“Admit you do. Be honest. Stop lying to me, and I’ll stop.” This time it was his fingers that brushed along my back, his breathing accelerated from the effort and excitement.
When I refused to answer, the sting of his belt whipped across my lower back. My legs gave out for a moment as my body broke out in a cold sweat. I’d never passed out from the pain before, but I guessed he was angry enough that this might be the time I experienced it.
“I know you think he’s a better man than me. I see it every time you look at me. Every time you look at him.”
Another crack sent white hot pain shooting through me, blinding my vision. A few more immediately followed. Crew’s grunts of exertion tangled with the snap of the belt against my skin, until the two became one. Him, the belt, they became one being.
“Admit it. Say it out loud.” He stopped, having to rest against the wall behind him as he struggled to catch his breath.
The belt hung from his hand, and that’s what I found myself focusing on as I looked behind me. An inanimate object. Something a person used to keep their pants cinched in place. A tool of torture.
From the look on his face, Crew was moving into the next phase—regret. Where he’d take me into his arms, tend to whatever wounds he’d inflicted, the entire time whispering tender words and reminding me of his unending love for me. Sometimes he’d carry me to bed after that, put himself inside me, and promise he’d never hurt me again. He’d rock himself asleep after spending his seed inside me with the promise of filling me with another child.
Those nights, I’d wait until he was breathing evenly before I crawled out from beneath his suffocating body, and I’d escape into the bathroom to take the birth control pill he didn’t know I was taking. Then I’d step into the shower and not leave until I’d washed every drop of his seed away from between my legs.
Strength was an odd thing. The way it filled us one moment, leaving us at the next. I’d been the strongest person in the world before. I’d been the weakest one too. Strength wasn’t a guarantee. It was a fickle whim that came and went as it pleased.
It visited me again right at that moment.
Getting my hands and feet beneath me, I started to rise. My legs shook, the rest of me felt about to crumble, but I didn’t stop until I was standing tall in front of him. When he noticed me, he pushed off the wall he’d been resting against. His face was dotted with sweat, his pupils so large I couldn’t tell where the iris started and ended.
“Say it.” His jaw worked as he stepped toward me.
I backed away a step, but he matched it. He matched every one until I couldn’t go any farther without going down the stairs.
My eyes lifted to his. I held them there for what felt like a whole minute. I didn’t say anything. I just let him know that I saw him for who he was, what he was. Not the man who’d promised to love me for eternity—the one who endeavored to torment me until I expired.
“Say it.” Crew’s eyes flashed, his chest bumping against mine.
I didn’t blink as I met his request. “I don’t need to tell you he’s the better man. With every hit, every word, you prove he is.”
I watched Crew’s face crumble.
For half a second.
Right before anger flamed through his eyes.
Leaning in, his mouth hovered beside my ear. “I love you.”
My skin prickled from the tone in his voice—right before I felt his hands shove me. Hard.
I didn’t realize I was falling until my body came crashing down on the stairs, feeling as though it were being cracked open, one stair at a time. Limbs rolled over limbs, tangling together as I crashed down the staircase, an endless journey from the top to the bottom.
The sound of my body banging down the stairs had stopped, but I still felt the sensation of falling. My ears ringing. My body throbbing. My brain feeling like it was pounding inside my skull.
I couldn’t feel my body. I didn’t feel the pain anymore. That only lasted a moment before, one by one, sensations trickled back into my consciousness. The feel of the cool wood floor on my back. The throb coming from my wrists and ankles. The warm trickle spreading down my face.
I wasn’t dead. But I wasn’t alive either.
“Oh, fuck. What have I done?”
Crew’s voice echoed from the top of the stairs, so similar to a small boy’s that I pried my eyes open to make sure Keenan hadn’t woken. It was only Crew though, the monster back in his cage. The man stared down at me, blinking like he was trying to convince himself he was dreaming.
More of my body was coming back, one piece at a time, every part throbbing. Crew started down the stairs, swaying on a few of them, catching himself before he fell down them too.
“What have I done?” he whispered to himself, seeming afraid to look at my body as he stepped over it on his journey toward the door.
I didn’t call out for him. I didn’t beg him to stay or warn him to never come back. I just let him go, praying that wherever he went, he stayed. The door flew open, bouncing against the wall as Crew escaped through it. He was running away from something. He was being chased by something too.
Outside on the lawn, I heard noise. Voices.
“Crew?” It was Brecken. “What’s going on? I heard something.”
Crew sounded like he was saying something, but it was the same thing, over and over, too quiet for me to hear.
“Crew, stop!” The sound of Brecken’s uneven footsteps pounded on the sidewalk, followed by the whine of a car door being opened.
I was finally able to make out what Crew was saying. “I need help. I need help.”
“What the fuck?” Brecken’s voice went louder, the sound of more shuffling. “Is that blood on your shirt? Is that her blood?”
Crew repeated those three words before I heard the sound of his car starting.
“Where is she? Where’s Camryn?” Brecken was shouting above the noise of the engine, sounding like he was pounding on the windows. “Get out of the car. Get out of the fucking car.”
More pounding, followed by the squeal of tires on asphalt as Crew’s car sped away. Brecken bellowed Crew’s name a few more times. The uneven cadence of him running outside for a few moments. Trying to scoot away from the stairs so I could find something to cover myself with or hide behind, I didn’t miss the sound of my name being shouted. The shuffled footsteps getting louder before they started to pound up the stairs, sounding like they were making the whole house shake.
“Camryn!” He burst through the door before I had a chance to move anywhere, his eyes scanning the room for a moment before they found me. They went wide when he saw me, his throat moving.
Before he shouted anything else, I lifted my finger to my mouth and pointed up the stairs. That Keenan’s bedroom door was still closed was the only miracle I needed tonight. He hadn’t seen. He hadn’t heard.
That was what mattered.
“What the fuck? What the fuck happened?” Brecken’s voice was quieter as he rushed as quickly as he could toward me. He stopped short, his eyes flickering to the phone in the kitchen. “I’m calling 9-1-1.”
“No. Brecken, don’t.” Getting my hand beneath me, I managed to sit up a little.
He didn’t seem to realize I was naked until right then. “Camryn, what the hell?” His voice broke, his eyes taking me in as he moved toward a chair to pull the throw off of it. He stopped in front of me, kneeling slowly. He looked away as he draped the blanket over my body, his jaw about to break from the looks of it. “Did he do this to you?”
His hand tucked the corner of the throw up over my shoulder, resting there when he was done. My eyes closed. I was unprepared to answer him. Felt unequipped to explain any of this. I’d endured my torment in silence for so long, it felt almost impossible to talk about it.
There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t feel like it was burning or had already been burned, and my head felt like it was about to explode from the throb building inside. Sitting up a little higher,
a shot of pain burst up my leg, twisting my face.
“I’m getting you help.”
As he started to rise, I took his hand. “I don’t need that kind of help.”
“You need stitches.” He indicated my forehead, the source of the warm trickle winding down my face. “You might have broken something.” His hand opened to make room for mine before closing around it.
“I don’t, and I haven’t,” I said.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” He grabbed the corner of the blanket when I sat up some more, to keep it from falling down my body. “I know what needs stitches. And I know when something’s broken.”
“How do you know that?” His tongue worked into his cheek. “How do you fucking know that, Camryn?”
The sound of a door whining open stopped my heart, right before a sleepy voice came from upstairs. “Mom?”
“He can’t see me like this,” I whispered, checking up the stairs. My hand squeezed Brecken’s as I tried to slide away from the bottom of the stairs. The thought of my little boy seeing his mother like this made me desperate. To promise anything, to say whatever needed to be said to save him. To save him from the life he’d been born into. “Brecken, please? I don’t want everything I’ve gone through to be for nothing. He can’t see me like this. Please.”
He was looking up the stairs now too, warring with his own emotions. “You’ll tell me what happened? What’s been happening?” His eyes returned to mine. A storm was raging in them, but unlike Crew, he was able to control his anger. He controlled his emotions instead of letting them control him. “You’ll tell me everything?”
I’d give anything to protect my son. I’d given so much.
“Yes,” I promised, letting go of his hand so I could continue to move out of sight just in case Keenan started down the stairs.
“Mom?”
Brecken was already moving up the stairs, one foot faster than the other. “I’ll be back down as fast as I can.”
The breath I’d been holding came rushing out. “Thank you.”
Once I’d pulled myself a little farther out of sight, I paused to catch my breath.
“Hey, little man. Your mom’s taking care of something real quick and asked if I’d come up and check on you.” Amazingly, Brecken’s voice gave nothing away. He sounded like we’d been doing nothing more than chatting over lemonade on the front porch. “Want me to tuck you back in?”
“Is Mom okay? I thought I heard noises.”
There was a moment of quiet. “She’s okay. I’m here now, so you don’t have to worry about anything happening to her. Or you.” Another pause, the sound of Brecken clearing his throat. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Peeking around the wall, I saw Brecken kneeling in front of Keenan.
“Tell Mom I love her. And tell her thank you for taking me to the park.” Keenan rubbed his eyes, yawning. “Better just tell her thank you for everything. Then I’m covered.”
Brecken chuckled a soft note then wound his arms around Keenan before lifting him. “I will,” he said, carrying Keenan back down to his room.
I waited until they’d disappeared inside the bedroom before I tried to stand. It was going to hurt like hell, but I needed to get into the bathroom and start getting myself cleaned and bandaged. It wasn’t just Keenan I didn’t want to see me like this—it was Brecken too.
When I put weight on my feet, flames burst up my legs, spreading into the rest of my body when I started to walk. The right side of my body had taken the brunt of the fall and would probably have a nasty collection of bruises for a few weeks. I had plenty of clothes to conceal them, but the forecasted heat wave could have come at a better time.
My bad wrist was throbbing, but I didn’t think I’d sprained it again. The worst pain was coming from my back, which felt like it had been torn open to the muscle by the belt. Keeping the blanket around me, I padded into the downstairs bathroom. The first thing I did was crank on the shower to get it warm. The water would wash away the blood, and the heat would soothe my aching muscles.
Before the steam had a chance to coat the mirror, I examined the worst of my injuries. The cut on my forehead was just below my hairline. It was bleeding like crazy and might need the aid of a little superglue, but I’d survive without stitches.
Twisting so I could see part of my back, I sagged with relief when I took in the damage. Only a couple of lashes were open, a few drops of blood leaking from them. The rest were just angry red marks that may or may not add to the permanent scars scratched across my back.
A few minutes later, I heard the thump of footsteps coming down the stairs. Stepping into the shower, I ducked under the water, letting it wash away the blood and pain.
“Camryn?” Brecken knocked lightly on the door before coming inside. “He’s asleep. He’s fine. Doesn’t know what happened or anything like that.”
My eyes closed as I let the water rain down on my face.
“How long has this been going on?”
I moved my face out from beneath the shower. I’d promised him. “Aren’t you going to ask if he did it first?”
“No. Because I already know.” His voice filled the room.
I watched the water swirl around the drain, the red fading to pink to clear. Blood could be washed away, if not much else in life could.
“You need to tell the police. You need to turn him in.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, through a gritted jaw.
“No, Brecken.”
“Why not?”
My arms crossed, and I kneeled in the shower. Standing was taking too much of my energy. “He works for the police. They all play poker together. They have a summer baseball league. They go out for beers every week.” Fear settled into my stomach from just thinking about taking this to the police. “He could be standing over my dead body, the gun still smoking, and they’d find some way to make it seem like self-defense. They take care of their own.”
Through the fogged glass, I could just make out Brecken’s form pacing, his arms looped around the back of his head. “Then we’ll take it another step higher. To the state. Or federal. I could make some calls. I’m sure someone will have some idea of what we can do. He’s beating you, Camryn. There are laws against that. There are punishments in place for the bastards who do it.”
Unable to stand the shower beating down on my back any longer, I twisted so it was streaming down my front, and I leaned into the shower wall. “Everything I’ve done has been to keep Keenan from finding out about all of this. Everything,” I repeated to myself. “How’s making national headlines going to shelter him from it?”
Brecken was quiet, just the sound of his muffled footsteps moving across the tile. “I understand you wanting to protect Keenan. I do. And I respect you so damn much for it …” He paused, his feet stilling too. “But there’s a difference between sacrificing yourself for your child and straight-up sacrificing yourself.”
I held out my bad wrist, letting the warm water soothe the dull ache that never went away.
“And what do you think will happen when Crew beats you to death one day? Who’s he going to go looking to next to take it out on when you’re gone?”
The tears fell after that. I could endure physical pain, to every degree, but the thought of someone I loved enduring the same was more than I could take. Brecken wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t considered before, but the thought of what would happen to Keenan if I were gone didn’t lead down any happy avenues. I preferred not to think about it, electing instead to believe that I was invincible and could take whatever Crew gave me.
It was a lie.
But in my world, lies were easier to accept than truths.
Brecken must have guessed he’d struck a sensitive spot, because he didn’t keep pushing the topic. He gave me a few minutes to myself, maybe needing those few minutes for himself too.
“How long’s this been going on?”
My tongue went i
nto my cheek. I’d never talked about my abuse with anyone. One of the urgent care doctors I’d visited had asked how I’d gotten my injuries. When I answered that I’d fallen off my bike, she’d looked at me with just enough doubt and sympathy for me to guess she knew, but this was different. Open conversation. Blunt questions. Stark answers.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I have to.” He exhaled slowly through his nose. “Because you promised you’d tell me everything.”
“You don’t want to know everything.” My arms roped around my legs.
“I want to know everything there is to know about you. The good. And the bad. I want to know the shit you were going through at the same time I was going through my own shit over the past six years. I want to know what I missed out on.”
I watched him through the shower door. Even though his form was blurry from my tears and the steam, he felt like the most solid thing in the world. Like I could tie myself to him and no storm could pull me away. “Why?”
“So I don’t hold back the next time Crew is standing in front of me.” His voice was different, less human. “When did it start?”
My mind went to the first time Crew had ever laid his hands on me. It had just been a slap, but I remembered being so surprised by it that I started to wonder if I’d imagined it. That was followed by feelings of self-doubt that had me questioning if Crew was right and I had deserved it. Those firsts abuses had been the worst because they’d stolen the biggest parts of my soul. All that was left now were a few measly remains.
“After Keenan was born,” I said. “A few months after.”
I could hear Brecken’s breathing even with the shower beating around me. “How often?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how often does he fucking beat you?” His voice broke at the end.
“It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
My chest was lifting harder from the way I was breathing. “How much he’s been drinking. How stressed he is.”
He was quiet, a sigh rolling from him. “Which with me coming back …”