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Someone I couldn’t escape from no matter how hard I tried
. Not in my dreams and not in my nightmares.
Only this wasn’t either.
This was real.
“What did I tell you, Father?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.
“What? What are you talking about you stupid girl?”
“I told you never again. You’ll be sorry,” I said. And then I began laughing. High and loud.
“Why the hell are you laughing. I’ll give you something to laugh about!”
The door crashed open, slamming against the wall.
His eyes widened as he turned to see Finn’s massive body standing in the doorway.
“That’s why,” I whispered as Finn launched himself at my father who’d morphed back into Sterling the second Finn laid hands on him.
“Get your hands off of me,” Sterling growled as Finn tossed him out the door and off the deck, landing on his side. He rolled over, grabbing his arm. “You’re fucking her aren’t you?” Sterling asked with a manic laugh. “It fucking figures.”
Finn’s eyes were as dark as I’d ever seen them. His fingers flexed and his chest heaved as he glared hatred down at Sterling who was on the ground, wiping blood from the corner of his lip.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Sterling said with laughter that had an edge to it.
“Is HE why you won’t fuck me?” Sterling asked me. Finn’s eyes followed to where I was standing in the doorway then back to Sterling who was attempting to stand.
“Glad I found out now before things went too far,” he snarled, stepping up to Finn. “The last thing I want is the famed Finn Hollis’s sloppy seconds…again.”
Finn’s fists clenched together. I stepped up to Finn, placing my hand on his. He turned to me and looked down to where my hand was on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”
Finn gave me a sharp nod, hopped down from the deck and grabbed Sterling by the shirt with one hand and began to pummel him with his closed fist. He roared like an animal, a sound I could feel deep within my gut. Blood sprayed from Sterling’s nose.
Bone cracked.
Finn lifted him up by his shirt into the air then shoved him back into the ground.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Finn seethed.
“She’s all yours,” Sterling said, stumbling and coughing, blood gushing from his nose and lip. “Little slut has too many of those goddamned ugly freckles anyway.”
Finn took a single step to Sterling and punched him across the jaw. Sterling fell onto his back on the ground with a groan and a gurgle.
“If you ever try and lay a hand on her again… If you ever talk to her again… You won’t come out breathing next time. I’ll tether you to a tree in the swamp where no one will be able to hear you scream.”
“You going to kill me the same way you killed Jackie?” Sterling rasped. “Did he tell you about her Sawyer? Did he tell you how he killed his fiancée?” Sterling snarled as he taunted Finn who looked like his eyes were bulging out of his head. His neck was corded. Sterling chuckled “At least I got a taste first.”
Finn sent one last punch to Sterling’s face and his entire body stilled. No more gurgling. No more groaning.
Finn stood, grabbed his phone from his back pocket and held it to his ear. I didn’t understand the words he was saying to the person on the other end. I only heard something that sounded like waves in the ocean loud in my ears. A wet kind of static.
I didn’t realize I’d been crouching down behind the side of the house until Finn approached, putting his phone away.
“Did…did you kill him?” I asked, my voice shaking. I stood and took a few steps back from Finn whose expression switched from murderous to confused.
Finn reached out his hand to me and I zoned in on the blood across his knuckles. When he realized what I was looking at he pulled it back but it was too late.
I was already running.
I ran from Finn. I ran from Sterling. I ran from the past.
I was in a full sprint by the time the full weight of a memory crashed into me like a wave, pulling me under and holding me deep beneath the surface.
Drowning me.
“Does it hurt when he hits you, Mommy? It sounds like it does.”
“No. It doesn’t hurt. I go to my safe place. He can’t hurt me there. No one can.”
“What’s it like in your safe place?”
“It’s warm and sunny. There are birds and alligators and all sorts of animals there.”
“What is your safe place called, Mommy?”
“It’s called Outskirts, but that’s our secret. You can’t tell a soul, not even your father.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Good.”
“Hey, Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Outskirts is a silly name.”
“Yes, it is, darling. Yes, it is.”
“Caroline!” Father called from downstairs.
Mother gave me a kiss on my forehead.
“Don’t go,” I begged.
“Don’t worry. It will be over soon. I told you. I’ll just go to my happy place.”
“Because he can’t hurt you there? In Outskirts?”
“Exactly,” Mother said, getting off my bed. “Your father can never hurt me when I’m in Outskirts.”
The storm rolled in. The thunder boomed. I held the blanket over my head, but no matter how loud the thunder boomed it couldn’t drown out the sound of shattering glass. Whimpers. Angry demands.
The crack of leather against skin.
Defeated cries, that I’d later realize, were my own.
“Sawyer! Sawyer! Say!” My body shook and I blinked rapidly to find a man lying on top of me, his chest heaving. His fingers digging into my skin. I glanced around at the heavily wooded area surrounding me then back to the man.
In my mind, I saw Sterling. My father.
I panicked.
I fought.
I screamed.
“Get off of me!” I kicked my legs and flailed my arms. “I won’t let you hurt me anymore. I won’t let anyone hurt me!”
My fists were caught in the air, bound together in one big strong hand.
