“It’s their business when they think one of their own is compromised,” Dad says after a long pause. Thankfully, he’s checking his temper, I can tell from his clipped words. It makes me nervous having Dad and Ian in the same space so often. Dad won’t hesitate to arrest Ian if he gave Dad even half a reason to; but even Dad knows the hellfire that Forsaken rain down on him if he does—legitimate cause or not.
“Are you… compromised… sergeant?” Ian says. He has this way of making his voice sound so cold and calculating that the words practically slither from his mouth. It’s the little things like this that remind me that the man who sits at my table in the morning, the man who wakes up to take panicked phone calls from Holly, the man who helps teenage girls out of a jam, is also as disturbed as they come. I see it in his eyes often enough. The light in his eyes dims to almost nothing and his expressions smooth leaving a blankness about him that always saddens me. He knows my damage, some of it at least, and I’d like to know his damage as well. Maybe that’s part of what I like about him. With Ian, it’s entirely possible that I’m not the most fucked up person in the room.
“You already know the answer to that, Mr. Buckley,” Dad says in reference to Ian’s officer position in the club. As the treasurer, he’s the numbers guy. He once told me that his job is boring, like being an accountant. We both know he’s lying, at least in part.
“Hmm.” Ian’s voice is followed by the hard clack of his boots sound against the pavement. I close my eyes and take one deep breath after another in an attempt to keep the panic at bay. I hate this part.
Ten.
He’s ten steps away from the house now.
Fourteen steps away.
My hands shake.
Nineteen.
In six more he’ll be at the curb and fifteen seconds later I’ll hear his bike start up.
My mouth fills with saliva. I’d swallow, but my throat feels so tight like it would be physically painful to try to do so.
Twenty-one.
My veins feel like they’re on fire, so hot and itchy. Like the only thing that will make his leaving any better is to shoot up. The thought sickens me.
Twenty-four.
Oh God.
Oh God.
Twenty-five.
I slink down to the linoleum, still pressed up against the wooden door. Outside, I hear the guttural sound of Ian’s Harley starting up. When I’m waiting on him in the morning, it sounds like a purr. But when he leaves it’s the most awful sound I’ve ever heard. Every. Single. Time.
Ian pulls away from the curb and within seconds the sound of his bike disappears. My veins still burn and my lungs now ache from the restricting lump in my throat that makes it challenging to breathe. Everything around me sounds like white noise, a subtle but constant buzzing around me that drowns out everything but the blinding panic that’s set in.
Vaguely, in the back of my head I know the front door is opening, pushing me along the linoleum. It’s only a foot or two and it stops. My cheek is damp from being here so long. The low-level buzzing dissipates as the voices get louder.
Holly’s sobbing through her shaky words.
The men snarl and laugh with every touch, every stroke, and every horrible push and pull against my unwilling flesh. The contents of my stomach rise into my aching throat. My face is pressed against Eileen’s wooden desk.
Watch, you fucking slut!
His voice is so loud as he screams at Holly. Loud, raspy, and full of such hate that my stomach rolls. A fresh wave of nausea overtakes me. Somewhere, somehow, I know I’m no longer pressed against the wood. Somehow, I know I’m curling into a ball on the floor of my parents’ entry way. Somewhere in my brain, the rational, logical part of me knows this is all just a horrific memory. A horrific memory of an event that I’ll never move past, never forget, and never get over. And yet, when I smell my dad’s cologne and feel his arms around me all the logical and rationality in the world doesn’t seem to matter.
Hands touching me, clawing at my skin.
I’m here, Minds.
I love you and I’m here.
It’s Holly. She’s trying to reach out to me—to offer what little comfort she can. It makes no difference, but I don’t tell her that. Halfway through, her words take on a deep baritone and she doesn’t sound like herself, but rather more masculine. She sounds like my dad and I know, despite the fear and sickness, that it’s my dad who’s trying to hold me and provide me with some semblance of comfort.
“It’s just Dad, baby girl,” he says. I used to find comfort in his words, but not now. Not in this moment. I can’t get my mouth to work. Every time I try to speak, a fresh wave of nausea rises in my throat that I try to force away. It doesn’t work and once I start dry heaving Dad lets me go. Every place he touched me feels slimy and disgusting like it wasn’t him at all, but rather it was them.