The horror comes back in a heartbeat. I remember Heath blowing Eddie’s head off through the fog in my mind. Eddie’s dead. One of my worst tormentors—gone. But Henry’s still here, and now he has me alone. I don’t know what his intentions are, but they cannot possibly be good. He’ll rape and kill me to keep me from Heath.
“Are we on the subway?” I ask again.
“He’s stolen everything from me, my father, my sister, my home. He’s taken it all,” Henry mutters.
“Are we going to the city?” I adjust my eyes and look out the windows. The train runs above ground, and we’re outside. It’s still dark, but I have no idea how much time has passed since Heath kissed me goodbye. There isn’t another soul on this train to witness my demise.
“He took everything, so it’s only fair I take something from him. Just like Mom, Peggy didn’t know how to swim,” Henry muses.
I sit up straight and grab the locket sitting below my clavicle. Peggy, Heath’s mother. She was so kind to me, so generous with her time and affection after I lost my mother. I only have warmmemories of the woman who appeared out of the blue one day with a suitcase and a young Heath at her side, holding his hand.
This is my son Heath, Katelyn. I hope the two of you can get along. You’re exactly the same age.
Heath and Peggy were a welcome respite from my sometimes-distant father and Henry, who was always so hard on me.
At certain points in my life, I’d wondered if Henry had anything to do with my mother’s drowning, but I always took Peggy’s death at face value. I’d believed none of us were home when she fell from the top of the grand staircase at Wainscott Hollow and broke her neck. I wonder if an autopsy was performed. I do remember they couldn’t figure out why she’d been out swimming in her work uniform. Peggy’s death was eerily similar to Mother’s.
We always believed the story that our mother had walked into the waves.Ialways believed the story. She was a melancholic person, and subject to bouts of serious depression. I look at Henry’s white-knuckled hand biting into my wrist and become overwhelmed by a wave of nausea.
If I want the truth, I need to be brave. If I want to get out of this alive, I need to be smart.
“Did you kill Peggy, too, like you did Mom? The same way?” I try to make my voice steady, cheerful even. Henry has always thrived off of my fear of him. It makes him meaner, more vicious. My terror elevates his pleasure in torturing me.
“Sure, it was the easiest thing to do, force them into the water, let the waves do the rest.”
“But I thought Peggy fell.” Without flinching, I grasp and hold the locket on my neck.
“Some fisherman was out there, and I didn’t need a witness, so I tried to make it look like I was saving her. Had to drag her back into Wainscott Hollow. But when I got her back, she started choking up sea water like she wasn’t all the way dead. So I had to drag her up to the top of the stairs, and boom! Hence the broken neck. If we couldn’t have a mother, it wasn’t fair thathedid.”
We didn’t have a mother because he’d already killed her.
I shudder and say nothing, horrified by the mere fact that my body is touching his. Henry is as sick as he is repulsive.
“I don’t know why I have to do all the work in this family while you get to lay around like a damsel in distress. I’m doing all the heavy lifting, and you still got the nerve to let Heath get away with trying to destroy us. Both of you would be homeless and broke if it weren’t for me. How’d you think you got your inheritance? Dad would have never left you anything if he knew you were shelling out pussy to your own brother.”
Rage floods my veins like a rushing river, and my hands ball into fists. “You’re one to talk, Henry. At least Heath and I aren’t blood-related.”
“Semantics, my dear sister. Whores love cock, no matter who’s it is,” he says cavalierly.
I hate him. I hate him with every ounce of my being. He raped me and wants to pretend it didn’t ruin me, didn’t traumatize me beyond measure.
“You are even more delusional than I thought, Henry.”
“Oh, look, we’re here!”
The train screeches to a halt at the Coney Island stop. Fairgrounds? A spot our mother forbade us from visiting as children no matter how much we begged, citing general seediness and drunks to pacify our curiosity. Over the years, the excuses ranged from broken glass on the beaches to malfunctioning rides. Dad called it a haven for drug addicts and homeless people. It was Heath who assured me Coney Island was a fun place with rides next to the ocean, a boardwalk, and even an aquarium. He’d gone multiple times as a kid. What the hell does Henry want with this place? The park is closed at this hour. Maybe he wants to drown me on a beach far away from Wainscott Hollow. He’s killed everyone I’ve ever loved, and he’ll take me next.
He yanks me to standing and pulls me off the train. Shoves me from behind on the exit stairs, and I luckily grab the handrail to keep myself from falling on my face.
“I want you to fuck me on the beach, like you used to do for Heath back in the day. All romantic and shit. I know you whores go gaga for a romantic romp on the beach.”
Vomit and terror compete for space in the back of my throat. The station is completely deserted as is the dark street below. As we descend, my hope of a stranger intervening decreases. No one’s around, and if they are out at this hour, it’s because they’re not behaving either.
Underneath the elevated train, a few people mill about, but they’re down on their luck and not quite the type I’d hope would help out. Two homeless old men huddle by a barrel, warming their hands over a fire. A young girl on the corner in an impossibly short skirt lifts it to display her ass to the errant car driving by. An addict injects himself on the very last step and nods out, and keels over before we even reach him.
“This is going to be nice. A little sibling bonding time. I haven’t gotten my dick sucked in ages. Or even ass-fucked anyone since the last time you let me.”
Let him? I fought him tooth and nail every second.
