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She doesn’t do social media so I can’t look in on her. But I try to imagine her happy. Even though I know it’s probably a fucking lie. After all she went through… for years… To this day, I don’t know how many years my father sexually abused her.
Darren looks toward the window. “I tried. In the beginning.”
I gave him her number and email right after she moved. I figured she should have some tie to the only part of her family that wasn’t fucked up. Or that wasn’t me. If there was one gift I could give my sister after all she went through, it was never having to see my face again.
I look exactly like my father.
Sometimes when I look in the mirror in the morning I feel a rush of rage and self-hatred so violent that I’ve broken at least two mirrors by punching them.
“Did she talk to you?”
Darren shakes his head. “It just went to voicemail. She never opened my emails, either.”
I swallow and nod. “She needed a clean break.”
“From what?” Darren looks at me and takes a step closer. “Dylan, what happened?”
The cocky, self-assured guy from minutes ago is gone. It’s my little brother standing in front of me now. The same little brother who would grab hold of my legs and look up at me, eyes wide and scared when I ushered him and Chloe out to the back yard after Dad started yelling and I knew what would follow.
“I know it was something bad,” he says. “Something with Dad. And Chloe. He was never the same after she left and then just months later he had another heart attack when he’d been doing fine for years.” He gets right in my face. “I’m not stupid. I knew what went on in that house. Dad hit her, didn’t he? He hit Chloe and you found out? Then you got her out of there?”
I turn away from him again and he grabs my shoulder in an iron grip, swinging me back around to look at him. “Stop it. I’m not a little kid anymore. You don’t have to protect me.”
“Yes I do!” I shout, shoving him off me. “I do.” I back away, shaking my head. “I do. Believe me, it’s better this way.”
It’s better if he never has that image in his head. So much better if all he has are suspicions that Dad hit Chloe. Jesus if only it had been that. If I can save him from the sick details of what actually happened, then by fuck, I will, no matter the cost.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” I mutter and stride out the door and into the hallway.
Still, his voice carries. “So you’re just going to run away? Dylan.”
Please don’t run.
I squeeze my eyes shut after I punch the down button on the elevator.
I could be your safe place.
She’s wrong. She’s so wrong.
No place is safe.
Because the memories and the monsters?
They follow me wherever I go.
Nine
MIRANDA
“I don’t need a man anyway,” I shout to be heard above the club music, sloshing margarita over the edge of my cup. It spills down my fingers. “Oh, shit.”
I giggle and slurp the frozen margarita slush that’s slipping down my wrist.
Daniel rolls his eyes and leans in to shout so I can hear him. “You are a mess and you so need a man.”
My mouth drops open as my eyes shoot back to Daniel. “Do not even start with me.”
Daniel just crosses his arms over his chest and lifts one eyebrow like, oh yeah? “Then why are you wearing that little black dress and flashing so much thigh half the club is fucking you with their eyes? Plus, you only drink tequila when you’re hoping to get some.”
“Wha—? I am not.” I jerk down on the hem of my dress. Okay so the dress might be a tad on the teensy side. “And everyone knows Chandelier has the best tasting Margaritas this side of Market street.”
“Uh huh.”
I make a face at him, then look around. “Where’s Irina, anyway? Shouldn’t she be here and, I don’t know, like putting you in chastity or whipping your ass for even looking at these other women?”
Daniel gives a long-suffering sigh. “I wish. I ordered these new specialty silver ball crushers I’ve been wanting to try out with her but she just says she’s been busy all week so we’ve only been able to play over Skype. If I just wanted to shove a dildo up my own ass and spank myself, I wouldn’t need her in the first place. But that shit barely gets me off. It’s fucking ridiculous.”
Daniel is my best friend and one dirty mofo. I’ve watched him scene a few times at The Dungeon. He loves all aspects of being dominated by women. Well, as long as that woman is a serious sadist. Nobody loves pain like my boy Daniel.
