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I snort, shaking my head as Xander looks back and forth between me and Emery. “Yeah, no. I’m going to pee. Watch them.” Not giving him a chance to further argue, I head towards the locker room doors. As I reach them another player I vaguely recognize comes out and I grab the door and slip in behind him.
The locker room doesn't look how I would expect it to look at all. Or I guess, behind the doors isn’t what I expected because I’m not actually in what I would call a locker room. It’s more of a wide hallway with several doors on both sides.
Another player comes out of one of the doors on the right. That must be the boys’ locker room. I might just go straight in there after peeing so I can yell at Baylor for making me wait. I find the restroom on the right like Wilder said. The player nods to me as he passes, as if it isn’t all that odd for someone to be back here. There are few people milling near the door he just came out of, but other than a passing glance, no one seems to be paying all that much attention to me.
Thank fuck. Knew it wasn’t going to be that big of a deal.
There’s nothing quite like relieving your bladder after holding it for so long. I honestly think it may have been the best pee of my damn life. I really don’t know if I would have been able to hold it any longer. Baylor is going to pay for taking so damn long. Of all the days to lag.
After washing my hands, I head back to the exit, debating if I should go into the locker room or back out to where the rest of family and friends wait. I hesitate in the hallway outside the bathroom for just a second. Just one moment. But before I can even make a decision, a hand wraps around my mouth and pulls me back into a large and unfamiliar frame.
“Look who finally decided to be a good girl and come find me.”
The stench of cigarettes engulfs me, nearly choking me as his grip on my face tightens. Smothering the sounds I make. His words ring in my ears.
Good girl. Good girl. Good girl.
It tugs on memories buried deep in my psyche. All but forgotten as years and years have passed since I’ve heard those words in that tone. Since my senses have been overwhelmed by the scent of ash and smoke.
You’re going to be my good girl, aren’t you Torryn? Your mother just doesn’t get it, but you do. Don’t you, Ryn? You’re always my good girl. Why did you have to mess everything up for us? You broke the rules and now there are consequences. You never should have told your mother. Why did you have to stop being Daddy’s good girl?
Glass shatters, tires screech, my mother screams my name and then I’m weightless, everything turning black. Confusion and fear paralyze me as my brain tries to catch up to what is happening. The flashes of memories I’m still trying to comprehend.
“I’ve been waiting years to get my hands on you again,” he growls behind me. The sound of his voice sending goosebumps over my skin. “You’ve been smart playing your games, using those boys to hide behind.” He scoffs in disgust and my eyes glaze over with tears as his nails dig into my cheek. “You were always my good girl, so why did you turn into such a whore like your mother?” He shakes my face. “Huh?” he demands.
My feet scuffle under me and it hits me that we’re no longer in the hallway. He’s dragged me off into another room, but I can’t even begin to guess where. Fuck. Every nerve is screaming, my brain working faster than I can keep up with. Bits and pieces coming together to try and create a picture I still don’t understand. I try to take a deep breath. Anything to get my brain working again, but it’s almost impossible with the way he’s holding me.
“But you finally came to me on your own. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
No.
There’s still so much confusion. So much fear. My body is not going into fight or flight but the very worst option, freeze. Familiar panic makes my heart race. Why is this all so fucking familiar?
Nothing makes sense in this moment, but all I do know is I need to get away.
My gaze flies wildly around the room, trying to figure out where it is he’s dragged me off to. There are pucks, hockey sticks, random boxes filled to the brim, some water coolers. This must be some kind of storage room. I keep my eyes locked on the hockey stick, just something to keep me grounded. I do my best to block out his words, to erase the smell from my mind, and put all my focus into reaching that hockey stick. It isn’t far, only a few steps away.
He’s stopped dragging me, but that’s almost worse because I think I know what happens next. What always happened behind closed doors, in dark rooms, when no one else was around. But I’m not a child anymore. Not helpless and naive any longer. I don’t need to be scared of a father I forgot I had. I can fight back.
I will fight back.
His grip loosens as he begins to readjust his hold on me. It’s the exact opportunity I need, opening my mouth, I bite down, catching one of his fingers. I sink my teeth in deeper and don’t release even as he shouts and tries to pull away, not until I taste the coppery tang of blood on my tongue.
Instinctively he shoves me away from him as soon as I release his hand. I turn to face the man that haunted my nightmares as a child. I still can barely wrap my head around the fragments that have come back to me, but I don’t need to remember to know this man in front of me is evil. That he made my life and my mother’s life a living hell.
Gray streaks his brown hair, but he’s still just as tall as I remember him. Towering over me even more than Baylor does. His frame somehow seems even wider, not an ounce of body fat anywhere on him.
It takes less than a second for me to take all of him in. To accept the man in front of me, the man who has been stalking me, harassing me, who stole my mother’s jewelry box is right here in front of me. Is my father.
His hand flies up out of nowhere, back handing me across the face and sending me stumbling a few feet to the left. Fuck. Pain explodes in my cheek, making my head pound and my eyes water. But it snaps me out of my daze.
The hockey stick. Just focus on the hockey stick.
He lunges after me, just barely missing me as I aim for the hockey stick. I get my fingers wrapped around it just as my father grabs ahold of my hair and yanks me back. I bring thehockey stick with me, turning and swinging it as I aim for the side of his head. It collides with him, the force I hit him with makes my hands vibrate as the hockey stick breaks in half.
He stumbles backward, blood dripping from his temple. I tighten the grip I have on the broken hockey sticker and scream as loud as I can. The force, making my throat ache, but I refuse to stop even as my father lunges at me again.
I swing the fragment I have like a bat, but he takes the hit with his forearm, knocking it away and tackling me to the ground. Sweat slides down my back as fear pulses through me. I attempt to roll away from him, but he grabs a fistful of my hair, pulling me back so hard my head bounces off the hard floors. His large body presses me into the flooring, pinning me with his weight as I struggle to catch my breath.
