hunt you down and take of piece of you.”
Lance brought his head up and stared at Deke. “Don’t worry, I won’t let them down. This Pierce woman may have friends but she doesn’t have you guys on her side. I think hell is coming for Mrs. Pierce.”
Deke nodded. “Do you remember those men you told us might be coming here after the girls?”
Lance continued to stare at him.
“One of them showed up last night. He shot one of my men and they shot back. We don’t know if he was hit or not, but those bastards are not getting to Cassie or Peaches. They belong to us now, and we will keep them safe.”
Lance shrugged. “Then you do whatever you have to do. I’ll let the local LEOS know what’s going on, so if they end up dead they won’t come after you guys.”
Deke let out a cold laugh. “Yeah, you do that. If those guys show up and we kill them, their bodies will never be found. On that you have my word.”
Lance glanced back at Peaches. “How did the two of you escape?”
Peaches shrugged. “There was no one else home that night, but Cassie wouldn’t take the chance anyone would stop us, so we went through the woods behind the house. The kids were afraid of those woods, so we never went there. Mrs. Pierce always told us there were dangerous people living in the woods and if we went there, they would get us. She said they would hurt us and finally kill us. But the truth was, she was the evil that would kill us.”
“Where did you go after you got away?” Lance asked.
“Cassie was in pretty bad shape. She hadn’t had the time she needed to completely heal from the beating and what Robbie did to her. She knew we needed to get away and she went as far as she could. We found a cave near the water and I made her stop. I cleaned her up the best I could and we stayed there for three days. I wanted her to stay longer but we ran out of food and water. We traveled at night because she didn’t want to be seen.”
“Where did you go after that?” Lance asked.
“We stayed in Boston for a couple of years. Living in the shadows, we learned to survive. Then one night Cassie was attacked. They hurt her bad before she got away from them. Two days after that, the bastards that hurt her came looking to finish the job, so she knew we couldn’t stay there anymore. We left Boston and followed the ocean south. We were in Rhode Island for a while, then went to Connecticut then we went back to Massachusetts for a while then we came here to New York.”
“How did you live?”
“We had some money in the beginning, but that only lasted a couple of years. Cassie got very good at stealing what she needed until we looked old enough to work. She would get jobs at fast food places. One thing she insisted on was for both of us to finish school. We both took online classes. We knew we couldn’t go to school, so we would visit the library every day and use their computers and we both passed the GED test when we were sixteen.”
Before anyone could say a word, they all heard a scream.
Deke and the others ran toward the bedroom where Cassie was.
Lance stood up as well but Wiley prevented him from following the others. “Why don’ you just sit here and wait?” Wiley suggested to the other man.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cassie slammed the door behind her. Picking up a shirt off the floor, she pulled it over her shoulders. The shirt she wore earlier wouldn’t close as she had ripped off the buttons. Tears streamed down her face and she stumbled toward the bed where she grabbed the blanket off and wrapped it around her shoulders. Walking over to the corner, she slid down the wall and brought her knees up. Wrapping the blanket around her, she laid her head on her knees and let shame and guilt wash over her.
Shame because of the word cut into her skin and guilt because of what she’d done to Robbie. She knew she shouldn’t feel either sensation but she could still remember her mother’s soft words. Do onto others as you would have do unto you. She could no longer see her sweet face but she did remember the sound of her voice. It never made sense since she had done to Robbie what he’d done to her, really.
Suddenly, she was pulled from her misery as someone grabbed her hair. For a moment, she couldn’t believe someone could just show up here in the room. Before he hauled her to her feet, her hands wrapped around something heavy. With the blanket hiding her body from him, she kept her hand hidden.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” The stranger asked. “Are you one of the bitches we came here to find?” Cassie struggled but he just tightened his grip until he had her on her tiptoes. “Now, now, none of that. Which bitch are you, Cassie or Peaches?” Then he shrugged. “You better be worth all this.”
“Who are you?” Cassie gasped. “How did you get in here?”
“Never mind that now.” He pulled on her hair again. “Ellie wants me to carry your sorry ass back to Boston…she’s willing to pay big bucks to get you back.”
Cassie sneered at him. “You’re one of her flunkies?”
The man grabbed her chin. His fingers bit into her skin and he wasn’t bothered when she hissed in pain. “I ain’t nobody’s flunky, bitch.”
Cassie narrowed her eyes. “Don’t touch me.”
The man laughed at her. ”Hell, I’ll do more than touch you bitch. Ellie said to bring you back to her alive, but she didn’t say anything about bruised and beaten.”
Just then, another man stuck his head in the window. “Come on Jeb, hustle it up. They’re bound to make another trip around the fence line soon.”
Jeb turned to glare at the man. “Get the fuck away from the window. Get back to cover. I’ll be right out with this bitch.”
As soon as the other man disappeared from sight, she raised the wrench. “I fucking don’t like people touching me!” She screamed as the wrench hit his skull.
Jeb dropped to one knee. Blood ran down the side of his face and when he looked up, he snarled. “I’m gonna enjoy beating the hell out of you, bitch!”
Cassie threw the blanket off her shoulders. Backing away a step or two, she held the wrench up with one hand and motioned for him to come after her. “Come on you bastard, come get me.”
Jeb rushed her and Cassie sidestepped him. She brought the wrench down on his back.
He fell onto the bed. He got back up and came at her again. He grabbed her by the arm and brought her close to him.
Cassie could feel the heat from his body and smell the stink of his breath. She shuddered in revulsion and stomped her foot down on his, when he grunted but didn’t move away, she brought her knee up then slammed him in the groin.
Jeb bent over in pain but still held her by the arm.
Cassie growled, “Let me go, you bastard.” Raising her hand up, she hit him in the head again with the wrench.
Jeb grunted and slid to the floor.
She raised her foot and kicked him several times in the ribs and back, but Jeb didn’t feel them. He laid there unconscious and bleeding.
Cassie raised her foot again to kick him when she heard pounding on the door. Her rage began to fade when she heard Deke calling her name. Dropping the wrench, she hobbled over to the door and slid the lock open. Throwing the door open, she fell into his arms.
Deke’s arms wrapped around her as he viewed his bedroom beyond her. He saw signs of a struggle complete with blood pooling around the man laid out of the floor. The window was open and there was a smear of blood on the bed. He could see the bloody wrench on the floor beside the man.
Cassie wrapped her arms around Deke. She was babbling as she pushed her face into his chest. ”I told him not to touch me. I told him. I told him.”
Deke leaned back so he could see her. “Are you okay baby? Did he hurt you?”
Cassie shook her head. “I told him not to touch me.” She kept repeating.
Deke turned with her in his arms. He saw Gator standing behind him. “Clean this mess up, get him the hell out of here.”
Cassie lifted her head. “There is another guy outside. He poked his head in the window and told this guy they had to leave.”
Zipper and several others took off for the main door.
Deke half carried Cassie out to his table. When she sat down, he knelt beside her and asked, “What the hell happened in here?”
Cassie shook her head. “I was sitting in the corner with my head down. I didn’t see him at all then he grabbed me by my hair and yanked me up. I didn’t even realize I had the wrench in my hand until I hit him with it.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Only that Mrs. Pierce promised to pay him to return us to Boston.”
Deke looked enraged. “What happened then?”
“He got mad at me when I called him a flunky. He grabbed my chin and I told him not to touch me again. He said he was going to enjoy hurting me and I kinda lost it.” Cassie shook her head. “I told him but he wouldn’t listen.”
Deke smiled and he had to chuckle. “Yeah…I’ll bet he wishes he would’ve listened.” He stood and walked her out to the main room.
They watched as Gator dragged Jeb’s body through the main room and out the door. Deke looked over at Lance. “Are we going to have a problem here?”
Lance shrugged. “I didn’t see anything.”
Deke gave him a nod, then glanced back at Cassie. “Are you gonna be okay if I leave for a little bit? I have some business to take care of.”
Cassie looked over at Peaches and nodded. “We’ll be fine.”
Deke got to his feet and turned to Wiley. “Watch over them.” When Wiley nodded, Deke turned to follow his men out the door.
~* * * *~
Deke strode over to where his men were standing in a circle. Pushing his way through their line, he viewed the two men inside.
Jeb was just coming to, but the other man was on his knees and sobbing. Someone had given him several deep bruises on his face and neck. “I had nothing to do with what happened. I never hurt the girl.”
“But you came her
e thinking you were gonna snatch her away from us, didn’t you?” Deke growled. “You would have hurt her given the chance.”
The man shook his head. “We were supposed to grab the girls and take them back to Boston, that’s all. That crazy dame wanted them alive. I have no idea what Jeb or Michael were going to do with them.”
Deke looked at Gator. “Then your name is Joey, right?” Deke then dropped his gaze at the man. When he nodded Deke asked, “Where is Michael?”
Joey turned his head and stared at the woods beyond the gate. “We had to leave him in the woods. Jeb won’t go back and carry him out. Mike shot at one of your guys last night and got hit by return fire. He got it good and he couldn’t meet up with us. I don’t know if he’s even alive anymore. He wasn’t looking so good the last time I saw him.”
“So, Jeb’s the type of man who’d leave a man behind, huh?” Deke scoffed. “What a nice guy.”
Joey shook his head. “He’s not a nice guy,” he stated with a shudder.
“Shut the fuck up, moron.” Jeb growled. Raising a hand to his head, he groaned. “What the fuck did that bitch hit me with anyway?” He didn’t bother looking around as he sat up. When he finally did raise his eyes he caught Deke’s cold gaze and gave him the finger.
Deke grabbed his hair and hauled him to his feet. “How does this feel asshole?” Deke felt blood running down his wrist as he shook the man he was holding.
“Fuck you bastard!” Jeb tried to spit in his face but Deke slammed his fist onto Jeb’s jaw.
Jeb groaned as Deke allowed him to fall to the dirt. He turned back to Joey. “What were you guys promised to grab the girls and take them back?”
“Mrs. Pierce promised us a hundred thousand dollars, but I think she promised Jeb something in addition to the money.”
“What makes you think that?” Deke wanted to know.
“As we were leaving, she took a ring off her finger and put it in his pocket,” Joey admitted. “Then she told him to have fun.”
Deke sneered at him. “Why are you giving up this info on your friends?”
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