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CHAPTERTHREE
Ididn’t know when I had separated myself from what was happening. One moment I was gripping the edges of the table to the point I thought the bones in my fingers would snap, and the next, I saw Stefan staring down at me. Even as the belt continued to lash at my back, bruising and tearing open my skin, everything in me relaxed. The pain became nothing more than a shadow in the back of my mind. It was still there, but it was as if Stefan was a light holding the shadow back.
My father stared down at me, hands stuffed in his pockets with an unreadable expression. “Maura.”
The comfort of hearing his voice pulled at me and the sight of dirty carpet and stained walls faded. I found myself sitting in the chamber with Stefan in his seat and me in mine.
I glanced around the room and found buzzing darkness surrounding us like a veil—blocking out the rest of the world. Somehow, I knew if I stared too long, the veil would fade and show me what I didn’t want to see. I stared back at Stefan.
I knew what I was seeing wasn’t real. Just a trick of the mind to protect myself.
I took in the features of Stefan’s face, committing it to memory, which was silly because who I was seeing was a memory. I ran my hand over the surface of the table. It felt as I remembered, smooth but with small, thin crevices here and there. So many things changed in a home as years passed by. Paint, furniture, carpet. I picked at a crevice with my nail. This table never changed. It had been a constant. It was a symbol of my home.
The sound of a crying baby echoed through the veil.
“Shut that baby up!”Buck yelled, his voice sounding far away.
Then I felt pain and it was pulling me back to reality. I ground my teeth so hard I thought they’d crack to keep from screaming.
“Buck, please!”Amelia wailed.
Another lash struck my back. I squeezed my chair’s armrests. The buzzing darkness closed in around us until Stefan was swallowed up by an abyss of ebony.
“You want to be next, Amelia?”Buck snapped.
It felt like I was coming out of a daydream as my vision focused back on reality. Not even a breath later, I was yanked off the table. Buck tossed me to the ground. I barely hit the floor when his boot rammed into my ribs. I grunted out all the air in my lungs and I curled into a ball, protecting my middle from him doing it again.
“Lock her up,” Buck barked at the other Aryan before he turned to Amelia. She was backing away from him toward the hall, with her baby crying in her arms. She didn’t get far before Buck took two large steps to get to her and grabbed her by the back of her neck. She let out a pain-filled yelp.
“Put the baby down,” he ordered as he shoved her head toward the laundry basket on the floor by the couch. He didn’t release his hold on her as she gently placed the baby in the basket, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Once the baby was out of her arms, Buck yanked her to stand straight and smacked her across her face. “Dumb junkie whore! You don’t ever interrupt me!”
Amelia cried that she was sorry and pleaded that she wouldn’t do it again. What Amelia didn’t know was that she was giving Buck what he wanted most—what I refused to give him.
Fear.
That fear made him feel powerful and he would wring every ounce of it out of her until she broke. It was evident from the bulge growing in his pants.
Fool,I thought as the other Aryan grabbed my hands and cuffed them around the structural post again. I didn’t fight. I didn’t have the energy. Instead, I lay there on my side awkwardly with my hands cuffed above my head, naked legs curled up to my chest. My shirt was at least back in place, but my pants were still hanging off me by one ankle.
The Aryan stood behind me and we both watched as Buck shoved Amelia toward the table, bending her over it. He held her down by the back of her neck as he ripped my peacoat off her. He dropped it to the floor and spread open the back of her hospital gown. Amelia repeatedly begged him to stop. She tried to remind him of her C-section. He didn’t care. It was obvious the thought of causing her pain excited him more.
I had to look away after he ripped off her underwear. Amelia’s screams filled the apartment along with Buck’s grunts and the table rocking.
I tried to focus on my own pain to help me drown out the noise, but it didn’t work. The agony in Amelia’s screams was stronger.
* * *
The baby woke me with its crying. It was the middle of the night and freezing. The only light was coming from the kitchen, and it wasn’t the brightest light either. It gave off a dim tan hue, which told me it might go out before the sun rose.
When I went to sit up off the floor, pain roared down my back and I almost cried out. I reached a shaking hand behind me and touched a really sore spot I could reach through my shirt. I winced at the slight touch. My shirt felt cold and my fingers became wet. I brought my hand back in front of me. With what little light there was, I could see blood coated the tips of my fingers. It was then that I realized that my hands weren’t handcuffed anymore and there was a chain around my waist. Sweat beaded at my brow as I pushed through the pain to sit up. Once I was upright, I saw the large five-gallon painter’s bucket on the floor to my right. I had a feeling they didn’t want to risk taking me to the bathroom again.
The cries coming from the baby pulled my focus toward the couch. The laundry basket was on the floor. Through the slits on the side of it, I could see his tiny hands flailing as he wailed. I looked at his mother, passed out on the couch. Her arm was hanging off the edge, her fingers barely touching the carpet. On the floor next her hand lay a hypodermic syringe with a needle, a spoon, and a lighter.
Heroin.
From what I could remember from all the research we’d done on the Aryans, Amelia had used to be a junkie until Buck had knocked her up, and it was her addiction that had made her cross paths with Buck when she’d been seventeen. Events from the previous day had obviously caused her to relapse. I couldn’t blame her. I’d probably never get the sound of her screams out of my head.
