I must have dozed off without realizing I had because when the front door opened I was startled awake. Addy's laughter came before I realized who was walking through the door. It was her and that strange preacher guy again. When Addy saw me, her smile faded away. I knew I was an instant reminder of the love she was forced to leave behind. It was because of me why Addy had to leave Barron, and I doubted she would ever forgive me for this.
"Good afternoon, Luna, How was your day?" Doug came into the living room, while Addy carried a grocery bag to the kitchen. I sat up, scooted over to the far end of the couch and hugged my knees to my self. I didn't answer Doug. I only stared at him. Maybe it was the inner light I saw glowing within him that Addy had fallen in love with. In my opinion, there was just no other explanation as to why Addy would be with someone so extremely odd-looking. And what about Addy loving Barron? She would always love Barron with all of her heart. Where was there any room left for Doug?
I almost laughed. Who was I to judge Addy's love life or try to make any sense of it?
"Your mother wanted me to talk to you," Doug said, as he sat down on the couch beside me.
"Well, I don't want to talk to you."
"I thought you might say that. That is why I convinced your mother that it would be best if I talk to you after the wedding and after you have gotten a little more comfortable with me."
"The wedding? As in, you and Addy are getting married? Are you serious? You're marrying my mother?"
"Yes, she and I are getting married in about a week."
"But you guys just met! How could you get married?"
"I do believe that God tells us that we should not play the dating game. That He will send the right one for us. Addy is God-sent," he said, glancing in the direction of the kitchen.
I witnessed the spark of electricity that shot between the two of them when their eyes met briefly. It reminded me of how I felt when I looked into Dammon's eyes for the very first time; Like wind through the trees. I wondered if Doug left a path through Addy like Dammon had left a path through me?
"You do realize she just got divorced?" I didn't know why I was so upset about the two of them getting married, but I was. And maybe this was because I wasn't ready for another demon to move into my house.
"Oh, yes. She has told me everything."
"Hugh! I doubt that very much," I grumbled.
"Your mother has told me about your father, Luna. And I want to talk with you about that, one day soon." Doug put his long, thin hand on my shoulder. I quickly slapped it away. There was a moment of silence that filled the whole house. I had to wonder how he would have responded had he not been trying to impress Addy and I before the wedding. Would have he punished me like Barron would have?
"There is a lot to be said in the bible about how a child should treat her parent. Of course, I am not implying that I am a parent of yours. But soon enough, I will be the authority over you and your mother."
"I'm sure you will," I said, sarcastically. Preacher man or not, he was still a man, right?
As if he read my mind, he said, "I am not talking about the same kind of authority your father has had over the two of you for the past seventeen years of your life, Luna. What I am talking about is something on the other end of the spectrum. I will run a Godly house. I will teach you and your mother in a Godly way. I will lead the two of you in a Godly fashion. Before you know it, your lives will be transformed for the better. When God gets involved, things are always better. You will see for yourself. I only ask that you keep an open mind, Luna. Don't shut me out. I'm not going anywhere, so it will be a lot smoother around here if you just have an open mind."
I cant explain what had come over me. Maybe it was paranoia. Maybe it was fear of having another man in the house again. What ever it was, it filled me with anger.
"So, what your saying is that you don't want me to be a bitch, right? Well, sorry, it's a little too late for that. You see, I was born that way. I can't help it. It's in my blood." I got up off the couch, ignoring the glare Addy was giving me as I went to the door. Doug must have told her, prior to coming home, to keep her mouth shut. It was unusual for her to be quiet like this.
"Your mother wants you to be home by nine this evening. She and I will not be here. We will be staying in the city, in separate rooms, so we can find her a gown."
"I am going to call you at nine," Addy hollered after me. "You better answer!"
I slammed the door shut, not really knowing what my plans were.
Until I raised my chin and saw the silver Cadillac that was parked in front of Addy's Volvo.
I stopped on the top step of the porch, my heart thumping hard against my chest. I wasn't sure if I should go back inside and lock the door or stay where I was and allow Sean to come for me, I wanted to do both at the same time. I wanted arms around me, holding me tight. I wanted to know what it meant to have someone love me. Yet, I wanted to run and hide and to be forever left alone.
But most of all, I wanted this stupid, nagging ache in my body to go away!
I really was falling in love with Sean. Standing there on the porch, I realized this. And what made me so certain was the fact that no matter what he would do to me next, I would un-willfully endure it, just to be in his presence, just to see that look of adoration in his eyes. Just to make the ache go away. But I was still torn. Walking right up to, and putting myself in the face of, danger was one thing --which, I must admit, I'd done a countless number of times-- but having it chase me down was a whole different thing. Maybe I wanted to be the one in control of the danger in my life, not anyone else.
After a few minutes of standing there in deliberation, I didn't have to decide for my self. Sean got out of the car, came stalking up to me, took me gently by the elbow and led me to the passenger's door, deciding for me.
Sean didn't say anything, as we drove out of the trailer park and onto the blacktop. I wasn't as nervous as I knew I should have been. I was feeling a little wanton, like I was in need of release, like my pent-up frustrations needed an outlet. My insides were all riled-up, and becoming increasingly so, and I didn't know why. It happened enough times that I had stopped caring as to why. I wanted to fight. I wanted to get angry, and these wants were boiling inside me, about to spill over.
Sean parked the Cadillac in the circular drive in front of his castle and came around to the passenger's door. He reached inside, took my hand and gently pulled me out. Instead of leading me to the front stairs of the castle, where I was expecting him to take me, he led me across the lawn, in the direction that would take us to the river. In the same direction into which I had run from him, with journal in hand.
"Where are we going?" I asked. I didn't think Sean was going to answer me because it took him so long to say anything. We were deep into the woods, by the time he answered.
"I have something to show you," he said, his tone was unusually cool and crisp. His fingers tightened just slightly over my elbow, as if what he said was enough to spook me.
I was going to get my wish. I was going to end up in a fight. I could feel it coming. I could feel it brewing inside Sean.
When we reached the river, Sean stopped at the edge of the bank where the water was deep and rushing around the bend. It was the same exact spot where I had contemplated jumping in to escape him. The last shreds of sunlight danced on the white, frothy peaks of her surface.
Then, without warning, Sean pushed me into the river.
Before I knew it, Moss was swallowing me alive, and I had become completely submerged. Sights and sounds smeared together. Panic contorted my sense of direction. I flailed my arms and kicked my legs, but I just kept sinking. I couldn't find the surface. I was being swept down stream, in the belly of the river, at an incredible speed. I was gulping for air, frantically gasping in water instead.
I was going to drown. There was no doubt about it.
But then, all of a sudden, I was pulled upward. The surface of the water washed over my head and face, and I gasped for air.
Sean waited for me to catch my breath and for me to realize the situation I was in. He was holding me at the back of the head by a fist full of hair. The rest of my body was trying to float away on the wild, rushing current.
There was nothing in the world more terrifying to me than being in deep water.
A second blast of panic washed over me, and I realized that I was completely at Sean's mercy. "Please, don't let me go! Please!"
"You've been a very bad girl, Luna, haven't you?"
I clung to Sean's body in sheer desperation. "Yes! Please. . . .Please, don't let me go!"
"I will not let you go. But I do need for you to understand something," Sean said. I was ready to understand anything at this point. Anything that would convince Sean to get me out of the river and bring me to dry land.
Sean thoroughly examined my eager face. Then he closed his eyes. His nostrils flared, and he sniffed the air just under my ear. When he looked at me again there was an explosion of adoration and desire in his eyes. "Oh, how I do cherish thee," he whispered. Even over the sound of rushing water, I heard him.
Then, without warning, Sean shoved my head down under the surface of the water. His fist full of hair kept me from being able to come back up for air. Panic and fear and confusion and desperation all swirled so wildly inside my body that there was no separation to my emotions. There was no telling where one ended or another began.
Just when I believed I'd have to breathe, that my body's reflexes would cause me to inhale, Sean lifted my head above the surface. I gasped, frantically sucking in air. Sucking in the water that dripped from my head and my face. Water stung my nose and the back of my throat. It burned and blurred my eyes.
His order was my lifeline, and I clung to it desperately.
"I am somewhat tolerant of your intractable nature, but what you did, attacking me and running from me, will never happen again. Do you understand me, Little One?"
"Yes! Yes, I promise. Please, just get me out of here!"
Sean studied me, as if searching for the truth in my words. I do believe he found it. If he hadn't, I was sure I'd be pressed into the river again, forced beneath the surface. Through the mess of my emotions I had a feeling that Sean was not only looking for the truth while he stared at me. He was admiring again. Admiring the trembling, frightened, terror-infested little girl that was shivering beneath his fist.
Sean grinned, as if approving of what he saw, of what he was capable of turning me into. Then he moved us through the river. I could feel the wild current pressing against our bodies. Once we touched solid ground my whole world seemed to spin out of control, like the panic was catching up to me and the relief was filtering in at the same exact time. I felt dizzy and disoriented.
And somehow Sean knew this.
Sean gathered me into his arms and carried me up the steep riverbank. When we reached the top of the bank, he did not let me go. He carried me all the way back to his castle, cradled in his arms like a baby.
A baby was exactly what I felt like. I clung to Sean, as if still needing him to keep me above the surface of the water. And maybe I did. Maybe the massive sea in the corner of my mind had finally broken its dam leaving me to drown in my own internal-ness.
I wrapped my arms around Sean's neck, tightly, and buried my face into his hair. Tears tried to escape my eyes, but I pinched them away, fighting back a river of my own.
In that strange and unfamiliar place Sean had taken me to in my mind, it did not occur to me that the man I was now clinging to was the man who had taken me there. All I knew is that I had to cling to something. Something that was outside myself, because if I clung to what was inside, I was certain I would drown.
Sean set me down on the plush, red sofa in the circular sitting room and covered me with a blanket. A blanket that was not there earlier that morning.
He had planned this.
The incident at the river was not just some random outburst. It was premeditated.
But this didn't change anything. It didn't make Sean seem any less crazy than he already seemed before. Crazy was crazy. Who cared if he actually had a rhyme and a reason resonating in his madness. What difference did it make? I either accepted it or I didn't.
And I did both. I accepted it. And I didn't.
"Give me your hand, Little One," Sean said, as he sat down beside me. I was confused by this simple command, so I only looked at him.
"Give me your hand, now." It was the fact that he sounded uncharacteristically impatient that made me move quickly. I stuck my hand out of the blanket and handed it to him.
"The other one. And I will not wait any longer."
I stuffed my hand back under the blanket and quickly handed him my other hand. The one he had injured.
Sean gripped my last three fingers in his hand, leaving the wounded one alone. For the moment, anyway. With his free hand, he pulled his knife out of the back pocket of his slacks. He lifted his pointy finger, which lifted my wounded pointy finger. And, without so much as a word of warning, he dug the tip of the blade into the flesh of the wound, digging under one of the stitches Dammon had sewn into my flesh. With a slight upward stroke of the knife, Sean cut through the thick, black thread, causing a small section of my finger to open up. As the pain flared, he moved on to the next stitch of thread.
The blade dug deeper than it needed to go under the second stitch. I cried out, trying to pull my hand away, but Sean only needed to squeeze my fingers just a little more, to keep me from slipping them free from his grip. He dug the third stitch out of my flesh, opening the wound even further. Meat separated and blood bloomed in the little valley in my finger. Sean did the same thing to the fourth, the fifth and then the sixth stitch. Each time he removed a piece of black thread from my flesh, he dug the tip of the blade deeper into the wound than he needed to go. Each time, I could feel the tip of the knife scrape against the bone and scoop out a little piece of meat.
When the stitches were removed, Sean let go of my fingers and stuffed his knife back into his back pocket, like none of this had even happened.
As I writhed in pain, squeezing the wrist of my wounded hand with my other hand, trying to cope with the agony, tears came to my eyes and a realization to my heart. Beside me sat the man who forced me to endure my phobia of water. Here sat the man who continued to inject the madness into my world that I had hoped I could escaped when Addy took me away from Barron. Here sat the man who brought Barron's demon back into my life.
Sean took my chin in his fingers and turned my face to him. I jerked my head away from him, angry despite the all-consuming pain. Sean recaptured my chin, this time much more painfully. He squeezed it hard in his thick, strong fingers and forced me to look at him, forced me to realize that the one who was in control here was not me.
I was the puppet. And Sean was the puppeteer.
Tears rolled down my cheeks, and Sean watched them with a look of satisfaction in his eyes, before pulling my face to his. With his tongue, he slowly licked the trail of my tear, starting just under my eye and stopping at the corner of my mouth. Then his tongue split my lips apart, trespassing against me and his mouth covered mine.
I was forced to endure a deep, cruel kiss.
All the while, my heart was breaking.
This was not love.
I was wrong. I couldn't have possibly been falling in love with Sean. He was the kind of demon my father was. The kind that fed off my fears and my tears. The kind that lusted after my pain. I hated Barron. With a passion so strong and true, I hated him. And now I hated Sean, too. Sean was evil. And something told me the adoration in his eyes was not for me, but for his hunger for my fear and for my pain. He told me himself that he was a sadist. But even if I had believed him when he said this, I still would have found my self here, bleeding, with my chin in his grip and staring into the copper-laced eyes of a madman
And as odd as it may have seemed at the time, I truly believed that I was feeding him.
But now, looking b
ack at this day, I understand completely. Where I was, was exactly where my fate had put me, and there would have been nothing I could have done to have changed this.
****
Chapter Nineteen
Sean