Clara

My body startles awake to the loud banging on my door.

I’m too foggy to know if I’m asleep or awake despite the yelling. The voice calling my name from my front porch is familiar and my mind clears instantly.

Vaughn.

Toby. I jump up from the couch and run to open the door before he wakes Toby. Swinging it open, I gripe through gritted teeth, “What the heck?”

Vaughn barges right past me. “Where’s Toby?”

“Keep it down, you psycho, he’s sleeping.”

“I need to get him home.”

I rush through the living room to cut off his path to the hall. “No. Did you hear me? He’s sleeping.”

“Mom needs him.”

Spreading my arms wide across the arched doorway, I get a good look at him. Sweat beads at his hairline. His eyes are crazed, his pupils no larger than the tip of a pen. His shirt is covered in dirt and he smells like vomit. “Vaughn, what’s going on?” There’s no reasoning to be had. He’s in not state to think logically.

“She needs him.” His voice is calm from the panic at the door. “I have to get him home.”

“No, she doesn’t,” I say, trying to level mine. “She knows he’s here. She’s sleeping at home. You need to go home too.”

“No,” he says, looking into my eyes. He reaches up to rest his hand on my shoulder. “I need Toby.”

“No. You don’t. He’s sleeping. It’s late.”

His touch is light, but strong enough for me to feel how his hand trembles. Something’s wrong. “Talk to me, Vaughn. I’m your sister. Remember. It’s me, Clarissa. You can talk to me about anything.”

“I can’t. It’s too late. I just need to take care of you and Mom.”

“And Toby.”

The drop of his hands to his sides and his gaze to the floor reveals his pain, but I don’t trust he’s given up. He says, “No.”

Keeping my arms wide, the tips of my fingers are white from the pressure on the plaster. “No?”

When he looks back up, he says, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” That wobble to my voice is a weakness I could never hide despite trying many times in my life. Fear floods me as I stare at my brother who now towers over me. “Why are you sorry?”

“I need to take Toby.”

“Where?”

“Please. Don’t make this harder than it is.”

“You need to go home. You need to leave, Vaughn.”

Someone hidden behind the wall of my brother asks, “Where is the boy?”

Vaughn doesn’t move, not a muscle, but I bend enough for my eyes to see around him. A man stands in my doorway—black trench coat and piercing blue eyes so light only the dark pupils are seen in the dim light.

My body freezes, my bones locking, my muscles straining, but my eyes manage to look at my brother’s. “What have you done?”

The man says, “It’s your father’s deal. The kid is just following through.” When he laughs, the dark and insidious sound fills my ears.

I know that laugh. I heard that laugh over and over in my nightmares for so long.

Vaughn whispers, “I had no choice.”

“You did,” I say under my breath. “This is on you.”

The shadow of the attacker climbs the wall beside us, just enough light from the lamp by the couch to set a scene of terror. My heart pounds against my ribcage, fighting to run free, but I can’t leave. I won’t leave my son behind and I refuse to let him be taken away.

His voice is shallow, an octave too high to be taken seriously in any setting other than this one. “Bring the boy to me now, Clarissa.”

“No,” I reply, staring at my brother as a tear slides down my face. To Vaughn, I look him in the eyes and say, “How could you do this to us?”

“It was him or all of us.”

“Him? You mean Toby. Your brother.”

“My nephew from a rapist.”

“My son. From me.”

“I had no choice. I can’t lose Mom.”

“But you will lose us. All of us for what you’ve done.”

A black-gloved hand reaches for Vaughn. “Step aside. I’ll get him myself.” There is no escaping. There is only fighting.

Vaughn’s eyes stay trained on me and he silently pleads, “Forgive me.”

“No. Rot in hell.”

Tears streak down his face and he starts to move just as metal reflects the light to the wall, catching my attention. A gun.

There’s no time to run. There’s nowhere we can be safe. He’ll collect what he’s come for over our dead bodies.

We were nothing in his eyes.

I was everything in Cruise’s. A lifetime of surviving comes down to this—penance paid for our father’s sins.

I often wondered what damage would be done to me, to Vaughn, to my mother, and to my son. Would the effects remain in that moment, or last a lifetime? I always knew who my allies were, the ones who would die fighting, just like me.

Looking at my brother who bears such a strong resemblance to the man that has destroyed so much of who we are, I wonder if there was ever going to be a place for him in this world. Such a kind little soul who bore the brunt of a treacherous man. His heir. His pride. His only son.

All the times I took a beating or worse for him, the times I hid him in my closet or under my bed, I tried to protect him, to heal his wounds, but I could never heal him on the inside.

My shoulders go back, my spine stiff. I stand as tall as my body can stretch. I expect him to do as he’s told like he’s done most of his life.

But sometimes expectations are defied for loyalty. I’m not sure what’s come over him, or what caused his change of heart, but I do hear, “I love you, big sis.” It’s just a murmur before Vaughn yells, “Fight!”

Fight.

We stand here without weapons, using our bodies as shields. Me shielding the hall that leads to the best part of me sleeping in my bedroom. Vaughn standing guard, shielding me, and refusing to step aside. The flicker of metal reflection rises high and then barrels down taking Vaughn with it.

Piercing blue eyes meet mine as I scream, my hands covering my mouth in horror as blood covers the side of my brother’s head, tangling in his hair.

He lowers the gun and aims it at my fallen brother. The trigger is cocked, and the second his eyes leave mine, I swing as hard as I can.

The shell of his ear is soft and pliable, but I hit hard enough to make it ring. Knocked sideways, he catches himself, and I turn to get Toby from the room, but my legs are flipped out from under me and something hard strikes the back of my head causing me to slam against the hardwood floor.

Dazed, I lie there.

All I can think about is how close I came to the fairy tale. The bad haunts me when all I want to do is dream of the good and think of Cruise. Irrevocably in love.

The dream, the fairy tale, the future—I almost had it all.

I feel the weight, but my soul refuses to acknowledge the truth. My body decides to fight. Pushed off my back, he hits the wall. “Bitch,” is shot my way, a punch coming right after.

I think it’s my blood I smell. My eye begins to swell and the taste of blood confuses me. I think I might be dying, but I refuse to die before I know Toby is safe.

An elbow to whatever I can reach gives me space away from him and sends the gun flying from his hand. I’m grabbed by the arm and yanked, and then he twists it. “Let her go.”

My dark angel. 

My soul’s keeper. 

My hell. 

My heaven.

My solace.

My safe place. 

My savior.

My hero.

As if the cavalry arrived just in the knick of time, my dark knight stands in the doorway with his hands in front of him and a gun aimed in our direction.

“Release her.” When he doesn’t, Cruise adds, “I’ll fucking do it without a second thought or a single regret.”

I’m called a whore and property, owed to him, and trash. But I am freed.

He is pushed away from me, and I try to move closer to Cruise, but I’m struggling to move at all.

Maybe I was all those things my father and men like this scum fuck of the Earth—Cruise’s name—called me. Maybe.

But I’m also good, and kind, smart, and Cruise even finds my jokes funny. His name for me, Dove, that’s who I am to him.

Because I’m irrevocably loved.