She closes her eyes and shakes her head as saltwater tracks down her cheeks. “I need you to find me something to undo these cuffs with. I can’t help us, I can’t get us out of here without my hands free.”
The creaking on the top of the stairs outside draws both our heads up and the heavy footfalls follow soon after.
Her eyes go wide with fear, and my own mirror the expression.
“Fuck, go,” I whisper and she stumbles to her feet, but she’s not quick enough. The locks slide free, the door opens, and she trips on her leg rope before she can make it back to the bed. That fucker is a black slash across the room. He yanks her head back by her hair, and he slams it into the side of the bed.
Ivy doesn’t even scream, just lets out a small guttural cry as he pulls her to her feet. Her pupils are huge and dazed.
“I’m gonna rip your fuckin’ head off,” I say through clenched teeth, tugging as hard as I can against the iron pipe. Slowly, with his hand wrapped tightly around the back of her neck, he turns to face me.
“Really?”
“Yeah, that’s right, motherfucker. You lay a goddamn finger on her again and I’ll gut you from balls to throat.”
His only response is a harsh barking laugh that makes my hair stand on end. Not because I’m frightened of him, but because I’m frightened of what he’ll do to her. It doesn’t seem to matter that she’s his only daughter. I’m bettin’ she stopped being anythin’ but his plaything a long time ago. He presses the tip of his nose to her throat and inhales, his tongue darting out to lick the creamy white flesh of her neck and the abraded skin where the rope had been choking her.
“I’m glad you’re awake. We can have ourselves a little chat.”
“Leave her the fuck alone and we can chat all you like.”
“I did a little digging on you earlier, Tank.” He spits my name as if it were venom, as he shifts them both forward. “Death. Did you know that’s what everyone calls you?”
I did, though no one had ever said it to my face.
“The executioner for the Savage Saints, and the Angels before them. Ryzhanov was very interested in hearing about how I found you right next door to his Mosman home. It’s a shame I didn’t have the foresight to pick up your friend, though. I hear Lagransky has a beef to settle.”
Crazy. That cunt-fuck got away. Which means if he hasn’t been arrested, there’s still hope that Prez and my brothers might find us.
“You know, there’s a lotta men that would give everything to be in my position right now,” he says, and I smirk, because I know exactly how many men would give their nutsack to get me alone and in a position where I don’t got the upper hand.
“They all sick bastards who rape their daughters, too?” I deadpan. It’s reflex. I didn’t mean to provoke him, but he makes Ivy pay for the slip-up by grasping her delicate throat in his hands and choking her.
I jerk against the cuffs. Later, I’ll likely feel the pain from the gashes caused by the metal burrowing into my flesh, but for now I don’t care. I have to get to her. I have to try.
He releases her and she hunches over, gasping for breath. “So … Death. Wanna know what it really feels like to die?”
“No.” Ivy recovers, and she rears her elbow back into her father’s stomach, winding him momentarily. She feints to the side as he lunges for her, attempting to catch her up by the hair, but she’s faster than him. Not that it does her much good, because just as she’s scrambling away from him the leg rope yanks her back and she lands hard against the concrete, with nothing but her skinny arms and frail body to break her fall.
“Guess you forgot about being tied up, bitch. Next time I’ll leave a little less breathing room.”
She screams as he pins her to the floor with a large hand at her back, and he tugs his pants down.
And then I get a front row fuckin’ seat to him shoving himself inside her, to all of the fucked up shit he did to her. And no amount of screaming, pleading, or yanking on my restraints does either one of us any good.
And he’s right. It really does feel like dying.
She bites her lip until it bleeds, trying to keep it in, trying to keep that shit together, but in the end he wants her screams, and that’s what he gets.
And what do I get in return? The image of her blood and tears decorating the concrete, of her beautiful face twisted in pain, and the suffocating knowledge that I can’t save her. I have two hands, all bloody and ripped to shreds from trying to get out of my cuffs. I’ve gone a good ways to de-gloving my left hand with all the fighting I’ve done, and now I’m in a world of pain.
But it isn’t just my hand that hurts. It’s my heart. Because I’m not enough. I couldn’t protect her. I’d been careless; I wasn’t paying attention, and I let this arsehole get the jump on me, but more than that, I’ve just watched the woman I love get raped by her own father, and I couldn’t do a fuckin’ thing to stop it. I couldn’t save her, and that shit is gonna haunt me for the rest of my goddamned life.
“Ivy,” I whisper. She’s still lying naked on the ground where he left her. She’s in shock. Her teeth chatter; her body tremors from head to toe. “Ivy. Baby, look at me,” I plead, and she slowly lifts her head from the floor to stare at me.
I rattle the cuffs against the iron bar, and wince as the metal slides over my raw flesh. All the skin has been stripped away right down to the first joint of my thumb. I’m pretty sure my thumb broke too. I should’ve been able to work the cuff over my broken knuckle then and slip free, but the more I pulled, the more the metal embedded itself in my flesh. And now it’s swollen so far there ain’t a goddamn thing I can do about it. That whole arm feels like a live wire. I wrenched it so hard, I probably tore a muscle or two.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so fucking sorry,” I whisper. I know she can hear me, because her lip quivers and tears roll down her cheeks. She doesn’t say anything, just lies her head back down on the concrete.
“I need your help. I can’t get my hand out,” I say, and in the stillness of the room I hear my voice, tired and weak, defeated, as if it belonged to another. “I’m gonna need you to work on that rope and then come help me here.”
She shakes her head. It’s a very small movement but it feels larger than life, because it means giving up. And despite the shame and hatred I feel that I couldn’t stop it, I won’t let her give up. I’ve never given up on anything in my entire life. Even with the cuff, I haven’t given up. I’m physically incapable of getting it off my wrist because the fuckin’ thing is embedded, but that doesn’t mean I’d stop tryin’. The choice is clear here. I can’t watch that again; I can’t let her go through that again. So I’ll break every bone in my fist to get free, but if I want hands to be able to kill her father with, I’ll need her help. “Come on, Warrior Princess. I fuckin’ need you, babe.”
“I can’t,” she murmurs. “I can’t. I should never have run. I shouldn’t fight him.”
“Bull-fucking-shit you shouldn’t fight. You get your sweet arse up and you start working on that rope. I don’t care if it takes all fuckin’ day. I don’t care if your fingers bleed and your whole body is so tired you just wanna lay down and die. You work on that shit until you’re free, and then you come over here and help me with these cuffs.”
“I can’t,” she says, and she turns her face away from me and weeps into the floor. I slam my head back against the wall, wondering if she isn’t right. Maybe we’re screwed either way. All I know is that I can’t watch her get raped again.
Much later, when the crying has stopped and she’s had several hours of fitful sleep, I drift into my own state of restless slumber, but I’m woken by scratching, and the frustrated gasps from Ivy attempting to loosen the knots on her leg rope. No sound comes from the TV upstairs, there’s no creak of floorboards above us, just silence.