Текст книги "Tank"

Автор книги: Carmen Jenner

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

I don’t know how much longer I’m left alone. It seems like days, but is more than likely just hours. I’m still naked, but I’ve pulled the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around myself like you would a towel after stepping out of the shower. It hurts every time the fabric brushes over my wounded abdomen. I think it’s infected already, or maybe it just hurts—either way, it’s seeping blood and yellow plasma every time I move. It’s easier and less painful just to lie here.

I’m jonesing for another fix. I want it so bad my entire body shakes, and the only thing that distracts me long enough to forget is Tank. Will he ever know what happened to me? Will he ever know that I was an idiot all that time, and too stupid to realise that I was in love with him? Where Kick was a crutch, a bad habit, a distraction, Tank has been my anchor. He’s been the one watching my back and fighting for me when I couldn’t fight for myself, and most days I treated him like he was beneath me, when the opposite was true.

Maybe it’s for the best that he doesn’t know. Maybe then he can cut his losses and find a girl who’ll put him first. And it’ll be as if I never existed. I’ll leave his life the way I came into it—with a bang and a sour taste in my mouth.

I know Tank, though, and I know he won’t just let me go. He’ll search forever; he’ll tear cities apart to get what he wants. I’ve never met a more determined man, but I’m not holding out hope that he’ll ever find me. I’ve never given him my father’s name. I’ve never told him about the house I grew up in, what suburb, what street. I’ve never even told him my last name. Seems odd that you could know so much about a person, be so intimate and share nothing of who you are, of what made you you, while you share your body.

I might know his mind, his determination, and exactly what to do to his body to have him begging me for release, but Tank is still as much a mystery to me as I am to him. What I do know of him, I love. Not just in the platonic sense, and not just because of the way he makes me feel when he’s inside me, his hands all over me, and his lips at my ear coaxing me to let go, to fly. He annoys the shit out of me most of the time. He likes to push my buttons and I push right back, but I know wholeheartedly that I love that big, arrogant arse of a man. Not that it really matters. None of it matters now.

Footsteps echo down the stairs leading to my room. I remember that sound so well. I hear it in my dreams, the heavy footfalls and turn of the lock, the creak of the door. Only now it’s all off; it’s different. There’s a loud thudding accompanying the steps, surpassing them. And the locked door rattles on its hinges as something slams into it. My father curses, and it sounds as if he’s running down the stairs. The key slides in the lock and turns, and then the door is flung wide and he hefts a very large body into the room.

“Tank.” I gasp and try to sit up, but the rope around my neck holds me down. I claw at it, struggling to be free, winching it tighter and choking myself like a dog on a chain in an effort to get close to him. To see him.

“Knock it off, Ivy,” my father commands, and I do, because old habits die hard.

I lie back against the mattress, turning my head as far as I can without choking again. He’s not moving. Dread washes over me. My eyes prick with tears and I can’t swallow down the lump in my throat. “Is he still alive?” I ask, on a tremoring voice.

My father lifts Tank’s inert arms and drags his body across the room. Tank sags against the wall with a thud, and my father handcuffs one arm to the steel pipe bolted in the concrete floor. He’s cuffed me to that pipe a number of times, and no amount of yanking had loosened it in the slightest. I’d cut my wrist to shreds just trying.

“Would I drag his sorry arse down here if he wasn’t?” he says.

Yes. Yes he would. He’d do that and so much more. Terror worms its way through my gut because I’ve seen what happens when people get too close to me. I’ve seen what happens to people who try to tear my father and I apart.

“Please don’t kill him. Please?” I sob. If I could get down on my knees right now I would. I’d do whatever he wanted. “Don’t kill him, Daddy. I’ll stay. You can take off the rope. I won’t run again. You don’t have to hurt him. Please?”

“He fucked my little girl!” he roars, turning on me. His face turns puce, and spittle rains down on me.

“No.” I shake my head. “I fucked him; I wanted it. I begged him to fuck me. I made him do it.”

“I was fuckin’ there, at his cabin.” He grabs me by the throat, squeezing, choking me until my own face flushes furiously with heat and a lack of oxygen. Livid green eyes bore down into mine and his face is just inches away when he snarls, “Did you forget that? I fuckin’ saw the two of you. So don’t fuckin’ tell me you made him do it.”

He lets go and I cough, gasping like a fish.

“He has nothing to do with it.” I sob. “Please. Just let him go. Punish me. It’s me you want to hurt, not him.”

“No,” he says, hooking his fingers in the rope tied around my neck and yanking it so hard I choke. My fingers claw and scrabble for purchase on his arm, but he doesn’t loosen his hold. “I want to hurt both of you, actually.”

Tears roll down my cheeks as he rips away the bed sheet covering me. He pulls out a knife and slides it between my neck and the rope. I turn my head and hold very still while he saws through it. There’s a good chance he’ll slip anyway and pierce me in the jugular.

One can only hope.

Earlier, I might have run the second that noose slipped free. I might have fought and screamed this house down and attacked him, but now that Tank is here what can I do? There is only submission, and bargaining, and grovelling now. Tithing my pain, so that Tank won’t pay the ultimate price. My father might be sick and twisted, but he’s never wanted my death on his hands. Just my surrender. And I’ll give him that. I’ll give it gladly if it means that Tank can walk free.

I glare up at the man in front of me, the man who raised me, and I spit in his face. He seizes my throat again, crushing my windpipe, forcing me to gasp for breath that isn’t there.

If I had the voice I’d tell him to kill me, to finally put me out of the misery I’ve felt all these years. But I can’t do that either, because that means risking Tank. And I won’t do that. I’d rather lie down on this bed and offer myself up to my father’s mercy than have him hurt Tank.

He throws me back on the mattress and unbuckles his belt. Slowly he slides it through his belt loops until the length of it swings free, and then he gathers it up and snaps it tightly together.

“On your knees,” he commands. I push myself up, and with a shaking breath I kneel up on the bed the way I did so often during my childhood, with my arse in the air, naked and completely exposed to him. The first lash is always the hardest. He always has me wait on trembling fours and strikes hard across the upper buttocks, right where my tailbone is.

I scream the first time.

I always scream the first time.

And then I take my punishment with shallow breaths and silent tears that glance off my cheeks and stain the worn sheet beneath me. When he finishes, I collapse face down on the bed, ignoring the burn from my abdomen as I lie on the flesh he carved out of me just a few hours ago. My arse smarts, my whole body aches from being clenched too tightly, from anticipating his next blow, and I bury my face in my hands so I won’t see the sheer delight on his.

He steps away from the bed and I’m suddenly so consumed with fear that he might still hurt Tank, despite me distracting him. He doesn’t do anything though, just sneers at Tank’s unconscious form as he approaches what used to be my clothes dresser. He opens the drawer and pulls out a length of rope. I scramble away from him, try to curl myself up in child’s pose, but he yanks out my leg from underneath me and binds the rope around one ankle. I kick and claw at the sheets with my hands in an effort to get away. I try everything I can to make it more difficult for him to tie me down. But my father grows tired of my antics, and I can only stare up at him in confusion as he drops the rope and pulls the knife from his pocket. I shake. He smiles and takes a step away from me, and a few more towards Tank.

He kicks Tank’s leg, toes him with his boot, and then brings the glinting silver blade to Tank’s face. The room whirls around me. The words are frozen in my throat, stuck there like a sharp piece of food that I haven’t chewed properly before swallowing. It’s only as he shoves the very tip of the knife into the corner of Tank’s mouth, and I see the first trickle of blood, that I find my voice again.

“No. I’ll let you tie me up. You can do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt him,” I cry. My father smiles like he’s won a great victory, and in a way I suppose he has, because I just laid all of my cards bare, and he’s going to take me for everything.

He wipes the knife on Tank’s shirt, and he casually strolls across the room with the ease of a man whose conscience doesn’t burden him one bit. I hold still as he picks up the rope and winds it around my ankle, tying it off in a series of complicated knots before tethering the other end to the leg of the bed with just as much skill. He tests his handiwork by pulling the length of rope that’s dangling off the bed, and with a satisfied grunt he turns and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him. The locks slide home, and my heart beats heavy with the finality of it.

I should try to rouse Tank. I should get up, and see how far my new leash will carry me before it cuts into my ankle. I should try and find a way out of here, but I can’t. I can’t move from fear and exhaustion, and the terror that has seeped a little further into my bones with every lash of his belt.

If Tank weren’t here, I’d find a way to end it. Right now. But he is here. So I need to find a way out. Before it’s too late.

I never wanted to disappoint Mummy. Daddy seemed to hurt her enough. I tried to be good. I didn’t cry when I told her mine and Daddy’s secret—the one he said we mustn’t ever tell because no one would understand. I didn’t cry, but she did. She howled like those wolves I’d seen on TV when they lost their little wolves. And then she’d squeezed me so tight I’d thought I’d explode all over the bathroom.

I’d been sent to my room then, and when Daddy came home the yelling had started. It’s still going. There’s a storm outside too, and the thunder monsters are yelling and stomping as loud as Daddy is downstairs. I cuddle under my blankets with Banjo, because he doesn’t like storms. When it rains heavy like this, we go into Mummy and Daddy’s bed and Banjo and I get cuddled, and he’s not so afraid. But no one is cuddling us tonight.

I wish I’d never told Mummy about our secret.

When my eyes get too heavy I fall asleep. My door creaking open wakes me, and I let out a tiny fearful little scream when someone sits down on my bed.

“Shh, baby it’s me,” Mummy says, and I pull back the covers and feel her tears as they splash onto my hands. “We have to be really quiet, okay? You and I are going to take a little trip.”

“Is Daddy coming too?” I whisper.

“No, sweet girl. Just you and me.” In a flash of lightning from outside the window, I see her face crinkle with pain, her eye is all puffy and closed. She pulls me from the bed and whispers, “Okay come on. Two brave girls off on an adventure—what do you say?”

I nod and she smiles, but then she starts to cry again. “Good girl. We’re gonna need to be real quiet so we don’t wake Daddy, okay?”

“Okay. But Mummy … why are we leaving Daddy behind? Won’t he be sad without us?”

“No. He doesn’t love us, baby. He wants to hurt us.” She sets me down and crouches in front of me, holding my hands in hers. “What he did to you wasn’t right. No one has the right to touch you like that, do you hear me?” I stare at her. My chest feels tight and my eyes start to leak just like hers. “Now, come on, let’s get your robe on and go.”

“But it’s raining,” I say, tugging on her hand and pointing to the window. “Shouldn’t we wait until it stops?”

“It’s just a little rain. Drizzle, baby. Nothing to worry about.”

It isn’t drizzle, though; it’s pouring down so loudly I can hear it pinging off the roof.

I let her carry me down the stairs, and I feel safe and warm in her arms. I don’t like that I upset her. I don’t like that Daddy has hurt her. I don’t like leaving in the middle of the night during a rainstorm, but I go anyway.

When we get in the car, I realise that I left Banjo behind. “Mummy, wait. Banjo.” I cry.

“We can’t go back, honey.”

“But it’s Banjo. Grandma gave him to me.”

“It’s not safe for us to go back in the house,” my mother snaps, and then she gives me another of those smiles that aren’t really happy. “I’ll buy you a new Banjo.”

I wail loudly. I don’t wanna leave my teddy behind. Mummy glances back at the house. She’s fretting the way Grandma does when I put my sticky hands on her white couches. Mummy turns and points at me. “You stay here. Do not move. Okay? I’m going to get Banjo and then we’re going to leave.”

“Okay,” I squeak through my tears.

Only she doesn’t come back to the car. And we don’t go on our secret big girl mission. I get scared of being all alone, and I think maybe Mummy needs help finding Banjo. He’s under my covers, right at the very end of my bed tucked between my sheets. I put him there because he doesn’t like thunder, and he doesn’t like it when my mummy and daddy fight, and I couldn’t cover his ears all night because I’d needed to sleep.

I wish I’d stayed asleep.

I jolt awake. I blink my eyes several times and lie quietly on the bed, wondering what woke me.

“Ivy. Babe, wake up.”

Tank.

“Oh my God, you’re alive.” I shoot up from the bed and walk as far as the rope will let me. It’s not far enough; in fact, we’re about a metre away from one another, maybe a little less if he could stretch out his legs.

Tank nods gravely. His eyes are glazed and unfocused, and he wrestles with his cuffed hand, testing the strength of the restraints.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so damn sorry,” I say, and I close my eyes against the fresh onslaught of tears.

“Babe, it’s okay. I’m gonna get us out of here.”

“How did he find you?” I ask. “How are you here?”

“Crazy and I were out on a job. I came back to the van, expecting to find that dumb motherfucker, but he was nowhere in sight. I was just about to get out and go find the little shit when your dad struck me in the neck with some kinda tranq.”

“I’m so sorry. I should have told you this would happen,” I say, and I sink to the floor and curl into a foetal position—or as much of a foetal position as I can muster with my leg tied to a bed. “I thought he’d given up. I thought if he found me he’d just take me, and be done with it. I didn’t … This is my fault, Tank. You’re here because of—”

“Ivy, look at me,” he says. I do. The corner of his lip is swelling where my father nicked it, and there’s a laceration over his cheekbone. He looks pallid and exhausted, but he still manages to smile and reassure me with his gaze. “If you’re here, I’m here.”

“You shouldn’t be. I don’t deserve you. I don’t—”

“Well,” he says, shrugging his huge shoulders. “You could stand to put out more.” He grins, and despite the fear and the pain, a choked laugh escapes me. “Now, where the hell is here?”

“Home. We’re home.”

He looks around, and his expression is one of disgust as he shakes his head. “This isn’t your home.”

“This is where I grew up,” I say.

“Doesn’t mean it’s your home, babe. This is a prison cell, and you’ve spent far too long in it.” For a moment the fierce determination in his eyes gives me hope. “How many men he got workin’ for him?”

I shake my head. “None.”

Tank frowns. “What do you mean, none? He doesn’t have thugs, an entourage?”

“He never needed one, Tank,” I say, and I close my eyes, letting out a deep breath. “Just a needle and the promise of another fix.”

“Motherfucker,” he says under his breath, and at first I think he’s referring to what I just said, and then I follow his gaze.

I’m completely naked, which is preferable to having fabric covering the welts on my arse right now, but I still feel over-exposed with Tank here, not because he hasn’t seen me naked already, but because he’s never seen me wear my father’s marks so blatantly. The scar above my abdomen had been there since I was seventeen, but I’d covered it with a tattoo the first chance I got, and though the skin was still raised with scar tissue, the artist who had done it had a skilful hand and a clever eye for cover-ups. This is the first time Tank is seeing what it really says. I stand, and walk back to the bed. I don’t want to be away from him, but I can’t bear for him to look at me just now.

“What the fuck did he do to you?” His gaze promises violence and revenge, and his voice tremors with it. I sit on the bed and I wince, because the welts on my arse remind me why that’s a bad idea.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he murmurs. “I’ll string him up by his fucking intestines for this. I’m gonna gut him like a goddamn fish and choke him with his insides.”

“I’m alright.” I stand and look at him across the room, feeling small. Feeling helpless. And while that’s not new for me, I find tears of frustration welling in my eyes. I bat them away with the back of my hand.

“Havin’ your pussy carved up and your arse spanked raw is alright?”

“I’ve been through a lot worse,” I whisper.

Tank’s jaw tightens I can practically hear his teeth grinding together. I wrap the sheet around me and his hard gaze softens with remorse. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, babe. I never should have left you alone. I wasn’t here to protect you when he did that.” He tilts his chin towards me. “I wasn’t … He didn’t bring me here first; not to this room, anyway. I think I was upstairs though. He’d tied me to a bed and hit me a couple times with some kinda fuckin’ tranquilizer. I think he was afraid I’d break it, because even after he shot me up, I’d thrashed like a motherfucker. And then he punched me in the face and gave that tranq a helpin’ hand. I don’t remember jack shit after that. Only that I woke up here.”

“We’re never going to get out of here, are we?”

“You got out before, didn’t ya?”

“Yeah, because he was high as a kite, and he got careless. He left his pocket knife on the nightstand and I buried it in his face.”

This brings a smile to Tank’s face. It’s a slow twitching of lips that becomes an all-out grin. He’s so perverted.

I smile too, but the sound of the floorboard creaking above our heads makes the smiles vanish from both of our faces. The footsteps are on the stairs now, each one heavy and deliberate. Each one designed to strike fear into our hearts. And it works, at least for me. I glance at Tank and swallow hard.

The words are on the tip of my tongue when the locks slide back and the door slowly opens, and then they’re swallowed by dread, pushed down my throat to settle in my stomach because I can’t say those words here. The walls, the bed, the concrete floor that’s seen too many bloodstains, and my father—they don’t deserve to hear something so pure. No. This room, these walls, this floor and this bed, they’re for overhearing screams, and my father is the conductor, wielding my fear as his baton.

He enters the room and glares at the two of us. His hands are behind his back, and I can’t tell if he’s holding something in them or not, but it makes me nervous. He smiles at me, and his gaze settles on Tank. “You’re finally awake.”

Tank says nothing, just meets my father’s gaze evenly. He doesn’t flinch under the weight of that terrible green stare, not the way I would. The corners of my father’s lips twitch, and then he stalks over to me and yanks me up by the arm. I lash out at him, but his eyes meet mine and in them is the promise of pain, not for me, but for Tank, and I go lax and stop fighting.

“There’s Daddy’s girl.” He tucks a strand of limp hair behind my ear and turns my arm over so that my palm is facing skyward. I yank it back, already knowing what he’s about to do.

“No,” I say. “No, don’t.”

I can’t do this. Not in front of Tank.

I’d been wondering how long it would be before he did this again. I’d craved it. Before he brought in Tank, wanting to die had been all I’d thought about, and now the promise of heroin in my veins overrides that desire. My body cries out for it. I want it, badly, but don’t want it here, not in front of Tank, where I might see his disappointment etched so plainly on his strong features.

“Please?” I beg of my father and he smirks.

“Once upon a time you used to beg me to pump this into your veins,” he says. The sound of Tank’s handcuffs chinking against the iron pipe draws both of our gazes.

“Touch one hair on her head and I’m going to tear you apart with my bare hands,” Tank warns.

My father chuckles. “You’d have to get out of those cuffs first, and I don’t see that happening.”

He pulls a rubber cord from his back pocket and ties it tightly above the crease in my elbow along with a syringe that he pulls the cap off of with his teeth and spits out on the ground. And then he sticks the needle in my vein.

“No!” Tank roars, yanking at his bound hands, trying to wrench them free, but he’s not moving anywhere. He’s not going anywhere. None of us are.

The sweet rush of tar pumps through my veins and I exhale my worries, leaning back into the support of my father’s arms. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, Tank’s gaze is livid and locked on mine. He doesn’t understand why I didn’t struggle. I can see it written all over his face, the question.

Why didn’t you fight?

The answer is simple: him.