Crunching in the snow wakes me from a dead sleep. It’s early in the morning and the sun is just shining in. When Devon asked for a window, I found one of the only unbroken ones, a small one that had been over the RV sink and brought it back to the cabin. I cut a hole near the ceiling above the table on the east side so the morning sun would shine in and warm our bed. After I installed the window and braced it with wooden strips, Devon made curtains from some of the torn sheets from the RV. It warms my heart that she’s made this place her home.
I listen for the sounds. My fence isn’t complete. I’m hoping to finish it in the next few days. Until then, we’re vulnerable to bears. She sleeps soundly beside me. Her naked body pressed against mine is warm and soft.
Fuck, I was such an asshole to her yesterday.
I knew, deep down, she was pregnant and I flipped my shit. Horrible scenarios where she bled out in each one trying to deliver our baby replayed over and over again like a record in my head. In my fear of losing her, I was pushing her away.
I reach over and run my thumb over her plump lip. She’s so innocent. So fierce and loving. I don’t deserve her, but I don’t care. She’s mine to love forever. Leaning forward, I palm her stomach that holds our child and kiss her cheek.
Crunch.
My body stills as I listen. Slowly, I creep out of bed and pull on my jeans. If there’s a bear out there rooting around, I plan on shooting the bastard before he gets a chance to get inside of here. I pull the .45 out of her jeans pocket and sheath my knife in my belt. Jerking on a shirt, I make my way to the table to stand on and look out the window. I’m just hiking my foot up when I hear it.
Voices.
Before I can comprehend if they’re real or not, our cabin door flies open. An older man with salt and pepper brown hair and missing teeth grins at me holding a sharpened piece of wood in his hands.
“What the fu—” I start but then he’s lunging at me.
The guy is taller than me but I have more weight on him. He manages to tackle me but I quickly overpower him. I punch him hard one, two, three times in his ugly face until I knock his ass out.
“Papa!” A deep voice hollers from the doorway. Fuck, there’re more. At this point, Devon sits up in bed and screams. The creep in the doorway can’t be any more than Devon’s age. When his predatory gaze lands on my daughter, I launch myself at him.
Another guy bigger than him charges into the cabin and whacks me over the head with a rock. I crumple to the floor, grunting, trying desperately to keep from blacking out.
“Daddy!”
Her scream jerks my eyes open. The big guy kneels with his knee in my back and a blade pressed to the back of my neck. I watch helplessly as the kid advances on my daughter.
“She’s yours, Nathaniel.”
The fuck she is.
“Run, Devon!”
She screeches as she attempts to run naked past the kid but he grabs her around the waist. The guy pinning me down is laughing and cheering on the kid as if this shit is fucking funny. I try to reach into my back pocket for my gun but he stabs me in the arm.
“She moves too much, Ezekiel,” Nathaniel grumbles.
“Make her stop,” Ezekiel challenges.
Fuck.
I struggle and roar to no avail. I watch in horror as Nathaniel begins slinging my daughter around. Slamming her head into the side of the cabin, hitting her over and over, kicking her. She screams and pleads. And then the unthinkable happens.
He pins her to the bed face down. The motherfucker pulls his dick out and pries her thighs apart despite her struggling. I know the moment he starts raping her because the blood-curdling scream makes my heart turn black with rage.
“STOP!” I bellow this order out on repeat but it goes ignored.
Helplessly, I have to watch as he slams into her over and over again. Her sobs tear out pieces of my soul and toss them all over the cabin. I can’t watch and yet I can’t allow her to be alone through it. Our eyes meet and I beg her to stay focused on me.
The kid grunts out his orgasm within seconds. Then he’s standing and walking over to Ezekiel.
“My turn,” Ezekiel growls.
“No!” I shout.
He kicks me hard in my still sore ribs and I howl in pain. The kid takes his place but he’s not as strong. As soon as Ezekiel mounts my daughter, her screams are louder than before. He’s hurting her worse than the kid. I go black with rage and I shake off the piss ant despite the blade sticking out of my arm and the pain in my side. I yank my gun from my pocket and put a bullet right through Ezekiel’s face. He grunts and collapses on Devon whose screams are on repeat. Next, I put a bullet through the skull of the unconscious man on the floor. Then, I turn around but the kid is already bolting. I storm outside after him. He runs away from me quickly. I manage to pop off two shots that hit him in the shoulder and back thigh. His howls of pain fuel me on but Devon is crying out my name.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”
As much as I want to go after the fucker, I can’t leave her in this state. I rush back inside and go to her. The guy is still on top of her. When I push him off, I’m enraged to find he was in her ass. Blood is everywhere. She’s shuddering so hard I think she’s going to vomit. I drag him and the other guy out of the cabin so she doesn’t have to look at them. Then, I’m back inside pulling her into my arms.
She’s sobbing so much and I can’t fucking fix her.
My shaking palm smoothes over her silky hair and I kiss her so many times. I promise her everything will be okay. She trembles out of control. I don’t know what the fuck to do. All I can do is clutch her pinky.
And then it happens.
A low, guttural howl rips from her chest. “Noooo!”
Hot liquid soaks the thighs of my jeans. Jesus. Fuck. No.
“Noooo!” she continues to screech, her head shaking back and forth.
I squeeze her tight. “Baby…fuck…baby…”
“Noooo!”
Her tears soak my chest and I soon realize I’m crying along with her. In one moment, our world was completely destroyed. Those men stole so much from my daughter. They fucking raped her and hurt her bad enough that she’s losing our child.
“I’m so sorry,” I choke out. “Pip, I’m so sorry.”
I want to go after Nathaniel. I want to gut him like a goddamned fish and make him eat his entrails. I want to shove my knife so far up his ass that he can feel it in his throat. I want to cut out his eyeballs and offer them to my daughter so she can crush them in her fist.
But I do no such thing.
Yet.
She needs me.
I spend an hour cleaning her body and checking over her wounds. Her ass only bled a little from the intrusion so no major damage. But her pussy was brutalized. It was all the blood from the loss of the baby that had my heart breaking into a thousand pieces. She mentally checked out. Passed out from shock and exhaustion.
Once she’s clean, I observe her. Her abdomen is already heavily bruising where that motherfucking kid beat her up. My poor sweet girl. I’m sick and raging and losing my goddamn mind.
I don’t leave the cabin to check my traps or work on my stake fence or anyfuckingthing. I stay at her side. Whispering assurances. Spoon feeding her. Making her drink water. Tending to her needs. My arm hurts so fucking bad where he stabbed me but the best I could do was clean it and wrap it in gauze.
After a tiring day, I curl up against my girl. She shudders even in her sleep. The nightmares will be back. And just like before, I’ll hold her through them.
For an entire week, she sleeps. Every second of every day. I’m weary and going mad but I don’t dare leave her yet. I’m desperately trying to bring her back to me. I’ve brought her cans of fruit that go untouched. I’ve tried telling her stories about Drew. Nothing makes her engage.
It’s so reminiscent of Sabrina I could throw up.
I refuse to let Devon be defeated. She’s so much stronger than her mother.
“When your mom had her first miscarriage, I learned firsthand what depression was,” I murmur against her shoulder blade as I tenderly rub her bare belly.
She stiffens but doesn’t reply so I continue.
“Everything was fine. We’d only been married for one summer and she turned up pregnant. She was so fucking happy. We both were. But then one day when we were driving home from dinner, she cried out. I remember to this day the look on her face. Absolute horror. And then it was followed by a gut-wrenching sob.” I swallow down my emotion. “We went straight to the hospital. She lost the baby at thirteen weeks.”
Devon starts to cry and I hug her tighter.
“For an entire year after that, she was broken. It happened once more and it crushed her. But then you guys came along.” I smile against her shoulder and kiss her softly. Skating past that entire story, I fast forward two years later. “When you both were around four, your mom got pregnant again. She was so afraid of losing it. Obsessively went to the doctor. Everything was fine. Until it wasn’t. At the dreaded thirteen-week mark, she lost that baby too.”
Devon’s entire body trembles as she cries.
“Jesus, was she ever fucking depressed. I wanted to take care of her but I didn’t know how. After her losses, I laid in bed with her just like this. Kissing and hugging her. But with the last one, I had to take care of you and Drew. I couldn’t lay in bed with her. I think this made her sink into a deeper depression but I didn’t know what to do about it.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she whispers.
I nuzzle against her hair. “I told you I wanted to protect you from the bad stuff.”
“I grew up being so angry at her…”
“Shhh,” I coo. “It’s okay.”
We stay cuddled together for a long while before I speak again.
“She lost another baby right before your tenth birthday.”
Devon tenses in my arms. “I feel so bad for her. I…I’m devastated and it was just the one baby.”
“You’re going to be okay, Dev. I promise. You’re going to pull out of this and one day we’re going to have the family we deserve. But until then…” A growl rumbles in my throat. “I won’t sleep until I’ve hunted him down.”
She relaxes her body and turns to face me. Her palm goes to my bearded cheek and she smiles for the first time in a week. “I want him to suffer.”
I grab her pinky with mine and kiss her knuckle. “That’s something I can deliver, sweetheart.”