Chapter Twelve

Cutter

 

 

 

 

Her hesitation gutted me.

When I look at her I struggle not to see my mom, cowering in the corner, my dad hovering over her. Even after he was gone, she was never the same. A ghost in a woman’s body. Having Jasmine here, everything about that time is thrust back into the limelight: the loneliness I felt even when she was in the same room, the underlying anger at everything she was still doing despite being free, the smell of the rain pouring down on me as I stood at her grave.

I lost it after that. I managed to get my hands on a police scanner and every time a domestic violence call was answered but not handled, I took care of that shit. It’s where my name came from. Men who hit women deserve to never have one again. I’d wait till the night came and go into the house. Before the asshole knew what was happening I’d have him begging me for mercy as I cut off the thing that he thought made him a man. It’s how I got my name. Our old president, Shooter, found me after a job one night. Apparently the club had been trying to figure out who was behind it. I agreed to not go rogue anymore and they all welcomed me into their family.

I will not let Jasmine spiral. She won’t be overcome by the darkness. She’ll survive this.

I promise.

With two pieces of pizza on her plate, she walks back over to the couch. Her movements are still slow and careful. Perhaps I should offer her some Advil? I don’t want to seem like I’m hounding her, but maybe that’s what she needs. Knowing what to do is so fucking hard. I load up my plate and grab a couple breadsticks for her. When I walk over I put them on her plate. “You forgot these.” She smiles at me and sinks her teeth into a slice.

How he could have treated her the way he did I'll never understand. He stole the light from inside of her, and I'm making it my mission to put it back little by little, day by day. When Lucy told me I had to become my worst nightmare to bring her out of this I wasn't sure if I could do it. The more time I spend with her I know that I'll do anything I can for her.

My phone buzzes.

Twisted: Heard your girl is having a rough time. Let me know if you need anything. Church tomorrow at noon.

Me: Not my girl, but thanks.

Twisted: Whatever you say, brother. Whip said you got the look in your eyes already. Shit happens faster than you can blink sometimes.

Sharing stories is part of the brotherhood. Years of information and experience passed down from generation to generation, and not all of them are designed to scare the shit out of us. Twisted’s always said he knew from the first night he met Nikki that she’d eventually be his. Whip said the same thing about Lucy. When Jasmine walked into the club, it was like I could feel my heart pounding double-time, my body letting me know that something was up before I even saw her. An invisible force, pulling me to her.

Growing up I never really knew what a healthy relationship was. The only things I knew were pain, abuse, and misery. No one in my position would want a relationship after seeing my parents. The idea of a healthy relationship wasn’t ever something that I considered.

Dishes clang in the kitchen. I follow the sound and see Jasmine wash her plate, dry it, and then place it in the cabinet. Her movements are robotic and that has nothing to do with her injuries. It's what she’s been trained to do. I can't help but wonder if she ever wanted to leave him. If there was a time when she had enough.

Sensing me behind her, she takes my plate from me and I’m about to tell her no when I remember what Lucy said to me.

You have to let her continue her routine for the most part. Trying to change it all at once is going to paralyze her. She's scared and she's been doing the same things every day for years. These are things she views as requirements. The only way to get her out of it is little by little. A couple changes a day, any more and she'll have a breakdown.

I let her take the plate from me as she mindlessly goes through the motions. I want to reach out and stop her. Throw the goddamn plate against the wall. I want to pull her to me and tell her to forget all the bullshit he drilled into her, but I know that would probably do more harm than good.

I wait until she's done and then take her hand leading her back to the couch. "I need to ask you something and if you aren't comfortable telling me, just say the word."

She nods.

I take a breath trying to watch the way I say this. “Why didn’t you leave him? You couldn’t have been happy.”

Her eyes go blank.

 

***

 

Jasmine

 

 

 

 

I listen for the car pulling out of the driveway, my body shaking with what I’m about to do. Dylan has been getting more violent and controlling since we moved out here. Yesterday he took my cell phone. He says my family is trying to come between us.

I need to get away. Before he hurts me even worse than he already has.

A small backpack sits by the door, with enough to last me a few days. There’s exactly two hundred and nine dollars and eleven cents in my purse—the measly fruits of two months of slipping small bills out of Dylan’s wallet when he was passed out. The directions to the bus station loop in my brain. I must have studied the map for hours trying to commit them to memory.

This is it.

Taking a deep breath, I open the door, the sunlight warming my face. I smile. Then my face in cast in shadow and a hand closes around my throat.

I open my eyes. How did he know?

Dylan’s face is full of anger: the whites of his eyes bloodshot, his teeth clenched, chest heaving. He squeezes, draining the breath from me. “You stupid fucking bitch. You thought you could leave me?”

He pushes me back into the room and I fall to the ground.

I cough, trying to catch my breath.

I hear his boots on the wooden floor, coming toward me. I curl into the fetal position, but when his hand grips my hair and he starts to pull my ponytail like it’s a leash, I’m forced to get to my feet, walking backward up the steps as he drags me behind him. When the top step catches my calf and I stumble, my foot slipping, my entire weight suspended by my hair, I scream. Dylan does nothing but laugh as he yanks me back up, pushing me into our bedroom. The crack of my skull hitting the dresser echoes through my head and dots pepper my vision as I slide down the heavy drawers into a heap on the floor.

“Dylan, please. I’m sorry.”

He walks into the closet and emerges with his box. “Not yet, but you fucking will be.” He turns, two sets of handcuffs in his hands. They’re the metal ones. The ones he always clicks too tight. The ones that bite into my skin and leave dark bruises that keep me indoors for days afterward. “Undress, now.”

It takes me three attempts to stand up, my legs not listening to me, and I have to clutch at the dresser to stop myself from falling down again. My head throbs. Lifting my shirt over my head, I start to cry.

“Faster!”

I jump at his voice and move as quick as possible. “Get on the bed, slut.” I flinch at the harshness of his voice, even though it’s a tone I’ve heard numerous times.

Moving over to our bed I climb onto it, he smacks my ass so hard the force sends me falling onto the mattress. I yelp from the pain and his laughter sounds behind me.

With my face buried in a pillow, he grips each of my wrists in turn, hooking the handcuffs around them and then around the bedpost. The fabric closes in around me, making it hard to breathe, and my arms are stretched so tight that I can't even bend my elbows. His hand clasps around my ankle and he twists. Pain shoots up my leg and I scream into the pillow, my tears soaking it. Something soft is wrapped around both ankles and then my legs are pulled.

I can’t move.

My limbs are pulled so tight that it feels like they might rip off of my body. I know what’s coming. My muscles tense in anticipation and fiery bursts shoot through my limbs, like someone has crawled inside my body and is ripping me apart from the inside. Blackness encroaches on my vision as my breath is trapped in the attic of my throat and the pain starts to take me—not away, but to some place deep inside my psyche that knows how to deal with this. How to make it through. With every sob that leaves me the pressure increases and I feel myself start to unravel. But I won’t give that to him.

Not now.

Not ever. 

“The longer you cry like a fucking baby, the longer I’ll have fun.” Before I can look over to where he is standing, he strikes me across my back.

With his belt.

A scream rips from my throat.

The dam is broken. He is relentless, strike after strike hitting a new piece of skin. I bite down on the pillow to mask my cries, remembering he said he wouldn’t stop till I was quiet.

After a minute or so the belt is gone, and as the silence steals the oxygen from the room, my breathing coming in raspy, labored pants, I dare to lift my face.

I’m alone.

A minute later I hear the front door open and close.

He left me like this.

My body hurts just remembering that day. "He didn't come back to the room for what felt like the longest time. How long exactly, I don’t know. Hunger had long since eaten away at my insides, and my lips were cracked and bleeding. The bedding was coated in blood, sweat, tears . . . other stuff. The smell in the room would have knocked me unconscious had the lack of food and water not already had that covered. Not that he gave me any. When he did come back, he released me and told me that I needed to have the sheets and mattress cleaned by the time he got back from work."

A chill runs through me. "I couldn't walk—not properly, not for weeks. My guess is that he sprained or fractured my ankles. I couldn't tell which because I was never allowed to see a doctor. Doctors meant questions, and we couldn’t have people asking questions.”

My eyes are closed and it takes everything in me to keep the contents of my stomach, the pain fresh in my mind if not on my body. “To get downstairs took a lifetime, and even when I made it down there I had to crawl just to put everything in the washer. I got to the living room and saw the news. Nearly a full forty-eight hours had passed.”

I meet his eyes for the first time since I started my story, and the rage inside of them shocks me.

“I never once considered leaving him again.”