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33
River
A day or two later,I haven’t had any luck tracking down other sex workers who seem to have had interactions with Ivan. I don’t know if they’re all clamming up, or if that bastard is just really good at covering his tracks, but either way, it’s frustrating as hell.
This is the one way in that I haven’t tried yet, and I want it to pan out.
Finally, something goes right, and I get a message from Avalon.
Meet me at the diner tonight. I should be done around 1 a.m.
It shakes me out of the bad mood I was in, and I get ready and head out at the right time.
She’s already at the diner when I get there, a steaming cup of tea and a slice of pie in front of her. Even all dressed up for work, she still looks young and afraid, but I settle across from her, letting her direct this meeting so I don’t scare her off.
Avalon has a sip of tea and a bite of pie and then looks at me. “I want to know why you want to know about Ivan St. James,” she says. “Most people who ask questions about him are…” She sighs. “Well, they don’t have good intentions. And I don’t really want to stick my neck out and get burned if this blows up.”
She chews on her lip, looking like she’s debating saying more, but then decides against it, going quiet and waiting for me to speak.
The fear and uncertainty are there in her big blue eyes, and I can understand where she’s coming from.
She’s in a vulnerable position, already working a job where she doesn’t get a lot of protection at all. If something were to go bad, I highly fucking doubt her pimp would protect her. And she doesn’t know me at all, so she doesn’t have a lot of reason to trust that I’m not about to do something stupid and drag her down with me.
Even with that, my impulse is to lie. To make up some story or refuse to tell Avalon anything.
But I know that won’t work.
She’s risking a lot by even meeting with me, and if I want her help, then I need to tell her the truth.
And probably the whole truth, too. The guys know that I have a grudge against Ivan for some reason, and that he’s the last on a list, but I haven’t told them any more than that. And I don’t plan to.
There’s no point to it, when I don’t need them for anything. But… to gain Avalon’s trust, I can be honest.
Even if I really don’t want to.
I suck in a breath and tap my fingers on the table. “One day, when I was sixteen, I came home from school, and there were these two men in my living room. My dad was there, which was already weird. Usually, he wasn’t around when I got home, and I’d have to fend for myself. But he was there, and he looked scared shitless. More than that, he wouldn’t look at me. I kept asking him what was going on, who these guys were, but he wouldn’t look at me. It was like he was ashamed or something.”
Just talking about it makes those memories rise up so clearly in my mind. I can picture the way he just kept staring down at the scuffed floor, acting like he couldn’t hear me. Those two dudes stood there looking menacing, as if my dad tried one thing, they’d snap his neck or something.
I swallow hard, wrestling down the monsters that crawl around inside my head.
Avalon watches me with those big eyes, waiting for me to continue.
“I knew it was bad because of that. Or at least, I thought I did. I was holding it together, and then they grabbed up my sister. Then I lost it. I was trying to fight them off, trying to get to her and get her away from them. But they ended up knocking me out.”
I lick my lips, thinking about how my vision went dark and I was still reaching out, trying to get to Hannah. It’s like I can hear her, screaming my name, begging me to wake up. And the whole time, our dad just stood there, letting it happen.
At the time, we didn’t really understand what was happening. We didn’t know why he didn’t help us, or why he’d let them take us. But they made sure we knew later. It was one of their favorite things to tell us, how all of this was happening because our dad had fucked up, and we were paying the price for it.
“When I woke up, I was locked up in a basement. With Hannah, my sister. I didn’t know where we were, or what was happening, only that there was no way to get out. And believe me, I tried. That first hour, I tried every way I could think of to get the door open or find a window, but we were locked in. I didn’t have a plan for how we were going to get away once we were out, but I knew I had to do something. Hannah was crying her fucking eyes out, just terrified, and I was fucking scared too, but I was trying to be strong for her. I was trying to protect her, since our dad didn’t.”
Not that it ever did much good.
“What happened?” Avalon asks in a whisper, looking like she’s almost afraid to hear the answer.
I let out another breath. “Over the next several months, six men tortured and assaulted me and my sister. Whatever cruel shit they could think of to do, they did it. They liked to watch us squirm. Liked it when we cried. I learned not to soon enough, to hold it together until they were done, so they at least couldn’t get off on that. But Hannah had a harder time. I tried to protect her. Tried to make them come after me instead. I’d act out and call them cowards, whatever I could do to draw their attention away from her. But… sometimes I think I just made it worse for her. Like I made her seem more precious and coveted by trying to get them to leave her alone. It just made them obsess over her more.”
“That’s horrible. That’s—” She shakes her head, at a loss for words.
