When the screams started I put my hands over my ears.
***
It was a long time before Ben’s cries became moans of begging before finally the silence. Not moving, I was curled up with my head between my legs, arms wrapped around my body.
I felt his hands on my arms, his scent surrounding me, comforting me as I breathed in. And then he was all around me.
“Baby.”
That was all it took. That familiar gentle voice that sunk into me. I violently threw my arms around him. “Ream. Oh God. Ream.”
He stroked my head and burrowed his face in my neck. I’d never felt like I was home until that moment. It wasn’t about the place, it was the person that made the home. And I had no doubt Ream was mine.
“I’m sorry. I thought … I should’ve known. I should’ve trusted you.” All the pain I caused us for not believing in him.
“Shh.” He pulled back and I didn’t want him to. I wanted him to keep me in his arms forever. He insisted though and quickly pulled off his T-shirt and slipped it over my head. Then he held my head between his hands to make sure I was coherent and listening because I was sobbing uncontrollably now.
“The evidence was pretty damning, baby.” He caressed my cheek with his thumb. “I didn’t trust myself. I knew I’d never do that to you, but … waking up like that. Not remembering. All the fucked up memories from this place … it slammed me and I couldn’t think straight. It made me sick to think I did that to you.”
I kissed his lips, his nose, his cheeks. “You didn’t, Ream. God, I love you. And I want to get out of here and show you how much. Maybe we can go to the cottage for a while and—”
“No. Not yet. Okay?” He pulled my head into his chest and kissed the top of it. “We can’t go yet. A while longer.”
“Ream, we have to get out of here.” I wanted to look up at him, but he kept my head tucked against his chest and I listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. It was soothing, like I was cocooned in my favorite blanket.
He slipped his hand in mine and gave a light squeeze. “We have time. How are you feeling? Your legs okay?”
“They’re fine, not much exertion lying on a bed for nearly two days.” I tried to make light of it, but Ream’s body stiffened and his arms tightened around me. “Who is … was he?” I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Ben was dead.
“Just a sick fuck that needs fear to make him get off. It’s over now, baby.” Ream had to live all these years knowing this man was walking around free, hurting others. Incarceration wasn’t enough for someone like that. Ream had been so young …Ben deserved whatever Ream had done to him.
“Alexa … she’s insane, Ream.”
He nodded. “As a child she was obsessive and cruel. I suspect she was the reason many of the animals in the neighborhood disappeared. But she tried to protect me, even at twelve years old. She stood up to her father and begged him not to take me downstairs.” He paused. “She’d hold my hand all the way to the door leading down here. Her father wouldn’t let her come any farther and then she’d kiss my cheek and squeeze my hand and tell me it would be okay.” He shook his head and sighed. “Never was okay. Even when she stood waiting for me when I came back, sometimes so beaten down that I had to be carried. Lenny was adamant about his clients not leaving scars. He wanted to maintain my look of innocence he said. Paid more.” I choked on my sob wanting him to stop, but knowing he needed this. “Alexandria would nurse me back to health and by Monday I’d be back at school and everything would be normal again. Week after week the same thing, until it finally stopped. Alexa thought it was her begging, but the truth was my mother’s debt was paid off and Lenny surprisingly kept his word.”
I nodded. It didn’t make him a good person though. He pimped out a kid for two years.
“She was fourteen then, and it was no longer a little girl trying to save her hero, it was a girl wanting to make her hero hers.” His arms tightened around me and he took several deep breaths. “I was never a fuckin’ hero, least of all hers. I hated her for what she did. I didn’t want her help.
“She had it rough too. We barely had enough to eat, but with all the druggies that came to the house, Lenny never let anyone touch her. But she was insanely jealous of Haven. She pretended not to be, but I saw her always trying to keep us apart, blaming Haven for anything that went wrong.” He grunted.
I was quiet a second then I said, “I love you, Ream.”
He looked up at me and I saw the coldness lingering. “I’ll get you out of here.”
“Us.”
“Baby.” He leaned in then started kissing the tear stains away. “It won’t work that way. Not this time.”
His words hit me so hard it knocked the breath out of me. “No.” He tried to kiss me again and I yanked back. “No. Ream. No.”
He sighed stroking the side of my face along the edge of my scar then kissed it, the velvet tip of his tongue caressing the raised surface. When he pulled back there was so much regret in his eyes. “I did this.”
“What?”
“All of this is my fault.”
“No, it’s Alexa’s. It’s your mother’s for selling her children to Lenny for drug money. I don’t care how many scars I get as long as you’re with me. I can fight anything if I know you’re beside me.” I put my hands on either side of his. “Ream. No. I won’t leave here without you.”