Make Her Bleed, page 12
"He raped you?" I ask, making sure I heard her right.
"Yeah." I blink rapidly, trying to clear the fog from my brain. "Why? What is it?"
"Uh …" I trail off, trying to figure out the right words to say but nothing is going to make this sound good. "That's the first time I've ever heard of him doing that to anyone."
"Uh-huh, yeah, sure." She rolls her eyes.
"Kai is a monster, but he … likes to watch. He wants to see it happen but I've never seen or heard of him doing it himself. He makes us do it for him. The only time I've ever seen him be hands-on at all was when he held you down."
Her hand tightens slightly as she closes her eyes again. "How often does that happen?" she asks emotionally.
"More than I'd like to admit. It all depends if the cheerleader who gives him head everyday satisfies him. If she doesn't, he makes us punish her. Each year it's a different girl. This year … it's Kaylee Masters."
A part of me wants to shield this from her but I know Kaylee means a lot to Aria. She deserves to know what she's been having to deal with.
"Kaylee! My best friend, Kaylee?" She tries to sit up but cries in pain before I grab her shoulder, making her lay back down on the bed. "He's-he's been making her …" She trails off, tears in her eyes.
"She signed up for it, like every other girl. Every year there is only one but they always want something from the man that can make anything happen. They know the rules. They satisfy him or he hands them off for the day. Kaylee got lucky last time. Dax gave her a bit of a reprieve from the torture by giving her ecstasy.
"Sometimes, when we walk into that house, we know we have to leave our conscience behind or we'll lose our minds. Kaylee knew the deal and what she was signing up for. Apparently, being cheer captain this year was that important to her. She was willing to check her self-respect at the door." Maybe I sound a bit judgmental, which I kick my own ass for, but it's the way I feel in the case of Kaylee Masters and every other girl that signs up for the abuse.
Aria was smart. She tried to run at the first sign of trouble.
She just wasn't fast enough.
"Thank you," she whispers before pressing her face against my hand, a kiss following the affectionate gesture.
I'm in awe as I stare at her, wondering if maybe she feels the same way I do. I want to kiss her and tell her everything is going to be okay, but I know it's not. It's just going to get worse for her.
"For what?" I ask.
An amused smile plays on her lips as she squeezes my hand. "For being brutally honest. That's what I like most about you. You don't sugar coat anything. Everything is either absolutely trash or doable with you. It's refreshing."
Refreshing.
Most people think my personality is excessive but not her. She's used to everyone either trying to scare her with falsities or cheer her up with dramatic truths. I'm neither of those things and she likes that.
"You know what I like best about you?" I press.
"What?" she snickers.
"That you try to see the best in everyone even if there is no good. You look for it, even in a monster like Kai. You try to remember who he was before he showed his true colors and you try to see which version is the real one. The vibrant colors or the dark colors."
She smirks softly. "I think everyone is a mix of both. There is no one truly good or truly evil. We all have malicious thoughts and we all have people we want to protect. Some people have a harder time accepting either part of themselves, the good or the bad. Kai couldn't even admit that he brought me here because he didn't want me to die."
People being a mix of both good and evil is an optimistic way of looking at it. She knows to be cautious of people like Kai but she consciously thinks there is something good in him, even if he hides it as she claims.
"You should've kept running when your dad sent you off," I say, knowing I'm exposing what everyone thinks happened the night of her accident.
"My dad didn't send me off," she denies but I see the lie on her face.
"Come on, darling. I'm not going to rat him out to Kai. If I was in his position, I would've sent you away much sooner than he did," I explain and tighten my fingers around her small ones.
She's about to speak but then the door opens.
"Rowe, what the hell are you doing here?"
I know that angry voice.
Kai.
He's not happy that I not only slipped past him but also have been spending some time with Aria. He's more territorial over her than Knox is.
I turn in my seat as I drop Aria's hand and see the way Kai is murdering me with his eyes.
"I'm checking in on the patient," I say honestly. "Her vision seems to be improving."
"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" Coach Patrick asks as he squeezes past Kai.
My eyes don't leave Kai. He's not happy with me and I couldn't give a fuck. I don't know exactly what he did to Aria but whatever it is landed her in the hospital and put her through surgery. That tells me it was major.
Kai nods out the door and I slowly stand to my feet.
"See you later, darling." I say before giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.
She smirks and nods. "Bye, Rowe."
I turn and walk out with Kai behind me. As soon as the door clicks closed, rage fills me and I push him against the fucking wall, the sheetrock rattling behind him from the force.
"Calm the fuck down, boy." He growls with contempt.
"No, I don't give a shit what you have on me. You may have the others by the balls but I'm not them. If you do anything that puts that girl in the hospital again, I'll snap your neck with my bare hands. I'll happily take the life sentence that goes with it to keep her safe. You got that?" I'm clear in my threat and I know he understands how serious I am.
"Don't you want to know why she's here, what I did to her?"
I quickly release him. I know his ploy. He wants to cause me pain by telling me how he hurt her but I'm not going to give him the satisfaction. Maybe one day I'll ask Aria but I don't want it from Kai.
"No. I'm outta here." I'm about to step out of the door to the stairs when Kai speaks up.
"The pipe, Rowe," he says with malice in his voice.
The pipe.
He only refers to one as the. It's the same one he always keeps under the bed in Aria’s room, the same one I've been told Aria tried to attack him with when she woke up from the accident.
He likes to brag about what he plans to use that pipe for so he knows I know exactly what he did to her.
Blood boils in my body as I recall the sound of her screams that could be heard through the entire house—blood curdling screams of pain—and the image his admission brings to mind of him holding her down and shoving …
Next thing I know my hand is around his neck and I'm slamming my fist into his jaw again and again.
Who the fuck screwed him up so bad that he would do something like that to her? Aria is a good person. She's never hurt anyone and Kai knows we all care about her. We spent months getting to know her before C-4 was enacted. We knew we couldn't touch her because of Kai's rule but that doesn't mean I guarded my heart from her.
I couldn't, which makes this whole thing much more painful.
"Stop it!" Coach Patrick pulls me back and stops me from continuing to wail on this sick bastard, blood flowing from his nose.
"Let me fucking kill him!" I bellow which gets the attention of the nurses but the good thing about them seeing who we are is that they ignore us and I know they aren't calling security or the police.
They wouldn't do much good anyway.
"Oh, so you're actually serious? You'd be willing to kill me for her? After everything I've done for you, you'll turn your back on me for her.” He's taunting me but it won't work.
"Abso-fuckin-lutely," I admit with pride.
I expect him to threaten me but that's not what I get from him as he wipes the blood from his nose.
"Good. At least someone in this town has some balls. I was starting to think I was the only one." Kai moves to the door leading to the stairs and I pull my arm away from Coach Patrick but he doesn't budge.
"No," he growls as he grabs my arm again. "You need to take a step back, Rowe. The last thing you need is Kai trying to take you down," he warns before slowly releasing my arms. "But, thank you … for defending my daughter. She needs as many people in her corner as she can have to get through this. She's stronger than I gave her credit for but the worst is still yet to come. The final step will probably be what kills her," Coach Patrick warns.
"What? How would you know that?" None of the guys have been told the final steps. It's a secret Kai has kept his lips sealed about.
"Because I helped him create this whole plan," he admits, guilt covering his face. "We were both drunk. His girlfriend and his mom had just died. He was really fucked up over it and I was just trying to take his mind off it. He started talking about the perfect way to get revenge on someone. I didn't think he was serious. I thought we were just messing around. I had no idea that he would use it against my daughter of all people. There are only three steps left. She's been so strong to make it as far as she has but he's going to use those last three to break her." The fear is clear on his face as he looks in the direction of Aria's hospital room door.
"What is the final step?" I know I should probably ask what the other final step besides Kaylee is but I need to know what step it is that's going to destroy her.
"Making her watch as he kills the person she loves most in this world."
My entire body freezes for a moment at his words, unable to comprehend why the hell Kai is willing to take things so far.
"Aria doesn't let many people get close to her. She doesn't have any siblings and she hasn't seen her mother since the day she was born, which leaves …" He trails off with a half-shrug.
My eyebrows shoot up. "You?"
He nods. "I'm all she has, and I know it's going to destroy her when he uses her love for me against her."
"Why the fuck are you still here? You know what he's going to do, and you haven't left?" I ask, unable to wrap my head around this.
"You'll understand when you become a parent. You never abandon your child. As long as she's here, so am I."
I don't understand. Maybe if my father wasn't a piece of shit and my mom had some type of mental capacity to put her children first, I might.
"But, if you really want to understand what you're dealing with here—with Kai's obsession with my daughter—then I have something that might shed some light."
I'll admit, Kai enacting C-4 on Aria did seem out of left field. As far as I know, she didn't do anything to him. Blaine got butt hurt when she turned him down. That's it. That doesn't warrant what Kai is doing to her.
"What is it?" I ask.
"Not here. Meet me at my house and I'll show you."
A moment of hesitation runs through my mind as I turn into the neighborhood Coach Patrick lives in.
I've learned to be paranoid and suspicious of people. Not everyone is out to help but I remind myself that he's trying to help his daughter. He knows I want to protect her so we're fighting the same battle.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?
I park on the street outside his house and wait. My phone rings with a call from my mom but I ignore it. She can wait. She's probably drunk and wants me to pick up my little sister from the sitter. Irresponsible. That's my mom in a nutshell.
I watch Coach Patrick's rental pull into the driveway before I climb out of my car.
He seems as paranoid as I am.
No one likes Malakai Harris but people do what he says anyway as a means of survival. It's safer to do as he says than fight him.
We hurry into the isolation of his house and he shows me to his office.
Cases line the walls with books, different football trophies, and a few framed photographs—not too different from Kai's home office.
Why the fuck do they even have home offices? They're football coaches for fuck’s sake. It's not like they have a business that requires an office.
"Have you seen this before?" Coach hands me an eight by ten photograph. The color has faded with age but the picture is clear. It looks like a high school dance photograph featuring what has to be a young Kai with a pretty brunette on his arm, and Coach Patrick with a beautiful redhead who looks almost exactly like Aria.
"I think so—not sure though. Is this her mom?" I ask.
Sadness builds in his eyes as he nods. "Her name is Lillian James. She was my high school sweetheart and … Kai's sister. I thought Aria keeping her mother’s last name was a good way to honor her.”
What the fuck? Kai raped his own niece? What kind of sick fuck does that shit?
"Well, adoptive sister if you want to get technical. Her biological mother abandoned her outside the hospital Kai's mother was working at. She took care of Lillian in the hospital and adopted her."
I guess that makes it a little less disgusting but still the idea of Kai and Aria being related in any way makes me want to hurl.
"There were a bunch of rumors around this town before I dated Lillian that something was going on between her and Kai. He wouldn't ever say anything about the rumors but he would get really pissed off about it. Lillian never said anything either. I guess looking back now I was probably stepping on his toes when I asked her out and that's probably why he got involved with … her." He points to the brunette in the photograph.
"Who is she?"
"Kai's high school sweetheart, Teigan Harper.”
I gape at him from the name I recognize. “You mean … my Aunt Teigan?”
Coach frowns then slowly nods. “She was also Lillian's best friend. He didn't get involved with her until Lillian and I started dating. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but I also had no idea how psychotic he was. They were together for two years until she died."
My whole family is well-versed in the details of her murder. All of Royal City is, but I had no idea she would be tangled up in this. If it wasn’t for the look Coach Patrick is giving me, I might shrug it off, but he looks like he has a secret to spill.
What is it?”
"There was only one witness to tie her father to the crime scene. Any guess as to who?"
I knew immediately where he was going with this.
"Kai?"
"Bingo. No one ever suspected Kai had anything to do with it, except Teigan's father. Even her mother thought Kai was innocent. This, of course, is all speculation."
"If it's just your assumptions then why are you telling me?"
Darkness covers his features as he sets down the picture on his desk. "Because it's a part of a much bigger story that I've realized is really going on. The exact reason why he's so obsessed with torturing Aria."
He pauses, almost like he's getting his emotions in check. "What I'm about to tell you, you can never tell Aria about. Her knowing it will do nothing but damage her. It will change how she sees herself, how she sees me, and everything else about who she is and the people in her life. It's the kind of thing that rocks your life to the core. I've done everything I can to protect her from this and I need you to continue shielding her from this truth."
Everyone has secrets. Lord knows I have a full closet worth of skeletons.
"Sure."
He takes a deep breath, the kind someone takes when they finally reveal a secret they've been holding in for far too long.
"I was in college when Lillian found out she was pregnant with Aria. It was like a celebration, except Kai was anything but happy. He told me that Lillian was screwing around on me. I didn't care if she was. God knows I made a lot of mistakes and Lillian didn't think any less of me. You've never really seen Malakai Harris angry unless you think he might actually kill you. I thought he was going to kill me and her if I didn't go along with what he wanted."
"What did he want?" I ask, almost afraid to ask. What is it about his story that connects to what is happening to Aria right now?
"For Lillian to be punished. He hates nothing more than lying and her not telling me if she was seeing someone else was lying in his eyes or so he said. What happened in that room is something I'll never forget or forgive myself for. The way she cried and begged for help was something I hear in my nightmares, something that truly haunts me. I haven't spoken a word to her since that day, and she never reached out." I have an understanding of what happened but I'm not going to push for details. It's not important enough.
"If you never spoke to her, how did you get Aria?"
The muscles in his face loosen before he looks at me pensively. "Kai held Lillian hostage in that house until she gave birth to Aria."
"What house?"
"The same house he lives in now, his mother's house. The room he kept Aria locked in after the accident? It's the same room she was born in. That's why there are bars on the window. That's not Aria's room. It's her mother's. He is dragging her right back to where she came screaming into this world before he ripped her from Lillian's arms and threw her at me to raise. Who knows? Maybe he planned all this from that day? Maybe he’s just been patient so he can continue the cycle of pain that he started with her mother. It’s so beyond messed up. It makes it even worse that she trusted him. He was her favorite person in the world when she was a kid and now he’s her tormentor.” He seems to have lost the point in his rant.
“Sure, it’s messed up, but what happened to her mother?” I know there’s a piece of this puzzle I’m still missing.
“You mean, how did he punish her?”
“Sure.”
A darkness falls in Coach Patrick’s demeanor as tension rises in his shoulders. “I’m sure you can recall what happened to my daughter in that classroom.”
He doesn’t have to specify which classroom or when she was in it. We both know the truth.
“Yeah.”
“That is how he punished Lillian. The only difference is it was just Lillian, Malakai, and me in that room. He reenacted what he made me do to Lillian, and he used you and the other guys to do it. If my assumptions are correct, Malakai Harris is trying to turn Aria into her mother, but worse. I think he wants her to be completely dependent on him—brainwash her. He's not going to stop until he destroys who she is and turns her into who he wants her to be."
