Bang (Black Lotus #1)(36)

MY LIFE CONTINUES to be a wasteland. It’s simply pointless to even try to see the good in anything anymore. I’m now twelve years old. The only hope I’ve been clinging to is that in two years, I’ll get my dad back. But that hope turned to ash and dust when my caseworker stopped by yesterday.

“Only two more years,” I said, and with a confused look, she asked, “What happens in two years?”

“I get my dad back,” I told her. “I can go home.”

She seemed annoyed when she shook her head and sighed, “That’s not how it works.”

“What do you mean?”

“The state terminated his rights to you. When he gets out, you don’t get to go back home. He’s not allowed to have any contact with you.”

My face heated in pure white anger when she added, “This is your home—here—with Carl and Bobbi.”

I walked away from her at that point. The hopelessness and defeat were too much for me to hide and I didn’t want her to see me upset. She’s a piece of shit, this world is a piece of shit, my life is a piece of shit. I used to pray to God to help me, but he never did, so he’s a piece of shit too, leaving me in this nightmare. Me—living in the darkness, bound up with leather belts, scars imbedding their home in the frail skin of my wrists. Me—humiliated and degraded—having sex with my brother while Carl beats off as if we’re his own personal porn show. It’s my living hell.

I used to cry all the time after being forced to have sex with my brother, the horror that started on my tenth birthday. When it was over that first time, I locked myself in my room, screaming and crying into my pillow. I’ll never forget that day; it’s burned its memory inside of me. A day that I truly felt my innocence being stripped away.

Putting my clothes back on, Carl laughs at me and I run up the stairs and into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. I feel disgusting and when I fall onto the bed, I take the red-headed doll Pike gave me earlier and with all the force I have, throw it against the wall, releasing a violent sob as I do. I can’t stop the tears or the ache that fills me. I’m nothing but tears and snot and drool—ugly—and the salts from my eyes eventually start making the skin of my cheeks sting. My body wears out, after first being tied up in the closet for the past three days, and now the depth of my breakdown. With swollen eyes, I’m finally unshackled from this misery as I drift off into my dreams.

When I wake up, Pike is sitting in bed next to me. I look up at him as his back rests against the headboard. His eyes are sad and bloodshot, and I’m mortified. I can’t even look at him. I don’t want him to see me, so I close my eyes and roll over, away from him.

His voice is soft and strained when he says to my back, “I’m so sorry.”

I cry. It only takes a second for this heavy weighted pain to claim me—to own me. My body heaves in an unsteady rhythm, and he doesn’t touch me like he normally does when I cry.

Time passes as my cries weaken into shallow whimpers that hiccup out of me, and then he speaks again, “Please look at me. Tell me you don’t hate me.”

I shake my head, keeping my body turned away from him when I feel him scoot down and lie behind me. His head presses against my back, and I hear him sniff before he starts talking to me quietly, making his confessions. “You’re not alone. I haven’t been telling you the truth. Carl doesn’t just hit me when I’m down in the basement with him.” He chokes back a whimper, and when I hear it, the tightening in my throat becomes painful. “He makes me do sick things to him.” His voice cuts off; he’s crying, and I can’t stand it. I roll over and his eyes are shut, but his hands find my face as he rests them on my cheeks.

When his eyes open, he says, “Please don’t hate me. Don’t let him destroy what we have. Don’t give him that power to rip us apart from each other.” He takes in a shaky breath. “You tell me all the time that I’m all you have, but it goes both ways. I have nothing but you. You’re my only family, Elizabeth. Please don’t let him take you away from me.”

Wrapping my arms around his back, I bury my face in his neck as we both cry together. In this world, a world I’m beginning to learn is a cold and dark place, I fear being alone. I need Pike, and knowing that he needs me too, pushes me to finally speak. I never thought I’d be saying these things, but suddenly I become an open book when I start blubbering against the damp skin of his neck.

“I don’t hate you; I love you. But you hurt me. It hurt really bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And now I’m sad and scared and embarrassed and so alone.”

“I am too,” he admits.

“I’m scared I’m gonna lose you.”

“I won’t ever leave. I swear.”

Pike never has left my side. Even though we don’t attend the same school, he has planted himself in my life as a threat to others. I still get teased, but not as much. The summer is nearing an end, and I’m going to be at the middle school this year with Pike at the high school. I wish I could be with him. The only times I feel even a remote amount of relief from the never-ending suffering is when I’m with him. Somehow, he makes it possible for me to breathe in this clandestine world the two of us live in.

If anyone knew that Pike and I were having sex, they would freak, but to us, it’s become just another facet of our lives. It used to scare me, used to make me cry, but I’ve learned to numb myself down in that basement. We have sex long enough for Carl to get off and then we escape to our rooms. Bobbi knows what goes on down there, but she chooses to ignore it as she makes her cheap-ass crafts and collects her stupid ducks.