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"By... giving me to them," I admitted, choosing the words carefully, not wanting to voice the meaning behind them. Forced marriage. Rape. A life of unending misery.
"Fuck," Charlie hissed, dropping my chin, looking off over my shoulder for a long moment as the words landed, sank in, took root. "He's that evil?" he asked after a long moment, knowing the answer, but needing the confirmation.
"When I was five, screaming woke me up. I came downstairs to find him dragging my mother through the house by her hair," I admitted. For the first time. All the people involved knew. And no one had ever wanted to know more about the monsters surrounding me before enough to ask. "He pulled her outside. And there was a bang," I said, voice getting a little thick. "I didn't understand at the time. But he had shot her. Because she had gotten up the nerve to tell him she was going to leave him."
Charlie's gaze was back on my face, eyes sad. For me. For the life I had been raised in. For the losses forced upon me at a young age.
No one - save for Helga - had ever known, had ever cared. And, somehow, seeing that care reflected in his eyes made mine water.
I blinked them away hard.
"So, yes, he's that evil."
"Why are you still here, baby?" he asked, the endearment reminding my body of the sensations it felt toward him, making my sex tighten almost painfully.
"I've been trying to convince Helga to come with me. She's sick. But she's scared. She's... she knows whose blood is on his hands," I said carefully. "She says he will never let her go."
"I hate being this guy, Helen, but he won't. Let her go. He won't want to let you go either. But you can't incriminate him. She can. He'd look for you, but would give up. He'd search to the ends of the world to silence her."
A sharp, piercing feeling stabbed into my chest, so strong and sudden that my hand went there, pressing, sure my fingers would meet a bullet hole, a knife wound, something to explain the pain that was spreading, leaking through my entire system.
"I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head, reaching out to grab my hand, pulling it from my chest, giving it a squeeze. "I see you love her. But... I think you need to start seeing this through a different lens, babe. You're the daughter of a vicious drug dealer who will do whatever it takes to keep his own ass out of prison. If that means shooting some old lady - or his own daughter - he will do it. If he won't, your brother will. There is no room for soft in this hard kind of life."
He wasn't wrong.
That was maybe the worst part.
I had been too soft, too accommodating, too passive, simply modeling my life in such a way as to avoid a beating, not in a way that I wanted, that made me happy. Sure, I had my little rebellions, but they were quiet ones, ones that my father either didn't know about, or didn't think were worthy of the exertion that would come his way from beating me for them. Which made them all useless if you really thought about it.
I had to harden up.
I had to find my spine and reinforce it.
I had to live my life on my own terms.
Maybe there would be pain.
Maybe there would be fear.
Maybe I would become someone new after all was said and done.
But those were chances I had to face, challenges I had to endure, if I wanted my freedom, if I wanted to be able to have the things I was too beaten-down, too disenchanted to even think were possible for me.
A home where I was safe.
Friends.
And maybe, just maybe, I thought as I looked at Charlie, love, a family of my own, the chance to break the cycle, to create something beautiful out of all of this ugliness.
"I've been saving money," I admitted. "To go. I was going to go when I was eighteen, before Helga got sick. I think we both thought she might get better, that she would maybe be able to go with me. But she didn't get better. And I guess all that time in bed gave her time to think..." my voice trailed off. "I don't want to lose another mother," I admitted, the words wrenched from somewhere deep in my soul, the pain like a wound ripped back open, and I was bleeding inwardly.
"Look at me," he demanded, voice soft and firm at the same time - metal wrapped in velvet. "Helga isn't a young woman anymore, Helen. She's lived her life, for better or worse. You, however, have barely had a chance. You would have decades of torment if your father went through with his plan. Getting raped once is horrific enough an idea, but every day for the next twenty years? Bearing children, heaven forbid daughters who might, like you, end up pawns in this much larger game, to suffer a similar fate, can you imagine that life, Helen? Because it could very well be yours if you don't listen to her when she tells you to leave her. She would never forgive herself if that ended up happening to you. Only to have the eventual fate you know she is destined to after you are shipped away to South fucking America. I'm not trying to be an asshole here," he added when I flinched back from the truth in his words. "I just want you to understand where Helga is coming from, why she wants you to go without her."
