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I take my eyes from the road for a second to glance at her. Her eyes are glazed over as though she’s not quite crying, but almost there. “You wanted to?” I swallow back my fears. “He didn’t force you?”
She snorts, but doesn’t answer. “Did he force you, Lauren?”
Her voice is monotone as she answers. “Does it matter if he did?”
Fuck. “Of course it matters.” I’ve taught Lauren everything, but this I never thought about. I was quite content telling her of my sexual escapades with glamorous men and women, but it never occurred to me that she would have any interest beyond the theory of it. It’s not like she would have the opportunity. Shame fills me when I think back to what little I’ve taught her about the world. How sheltered she truly is. It’s not my fault that she’s been locked away for so many years, but it’s my fault I didn’t teach her more. Look after her better. I did what I could. It wasn’t enough. I made the mistake of seeing her as an extension of myself. A hidden secret part of me instead of a full bloodied woman in her whole right. If Josh and his friends hurt her, I’ve only got myself to blame.
“He didn’t force me,” she whispers. She licks her lips and turns to me. “I wanted him. I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do or how to be. I didn’t know anything, and I certainly didn’t know how to be me, so I became you.”
I knew that. It was obvious when they opened the door that they didn’t know who I was, or at least, they didn’t know who Lauren was. I wonder how Josh must have felt when he first saw me after all these years? He probably felt the same shock I felt when I saw him in the paper. Did he feel the same sense of loss of what could have been? The same heart wrenching pain? The flutters of excitement. Ha. He obviously felt more than flutters. Josh and I finally had sex, and I wasn’t even there. It wasn’t even me.
“Lucy?”
“Hmm?” I reply.
“Please don’t hate me.”
I reach across and take her hand. “I don’t hate you. I don’t hate you at all. I hate myself and I hate Josh for doing that to you, even though you did want it.”
“You don’t hate Josh,” she whispers. “You love him. You always did.”
I’ve not talked about Josh for years. It was always too painful, but my sister knows me better than I know myself.
“I love you.” I squeeze her fingers and elicit the first smile from her since we set off. Josh has obviously gotten under her skin the way he’s under mine, but he’s in our past. He’s history.
“I love you too, Lucy.”
I turn to give her a smile, but as I do, there’s a flash of black behind her. I don’t have time to process it before I’m violently slammed to the side of the car. Someone has crashed into the side of us. The road ahead is clear, so it’s no accident. Lauren screams as we’re hit again. I try to keep control, but after the third hit, I swerve off the road. The car skids down a ditch before rolling. My brain rattles round in my skull as we rotate over and over. I lose count and then I lose everything. It all goes black.
* * *
“Come on, princess. Wake up. You’re no good to the boss if you die.”
I flutter my eyes open. The pain is unbearable, and it takes me a few seconds to focus on the man holding me. He’s upside down. No, I’m upside down. I turn my head swiftly to the side. I’m still buckled in the car. The passenger seat is empty. Glass is everywhere.
Panic washes over me. “Where is she? Where’s Lauren?”
I recognize the man now. He works for my father. He’s not one of his main men, but I’ve seen him around. I don’t even know his name.
“Don’t worry about her, princess. You’ll never have to see her ever again.”
40
THE BEGINNING
Lauren- One week earlier
“This is our only chance, Lauren,” Lucy says, encouraging me to move from the bed. Panic laces her voice in a way I’ve never heard before. If Lucy is scared, then there’s good reason to be. She takes my hand and draws a pattern in the palm in the way she used to when we were young. Before I could speak. Before I knew how to communicate at all. The feel of her fingertips sooths me and reminds me that it’s just me and her. That it’s always been just me and her. Three presses follow. We are ok. We are totally fine.
Fear holds me in a vice-like grip, but a twinge of excitement propels me forward. Today is the day I’m going to feel the sun on my face for the first time. Today is the first time I’m going to breathe fresh air. Today is the first day of my twenty years that I’m going to live. I’ve never been more terrified and more excited in my life.
“Father is out. He’s not really the problem anyway. He doesn’t give two shits about either of us, at least not in private,” Lucy says as she guides me from my room. A room I’ve inhabited since the day I was born. I count the steps to the door. They feel more urgent than they have ever done before, but the number remains the same. Seven steps to the door. Fourteen steps to the outer door and seventeen steps to the bathroom. I won’t be going to that bathroom ever again. Today I’ll go through the outer door. I try to focus on what Lucy’s telling me, although she’s speaking to herself as much as she’s speaking to me. This has been planned for weeks, ever since Father announced that he was having the security system updated and there would be a two hour break between the old security system being taken down and the new one getting up and running. I know she’s as nervous as I am. If things go wrong, I won’t be punished. Or at least I won’t be punished any more than I’m used to. Lucy is the one that gets to have her legs and arms painted black and blue in the shape of our father’s fists. It doesn’t happen much anymore because Lucy has learned to toe the line, but if he finds out what we are about to do, I hate to think what will happen.
I focus on the part about him being away. Some business trip or other. The monster can’t hurt either of us if he’s in another city, another state, another country.
I’ve never met our father. I’ve lived in the same house as him my whole life, but from the day I was born, he has never laid eyes on me. Not knowing him doesn’t limit the fear I have of him. If anything it makes it worse. I wonder if I’d met him, would I feel less scared. I doubt it. Lucy has to deal with him all the time and I can feel her terror of him by the way her hand trembles.
The outer door opens. My heart gives a small flutter. A muscle memory. The door opening usually means Lucy is here to visit with me, but of course she’s already here. This time the sound of the door opening is the sound of freedom.
