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Jeffery pointed his fork at her. “You next.”
Elise tossed her head, flicking her long hair back over her shoulder. “Mine’s fucked up, maybe as bad as yours. Maybe not. Anyway, me and my friends were out one night. We were still in college, but one of my girls had gotten knocked up. She was happy about it, though. She and her guy were going to get married after graduation. We went out to celebrate her halfway point of the pregnancy. We went partying. She didn’t drink, of course, but the rest of us did.” She looked up at the ceiling for a second. Not quite an eye roll but something in the neighborhood of regretful. “She got sick. Gabby never had morning sickness. Hers was more like anytime-of-day sickness that came out of nowhere. She took some pills the doc gave her and they made her super sleepy. I decided,” Elise cleared her throat and tried to blink back tears, “I wasn’t too drunk to drive, and Gabby was already almost passed out from the meds. I drove, but I was a little tipsier than I thought. I, uh, never checked to see if anyone buckled Gabby up. We were driving back to the house we all rented together, and I went over the yellow line, and a truck came on us. I swerved to get back over and took my car off the side of an embankment. Slammed right into a tree at about forty miles an hour. Gabby was, uh, well she got thrown through the windshield. She died. Obviously, the baby did too.”
“Sweet fuck,” Liam said, dropping his own fork.
“Yeah.” One of the tears Elise was fighting escaped, and she wiped it away with a jerky motion. “I, of course, tested positive for alcohol when the cops showed up. I got arrested for manslaughter. My other friends, the ones in the car that survived, totally disowned me, even though they’d been drunk too. That’s where most of my bitterness comes from.”
Yeah, that would suck. But it probably sucked more for the dead girl, her baby, and her boyfriend. Still, I could see why the desertion made her mad. I knew what it felt like, it had just happened to me when I was a baby.
“After I was sentenced to ten years’ probation, Gabby’s family sued me. They won, of course. I live in a shitty trailer in a crap part of town because I have to pay them like three grand a month as part of the settlement. That was the best my lawyer could do. Same as Jeffery over there, I’ve had nightmares about that night for years. Though, therapy didn’t help me that much. I was thinking about killing myself before I ended up here. Oh, and if any of you were wondering, Sam won’t let you kill yourself. I tried the third day, but he’ll shock the shit out of you until you stop what you’re trying to do.” Elise cleared her throat then looked down the table. “Liam? Wanna go next?”
Liam shook his head. “Mine isn’t terrible like that. I had a decent life before here. I did lose my brother to heroin. He overdosed when he was nineteen. I was the one who got him hooked, though. That was my fault. I guess I don’t have an addictive personality. I’d tried lots of drugs, but I could always stop whenever I wanted. It was never an issue. I sort of assumed my brother would be the same way. I was twenty-two and he came to a party when he was eighteen. I helped him shoot up one time, so he could see how good it was, you know? That was all it took. He went down the rabbit hole. He was gone a year later.” Liam picked up his fork and tapped it on the table absently. “I never told my parents who got him on the stuff. I kept that hidden because I was afraid they’d never talk to me again. I’ve got a good job, and a girlfriend, but I still go to grief counselors and whatever. It’s been years, but I still struggle with it. I get pissed off about it sometimes and lash out. It’s the only way I know how to get through sometimes.”
A pattern was emerging. Did Sam target people who had terrible traumas? Were those his intended victims? Why take people who’d already been so broken and bring them here to break them even more?
Did he hate people who went to therapy? Why?
Bri sighed and shoved her plate aside, her mouth tight and her chin up. “I was gang raped in high school. I was sucking the starting quarterback’s dick at a party. Having a great time, actually. Some of his teammates walked in and saw me naked and decided it was a buffet. I tried to tell them to get out, but pretty boy quarterback told them to come on in. They held me down,” Bri gritted her teeth in anger, “and started fucking me. I howled and lashed out, but no one came to help. I sort of zoned out after a while. Guys shoved their dicks in my pussy and ass and mouth. Just ramming away and laughing like they were having the best time. My brain sort of snapped, and I went somewhere else. Faded away into the dark while they did whatever they wanted to my body.
“When I came to, I was on the floor, alone, naked, and covered in drying semen. My asshole throbbed and bled where they’d torn me inside, my vagina hurt, there were bruises all over my body, and I’d never been so violated in my life. Never even imagined being that hurt. I was too freaked out and distraught to go to the cops that day. I got dressed and went home and cried for about ten straight hours. When I finally told one of my friends, they told me to tell my parents, but I couldn’t. I was too ashamed. Too angry. I’d had anger issues even before that, but the rape turned it up to eleven.”
She took a second before continuing. “I got pregnant. One of those pieces of shit had a swimmer that made it all the way in. I had an abortion, but my parents found out about that and basically disowned me. When I told them why, they called me a liar. Said if that had really happened, I’d have gone to the police. Said that the only reason I wouldn’t was if I’d wanted it, or had been an active participant. I’d always thought they loved me until then. Until they called me a baby killer and said I was going to hell.” She shrugged. “Fuck ’em. Anyway, nothing ever happened to the douchebags. Rumors went around, but it more or less became a story about how I was this cock hungry slut who asked to get a train run on me at the party. To top it all off, the douchebag quarterback is in the NFL now, if you can fucking believe that. A backup, but still. He’s making millions of fucking dollars, and I’m in middle management at a goddamned accounting firm. Such bullshit.” She breathed deeply then turned her gaze to Drake. “What about you? All this time, and we’ve never heard your story.”
Drake sighed and looked down. “After that, my issues seem small by comparison. No huge tragedies. Nothing like what you went through. Mine was about abandonment. My dad was rich. He was on the board of a few companies. He made millions. My mother was always busy with her socialite friends. They more or less paid nannies and maids to raise me. Saw my dad maybe four times a year. Christ, kids with divorced parents see their dads more than that. Like I said, very vanilla compared to you.”
Elise snorted. “A rich kid whose mommy and daddy didn’t love him enough? Wow. Really horrendous. A regular fucking Shakespearian play over here.” She rolled her eyes.
“New girl, er, sorry. Dahlia?” Liam said. “What’s your story? Sounds like we’re all pretty fucked up. What’s your level? One big happy screwed up family now. Let’s hear it.”
I stared back at him, heart thumping, mouth dried out. There were things I’d never even talked to my therapist about. Things that were too deep and painful. Out in real life, it was impossible to release those things. Like letting them out of my mind and into the world would make everything happen again, or break some spell and bring ruin down around me. Here though? We could die at any second. Hell, our food could be poisoned, and I could fall over dead on the walk back to my room. Why not get it out? Fuck all, maybe it would help. It wasn’t like they’d be able to tell anyone. And all of them were as screwed up as I was.
“Um, well.” I stared at my hands, then stiffened my spine and looked back at them. “It started when I was six. My parents were meth heads. They didn’t have jobs and were too lazy or strung out to work even if they’d tried. So, “ I cleared my throat again, “uh, they started selling me to men. For sex.”
A look of horror fell over the faces around the table. Even my housemates, with their awful stories, looked shocked by the beginning of mine.
“Oh my god,” Bri said and put a hand to her mouth. She’d lost what little color she normally had.
I nodded. “It was at least once a week.” Once I started saying the words and putting them out into the world, it was easier. They tumbled out of my mouth as though they wanted to be free. “Over six years, I was raped by at least thirty different men. A few of them would come more often though.” My thoughts drifted to Branson. “My parents were usually home when it happened. There was an extra bedroom at the back of our trailer where they’d send the men. They were literally like fifteen feet away while their little girl was getting violated.”
I wanted to look away. Elise’s mouth hung open a little, and she had turned green. Jeffery had leaned back from the table, as if he could get away from the story. The sick horror on Bri and Liam’s faces was almost too much, but I pressed on.
“It stopped when I was eleven. I’d started my period, but it wasn’t always like clockwork. One month I was like three weeks late, and I was terrified one of the guys had gotten me pregnant because of course they didn’t wear condoms when they raped me. I told my teacher I thought I was pregnant, and then all hell broke loose. Cops came and arrested Mom and Dad. They took me and my little sister from the house. She was only two at the time.”
“Did they get their asses thrown in jail?” Liam asked, leaning forward.
I laughed and wrapped my arms around myself. “That would’ve been nice. My parents got off with probation and a social worker had to come by the house once a week. I ended up in foster care, as did my little sister, but we weren’t sent to the same home. I didn’t find out until I was out of high school and attempted to get custody that when she turned four, my parents regained custody of her. After a few years of good behavior, they started the same shit with her.” This part was almost too hard to say. “One guy tried to get her to loosen up and enjoy herself while he raped her. He shot her full of heroin. She died. Overdosed, because that shithead didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. Mom and Dad told the cops the guy broke in and raped her without their knowledge. Even with their history, they managed to get out of any major trouble.” I sighed and shook my head in disgust. “Fucking legal system.”
Everyone sat in stunned silence, letting my story sink in. Except for Drake. The look in his eyes wasn’t pity like in everyone else’s faces. There was an intensity there that was almost shocking. Anger and rage. Not at me. That was obvious. Like he was pissed at all the people who’d hurt me in the past.
I was physically and mentally exhausted when breakfast was done, so I was the first up and out the door when it clicked open. I rushed back to my room. I didn’t want to answer questions or deal with awkward sympathy. Everyone here had reasons for being pissed at the world or at themselves. I didn’t want to have them trying to console me or some other shit. What point was there for that? Human nature dictated that we were supposed to do those things, but here the old rules and the old social ceremonies were thrown out the window. Either way, I didn’t want to deal.
Chapter 14
Once my door locked, I peed and then sat on my bed, staring at the floor, waiting for my morning activity to be announced. Part of me hoped I could go back up to the music room. Playing the piano, and being somewhat decent at it for a beginner, had been the only nice thing I’d done since being here.
Drake flashed through my mind. Him breathing heavily against me, his fingers deep inside me as I came against his hand. Maybe the piano had been the second most pleasant thing. It had been sort of sick and twisted that we’d done that after what we’d done to those men, but I couldn’t make myself believe it was bad. Even when I tried. If anything, it made me horny again.
My cuff vibrated. Go to the gym.
