She’s gone.
She left over an hour ago.
And I’m on my third Peach Street. I’m angry and disgusted and brokenhearted. What were Dad and Uncle Ry thinking? My past is mine. Fucking mine. Not theirs. They had no right to tell Ashley.
I throw my empty low-ball glass against the wall. The crash sends shards of clear glass flying. Fuck Peach Street. I don’t deserve fine bourbon. I want that rotgut at the dive in Grand Junction. My gaze falls on the book of poetry from my birth father’s place. I pick up the book and send it flying after the glass.
“Fuck!” I roar.
Images. Sounds. Voices. Hot breath. Searing pain. Torturous humiliation. My determination—sheer willpower—and then…
Finally the thoughts come rioting into my mind.
That last time… The time I don’t think about…
The time they broke me.
“Had enough yet?” Higher Voice rams into me with a broom handle.
They’ve both raped me before. I’m used to it. Numb to it, even. I can escape in my head, think about going home. About escaping.
But today is different.
Today it’s a broom handle.
I squeeze my eyes shut, grit my teeth. Determined. Determined to take everything they gave.
Determined, because it saves my little brother. Can’t last forever. Can’t last forever.
Finally it’s over, and I open my eyes slightly. It’s covered in blood. My blood.
I close my eyes once more.
They’ll leave me alone now. What more can they do?
They’ve beaten me, whipped me, raped me.
What else is there?
“He’s strong, the little fucker,” Low Voice says.
“Even the strongest can be broken,” replies High Voice.
Though I’m determined not to cry out, I can’t help it when a whip comes down on my cheek.
“There you go,” High Voice says, invisible slime oozing from his tone. “Made you scream.”
I press my lips together. I won’t scream again. I will not.
The leather whip comes down on my cheek once more. Will I have a scar? So far, they’ve been careful not to scar us—at least not where anyone can see. Don’t care. Donny’s safe.
High Voice pries my lips apart. I know what’s coming, and I hate it. Can’t breathe when they do that. I always vomit afterward, but there’s nothing in my stomach today. I get ready. Ready for him to shove himself into my mouth, but instead—
He grabs my tongue and slices into it with a sharp blade.
I cry out again, but it sounds like a muffled “waaagghh” because he’s still holding my tongue.
“You don’t really need this, do you, bitch?” High Voice says. “The more room in there, the better.”
Blood from the cut dribbles out of my mouth. Oddly, my tongue doesn’t hurt any worse than if I’d bitten it myself. I try to breathe, but he’s holding on to my tongue, and I choke, coughing and sputtering, and then—
I retch. Bile burns my throat, and High Voice lets go of my tongue. He boxes my ear for good measure.
“Back on your knees, little bitch,” Low Voice says. “We’ve got a surprise for you.”
I don’t move. I never do. I learned long ago that they eventually move me where they want me. I won’t be a willing participant in this. Not ever.
Strong hands grip my hips, and soon I’m back in the position they wanted. I’m sore, but I’ve been sore since that first time. They can go and go and go, but eventually the pain can’t hurt any more than it already does. Right now I’m glad I still have a tongue.
They can shove something else in there. It won’t hurt any worse at this point. Doesn’t matter anyway. I’m ready to die. Donny and I made the pact. If a gun were within reach, I’d grab it and end this torment.
Except I won’t. I know that as soon as the thought crosses my mind.
Because then they’ll turn on Donny.
Only Donny has an out from the pact. I never will, as long as my brother lives. I’ll die protecting him.
I brace myself for the intrusion that will inevitably come.
I wait.
And wait.
I hear a door open, and a whoosh of warmer air blows over me. I relish in it for the few seconds I feel it.
Since the lukewarm shower that first day, warmth is a luxury Donny and I have been denied.
It’s gone too soon, of course, and then I suck in a breath as something cold and spiky trails over my tender back.
They’re going to beat me again.
I suck in what little breath I can, trying to ready myself for something I’ll never be ready for.
But the blow doesn’t come.
Instead—
“No!” I cry.
Something tears into the already sore flesh inside me.
My insides are being ripped apart. I’ll never heal from this. Never be whole again.
“Made you scream, bitch!” Low Voice squeals. “Little bitch, that’s what you are. You’ll always be someone’s little bitch.”
I scream again and again. “Stop! Please! It hurts! Mommy, where are you! They’re hurting me!”
“Take it, bitch,” High Voice says. “Take it all.”
Needles, broken glass, sharp talons… They’re all inside me, scraping out my insides and letting them bleed onto the cold concrete floor.
Take it. Take it. Take it.
“Break, you little bitch! Give in!”
The words fly around me as they continue to torture me with the object I still haven’t seen. Don’t want to see.
Until—
“Stop!” I finally cry out. “No more. No more.”
“More,” Low Voice says. “More until you break.”
I’m already broken. I’ll never heal from this. Has to stop. No more. No more.
Tears fall down my cheeks. My nose runs, snot flowing onto the concrete floor.
Can’t. Can’t be strong anymore. Need it to stop. Stop. Stop.
“Please,” I cry. “No more. Do it to someone else! Anyone else!”
“To your little brother?” The pain continues, cutting through every part of me.
No. Won’t say it. Won’t say it. Won’t…
“Yes! Just stop! Please!”
And finally, it stops.
“Dale!”
I’m curled into a fetal position, lying among the broken glass, clutching my birth father’s book.
It’s out.
My deepest, darkest, dirtiest secret.
I threw my little brother to the wolves when I couldn’t take the torture anymore.
I broke.
And I’ll never be whole again.
So long this secret had lain dormant inside me, but now…
Now I feel.
I feel, and my self-hatred is more torment than anything those evil psychopaths did to me.
I deserve nothing good.
Nothing.
And that’s what I’ll get.
“Dale!”
The voice. I know it.
It’s my father.
My father, who helped me escape the torture.
Days passed—I don’t know how many. They dragged Donny away, and all I did was sit in a corner and imagine what horrific acts they were doing to his little body.
Because I told them to.
“Dale!”
I open my eyes. Talon Steel stands above me.
Talon Steel—the man who rescued my brother and me and made us his sons.
My savior. The savior I couldn’t be to my brother.
The heinous picture I’ve kept buried inside for so long. It’s out. I knew the day would come. I tried to fight it off for Ashley, but she awakened too much inside me.
And now I’ll pay the ultimate price.
“Dale! Get up!”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m not getting up. Not for anyone. Not for Dad. Not for Donny. Not even for Ashley.
It’s over. I’m over.
“God damn it, Dale, pick your fucking ass up!”
Strong arms grip my shoulders and haul me out of the family room and down the hall to my library. He forces me into a burgundy velvet wingback chair by the window. The library? This chair? Why not my office? Why not leave me in the family room?
“For Christ’s sake! This is enough, Dale. God damned enough.”
“I can’t do it, Dad. I can’t.”
“You’re going to sit there, and you’re going to tell me everything that’s going on inside that head of yours.”
“You won’t understand.”
“Damn it, Dale. I’m the only one who will.”