“Ivy, look at me,” he says. I do. The corner of his lip is swelling where my father nicked it, and there’s a laceration over his cheekbone. He looks pallid and exhausted, but he still manages to smile and reassure me with his gaze. “If you’re here, I’m here.”
“You shouldn’t be. I don’t deserve you. I don’t—”
“Well,” he says, shrugging his huge shoulders. “You could stand to put out more.” He grins, and despite the fear and the pain, a choked laugh escapes me. “Now, where the hell is here?”
“Home. We’re home.”
He looks around, and his expression is one of disgust as he shakes his head. “This isn’t your home.”
“This is where I grew up,” I say.
“Doesn’t mean it’s your home, babe. This is a prison cell, and you’ve spent far too long in it.” For a moment the fierce determination in his eyes gives me hope. “How many men he got workin’ for him?”
I shake my head. “None.”
Tank frowns. “What do you mean, none? He doesn’t have thugs, an entourage?”
“He never needed one, Tank,” I say, and I close my eyes, letting out a deep breath. “Just a needle and the promise of another fix.”
“Motherfucker,” he says under his breath, and at first I think he’s referring to what I just said, and then I follow his gaze.
I’m completely naked, which is preferable to having fabric covering the welts on my arse right now, but I still feel over-exposed with Tank here, not because he hasn’t seen me naked already, but because he’s never seen me wear my father’s marks so blatantly. The scar above my abdomen had been there since I was seventeen, but I’d covered it with a tattoo the first chance I got, and though the skin was still raised with scar tissue, the artist who had done it had a skilful hand and a clever eye for cover-ups. This is the first time Tank is seeing what it really says. I stand, and walk back to the bed. I don’t want to be away from him, but I can’t bear for him to look at me just now.
“What the fuck did he do to you?” His gaze promises violence and revenge, and his voice tremors with it. I sit on the bed and I wince, because the welts on my arse remind me why that’s a bad idea.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he murmurs. “I’ll string him up by his fucking intestines for this. I’m gonna gut him like a goddamn fish and choke him with his insides.”
“I’m alright.” I stand and look at him across the room, feeling small. Feeling helpless. And while that’s not new for me, I find tears of frustration welling in my eyes. I bat them away with the back of my hand.
“Havin’ your pussy carved up and your arse spanked raw is alright?”
“I’ve been through a lot worse,” I whisper.
Tank’s jaw tightens I can practically hear his teeth grinding together. I wrap the sheet around me and his hard gaze softens with remorse. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, babe. I never should have left you alone. I wasn’t here to protect you when he did that.” He tilts his chin towards me. “I wasn’t … He didn’t bring me here first; not to this room, anyway. I think I was upstairs though. He’d tied me to a bed and hit me a couple times with some kinda fuckin’ tranquilizer. I think he was afraid I’d break it, because even after he shot me up, I’d thrashed like a motherfucker. And then he punched me in the face and gave that tranq a helpin’ hand. I don’t remember jack shit after that. Only that I woke up here.”
“We’re never going to get out of here, are we?”
“You got out before, didn’t ya?”
“Yeah, because he was high as a kite, and he got careless. He left his pocket knife on the nightstand and I buried it in his face.”
This brings a smile to Tank’s face. It’s a slow twitching of lips that becomes an all-out grin. He’s so perverted.
I smile too, but the sound of the floorboard creaking above our heads makes the smiles vanish from both of our faces. The footsteps are on the stairs now, each one heavy and deliberate. Each one designed to strike fear into our hearts. And it works, at least for me. I glance at Tank and swallow hard.
The words are on the tip of my tongue when the locks slide back and the door slowly opens, and then they’re swallowed by dread, pushed down my throat to settle in my stomach because I can’t say those words here. The walls, the bed, the concrete floor that’s seen too many bloodstains, and my father—they don’t deserve to hear something so pure. No. This room, these walls, this floor and this bed, they’re for overhearing screams, and my father is the conductor, wielding my fear as his baton.
He enters the room and glares at the two of us. His hands are behind his back, and I can’t tell if he’s holding something in them or not, but it makes me nervous. He smiles at me, and his gaze settles on Tank. “You’re finally awake.”
Tank says nothing, just meets my father’s gaze evenly. He doesn’t flinch under the weight of that terrible green stare, not the way I would. The corners of my father’s lips twitch, and then he stalks over to me and yanks me up by the arm. I lash out at him, but his eyes meet mine and in them is the promise of pain, not for me, but for Tank, and I go lax and stop fighting.
“There’s Daddy’s girl.” He tucks a strand of limp hair behind my ear and turns my arm over so that my palm is facing skyward. I yank it back, already knowing what he’s about to do.
“No,” I say. “No, don’t.”
I can’t do this. Not in front of Tank.
I’d been wondering how long it would be before he did this again. I’d craved it. Before he brought in Tank, wanting to die had been all I’d thought about, and now the promise of heroin in my veins overrides that desire. My body cries out for it. I want it, badly, but don’t want it here, not in front of Tank, where I might see his disappointment etched so plainly on his strong features.
“Please?” I beg of my father and he smirks.
“Once upon a time you used to beg me to pump this into your veins,” he says. The sound of Tank’s handcuffs chinking against the iron pipe draws both of our gazes.
“Touch one hair on her head and I’m going to tear you apart with my bare hands,” Tank warns.
My father chuckles. “You’d have to get out of those cuffs first, and I don’t see that happening.”
He pulls a rubber cord from his back pocket and ties it tightly above the crease in my elbow along with a syringe that he pulls the cap off of with his teeth and spits out on the ground. And then he sticks the needle in my vein.
“No!” Tank roars, yanking at his bound hands, trying to wrench them free, but he’s not moving anywhere. He’s not going anywhere. None of us are.
The sweet rush of tar pumps through my veins and I exhale my worries, leaning back into the support of my father’s arms. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, Tank’s gaze is livid and locked on mine. He doesn’t understand why I didn’t struggle. I can see it written all over his face, the question.
Why didn’t you fight?
The answer is simple: him.
I tiptoe through the house, looking for Mummy. I hear Daddy’s voice from the basement downstairs, and I cover my mouth with my hand so I don’t squeak in fear like I want to.
Banjo wasn’t in the basement, so why was my mummy looking down here?
“You think you can take her from me, huh, bitch? Think you can take my little girl?” he shouts.
“Your little girl?” Mummy says, and she’s using her angry voice now. “Let me tell you something about your little girl. You brutalised her. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get her away from you.”
“You won’t be going anywhere ever again, neither of you will. No one loves her more than I do. No one ever will.”