“Just make her happy.”
“I’ll make her happy.”
Creed stared into the girl’s eyes and watched the fresh tear roll over the bridge of her nose, drop and mingle with the blood on the cement by her face.
So me.
So very me.
“Then I’ll leave.”
I shot up in the bed and, not thinking, my skin prickling, cold sweat trickling between my breasts, I jumped to my feet and for some reason hurdled over Creed’s body. My feet landed on the other side of the bed and I bounded to the floor. My foot lifting to run, flee, escape like that girl sixteen years ago was me and I had the chance, one shot, to get away before they destroyed me.
Creed’s arm hooked my waist and I flew backwards, landing in the bed and Creed rolled over me.
“It’s a dream, Sylvie. Just a dream,” he said what he’d said over and over again when I woke up after a dream assaulted me.
“I know those men. I know those men,” I panted, my breath coming fast, sharp, heavy, hurting as it tore up my throat and out of me. “I know them… knew them. Served them beer. Nachos. I knew those men, Creed.”
“Beautiful, what are you –?”
“The men, Richard’s men, those men who Daddy forced you to watch raping that girl who looked like me.”
“Fuck,” he clipped then bit out, “You’re dreaming that shit.”
My hands drove into either side of his hair and held tight. “I knew them. I brought them beers while they watched games on Richard’s huge ass TV.”
“They’re out of your life, Sylvie.”
“I knew them.”
“Baby, they’re gone.”
“I knew them!” I shrieked, Creed stilled then he rolled, sitting up, forcing me to straddle him but his arms clamped tight around me.
“Calm down, Sylvie,” he ordered firmly.
“I can’t, Creed.”
“You gotta try, baby.”
“I can’t, Creed. It’s hideous.”
I stopped speaking, shook my head and struggled in his lap. I had too much energy. I had to move. Pace. Run. Sprint. Stand up and scream.
Creed held firm and wouldn’t let me, so I gave up and kept talking.
“I can’t believe they did that. I can’t believe they taped your eyes open and made you watch. I can’t believe they found someone who looked like me and hurt her like that. Just because she was unlucky enough to look like me and they needed to make a point, hurt her in a way she’d never get over. Alter her life forever and you didn’t even know who she was. They probably didn’t know who she was!”
“I know who she was.”
That made me go still.
“You knew her?” I asked quietly.
“Not then,” he answered. “After. When I got into the business. When I had the resources. A few years later, I tracked her. She was from a county over. She was the girl in the picture with Dixon who I was too fucked up to note really wasn’t you.”
“Is she okay?”
Creed didn’t answer.
“Is she okay, Creed?”
Swiftly, like pulling off a Band-Aid, he gave it to me.
“She committed suicide two days after they released her and me.”
I closed my eyes and, not able to hold it up, my head fell forward and slammed into his collarbone.
“Maybe the best thing for her, baby,” he whispered. “She went home.”
“You don’t believe that,” I replied.
Creed said nothing.
I was right. He didn’t believe that. He was just spouting that shit to make me feel better.
“God, if they weren’t dead, I’d kill them,” I told his collarbone then lifted my head. “Or, in Richard’s case, I’d kill him again. Though this time, I’d find a better way to do it.”
“When you told me what went down, Sylvie, and while you were deciding whether or not to listen to me, got a buddy who has a buddy back home. I made a call and he made a call and his buddy looked into that shit. You hit Scott’s jugular. Report says he bled out in minutes. Seems you found the best way to do it.”
“Right then, I’ll amend. If I knew he was even more of a heartless sociopath than I already knew he was, I would have made it last a whole lot longer.”
“Baby, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. It’s over and you keep dreamin’ this shit so you need to see somebody.”
“I’ll call someone.”
“Yeah? When?” he shot back. “We been back here two weeks and you haven’t called anyone.”
“It’s been a little busy and the kids come up today. Not to mention, soon, I’m moving so why start now when I’ll have to find someone in Phoenix?”
“So you won’t wake up in a cold sweat and leap over me, runnin’ to God knows where to do whacked shit that freaks me way the fuck out.”
He had a point.
“I haven’t had a dream in days. Maybe they’re waning,” I suggested.
“He tied you down. He took you repeatedly,” Creed returned. “He violated you in ways you didn’t want. He controlled you. Sylvie, I am no psychologist and you got a heart of gold. You don’t know that girl, you weren’t there, it was nearly two decades ago and she is very dead but I still know you feel for her but this isn’t about her. This is about you. This is about you learning I watched that happen to her and then I learned that pretty much the same thing happened to you for six fuckin’ years. You givin’ me that shit and remembering it happened to you, both are fuckin’ with your head. I do not have the tools to sort that. You have got to find the tools to sort that. People in counseling move all the time. Psychologists know the drill. They start therapy and they transfer you to a new doctor but you gotta start therapy, Sylvie. You gotta work this shit out. For you. For me. For the family we’re making. For Charlene. For Adam. For everybody.”
Fuck it all, I hated it when he was right and it happened a lot.
So I did the only thing I could do.
I snapped my, “Okay.”
“That okay is an okay as in, you call to-fuckin’-day. I’m standin’ over you, Sylvie. Clock strikes nine in the morning, you’re on the goddamned phone finding a therapist you think you can work with.”
“Fine,” I bit out.
“Don’t think I’m joking.”
I didn’t think that. His tone told me he absolutely was not.
“I said fine,” I clipped.
“Jesus, this shit makes me wonder if I should have just let you think I left you.”
My blood turned cold.
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s haunting you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s bringing it all back. You had it under control. Now it’s in your face.”
“Don’t say that!” I shouted, jerked away, breaking free from his arms. Jumping to the side of the bed only to lean forward and point at him. “If you didn’t tell me, I’d never have let you back in.”
“Come back to bed, Sylvie.”
I swung my arm out. “You didn’t tell me, we wouldn’t have this.”
He leaned toward me, his tone cautious, and he ordered gently, “Baby, come back to bed.
I ignored him and carried on, this time my voice hoarse, beginning to grate, sounding like it would break, “You didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t have you.”
“Sylvie, come back to me.”
My voice was abrasive when I declared, “I’ll take nightmares every night for the rest of my fucking life if it comes with waking up to you.”
He reached out a hand, caught mine but I leaned back, putting my weight into tearing free.
I couldn’t because Creed held tight.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I said that, beautiful. I should never have said that.”