Rising (Blue Phoenix, #4)(5)

“You scared me!” I pick up my phone.

“Why are you late?”

“Same as yesterday. Ben is being a dick and keeping me back late.”

“Back late?” he steps closer. “Why?”

The smell of Dan, the fresh scent of detergent and the powerful deodorant he uses, fills the space between us; it’s a nauseating reminder of last night, one that twinges the pain in my bruised shoulder. “I don’t know.”

Dan catches my chin and yanks my face to look at him. “You told him about me?”

This question has many answers. The fact I have a boyfriend? Or that he occasionally smacks me around when the psychological abuse fails? That I live with the man who helped me years ago, but who I now need help getting away from?

“He knows I have a boyfriend, yeah.” I pull my scarlet hair over my shoulder and he catches my hand as I do, squeezing the delicate bones of my wrist. I wince. “Don’t. You’ll bruise me.”

Dan runs his tongue along his teeth, sweeping a gaze up and down my thin figure. My blue jeans and tight, faded-to-grey Blue Phoenix t-shirt take an extra few pounds off me. He ignores my loaded comment about visible injuries. “I’m not worried about that, nobody else would be interested in you. What have you got to offer? Nothing.”

“Have you eaten?” I ask him before the rant starts.

“No, waiting for you. There’s nothing in to eat; did you go shopping?”

Shit. I knew there was something I forgot. “No,” I say in a small voice.

“What the f-uck, Ruby? Why not?”

“You could’ve picked some things up from the shop near the gym,” I reply, immediately regretting my words.

Dan straightens. “I don’t do the f-ucking shopping! That’s your job! I gave you the money. Where is it?”

I pull bank notes from my back pocket. He snatches them from me and folds the notes, counting. “You get paid today?”

“Yes.”

Dan holds his large palm out again.

I dig around for the money Ben gave me. “I need to keep some, Dan, for…”

“I’ll give you some when you’ve done the f-ucking shopping.” He thrusts some twenty-pound notes at me. “Make sure you get everything on the list I gave you.”

“Now? I wanted to get something to eat.”

“We don’t have anything to eat!”

“Just some toast.”

Dan straightens and leans closer. “You don’t have time.”

Tonight I have to ask him about Friday, whether I can go to the gig. If Dan can’t come with me, I won’t be allowed to. I need to keep Dan calm, be who he wants me to be, and hopefully, he’ll say yes.

“Okay, is there anything special you want?” I ask.

“Yeah, but I’m stuck with you.”

The way Dan looks at me, as if I’m an annoying insect he wants to squash, hurts. He’s not stuck with me; he could let me go. I could move on. I would move on if I could seize back the control Dan’s taken.

Three years ago, when he helped me out of the abuse I’d stuck with too long, I let him take over. Dan told me if he looked after everything – money, housing, me – I’d be safe because nobody could take them away and threaten my future. That Dan was a different man, one who saved me from the gathering nightmares. I soon learned that I’d moved from one bad dream to a new one. Dan wanted someone he could control. Own. Before I realised, that person was me.

Now I have new plans of my own, once I find the courage and means to see them through. My last attempt at leaving a couple of months ago failed; when his screaming abuse and attempt to shut me in the lounge room failed, Dan sat against the front door so I couldn’t escape. I don’t have a key to our tiny backyard or the windows.

I was trapped. I’m still trapped.





Chapter Three



Jem



I dreamt about Liv.

I f-ucking dreamt about her again.

The dreams had stopped. The images looping around my head like a continuous horror movie retreated a month ago, the spectre of her death finally beaten. Last night I was there again. In the hotel. Drugged to the eyeballs trying to wake up my dead girlfriend. My broken girl who looked the calmest she had the whole time I’d known her.

Calm? No, dead because of my drugs.

What really f-ucking sucks is because my subconscious has such a tight grip on the memories, the fact I was high at the time is no defence against the torture my mind believes I deserve. So much of my life back then is a hazy blur, but that day is seared on my mind forever.

Liv follows me everywhere the day after I have the dreams. Glimpses of her tucked into the armchair in the corner of the lounge, strung out, or reading, catch my eye but she’s never there. Screaming arguments encroach my memories, followed by images of holding and wanting to save her. Liv was twenty-one, a woman, but still a little girl in so many ways, stunted by her past.

Days like these, the oblivion of the bottle seems the lesser of two evils - alcohol or drugs. Neither is in the house but both are in easy reach. Alone, unable to distract myself away from the coiling nightmare tightening around my chest, I get closer to walking out and getting something to numb the pain.

Padding the room in circles in my bare feet, I scroll through the contacts on my phone. If I walk out of the door now, I’ll be back with something to obliterate the world.