Blood to Dust

“One day Camden came back home to find it completely empty. I had moved out and gotten on the first flight back to the US. I also donated all of his furniture, clothes and belongings to the Octavia Foundation, because I’m a sweetheart like that. The bank accounts I had access to were emptied, the money thrown into an offshore British Virgin Islands account in my name. By the time he found out he was a lot less rich and very much single, I was sipping a virgin Bloody Mary in first class. I was smart enough not to go back home, though.

“I went to live in New York. The apple was big and I bit into it with gusto. London opened my big-city chakras and I was more than happy to disappear into the throng and melt into being another faceless, pea-coat wearing student. I picked up a few college courses and lived off Camden’s fortune that I stole, keeping in touch with my brother and father by phone.

“Until one day, Dad called and said there was an emergency. Preston had disappeared. No one knew where he was.

“I hurried back home, taking the first flight to San Francisco and crying my eyes out all the way there. I’d felt guilty enough about leaving Preston in the first place when I’d moved to London, but this was too much.

“I walked into my family home for the first time in over two years, and Preston wasn’t there. But you know who was? Godfrey, Sebastian and Camden.”

I suck in a breath, eyes burning until my lids give in and flutter.

“I marched straight into an ambush, perfectly orchestrated by my own dad. He kept crying and banging his head against the wall, chanting that he was sorry, which only infuriated me even more. Dad said they told him they’d kill him if he didn’t rat me out. Better me than him, right?”

I don’t answer, because I have zero control over what’s about to leave my mouth.

“The men sat me down and explained that despite everything, Camden still loved me, forgave me, even. Can you believe that?” A bitter laugh escapes those pinks. “Forgave, but didn’t forget. Which was why things were going to be a little different from that point forward. He was going to keep me as his ‘stateside piece.’ What he did to me then—” She chokes on a sob. My chest fucking hurts. Why you, Country Club?

“He broke me. They all did. Him, Godfrey, Seb. . .they locked me in an apartment, not too far from Godfrey’s office, and I became entertainment. Pure, cheap, entertainment. A pet. No cell phone, no friends, no family. Just me and my two thuggish guards. And they came for me. They came every week.

“Sometimes it was Camden, who paid a visit and played with my body.

“Sometimes it was Godfrey who wanted to have fun.

“I was a whore. A nothing, a no one. The only one who didn’t touch me was Sebastian. No. Sebastian liked watching. Hetero sex was not his thing, he didn’t get off on watching them fuck me. He got off on watching them hurt me. My pain brought him pleasure, and when I screamed, he came. Until, after a while, I stopped screaming. Just to spite them.”

Kicking off my covers and springing to my feet, I punch a wall before stalking to the bathroom to run for cover. Her voice chases me.

“Godfrey said that time was of importance, so we had a timeframe. Every time he walked into the bedroom to strip me of my clothes and humanity, he turned over a three-legged, thirty-minute hourglass on a nearby dresser. He said that it’d all be over in thirty minutes or less, because he didn’t want to waste too much time on a whore like me. I had to look at that hourglass every day and every night and hate it silently. Every time I broke an hourglass, he brought two along the next day. By the time I broke free, the room was littered with dozens of them, staring at me, taunting me, reminding me that life was happening and that time was moving on without me. The funny thing was that Camden didn’t know his dad was raping me. He thought I was exclusively his. When I tried telling him about his dad, he didn’t believe me. Said that not all fathers were bastards like mine. Then Godfrey would punish me for ratting him out.”

I punch the mirror above the sink. A web of blood cracks my reflection, disturbing my false looks with the truth of my ugliness. If Pea’s telling the truth, I’m the biggest asshole to walk this earth, and Godfrey Archer’s a dead man.

“I never stood a chance, Beat, until I did. One night, I took a risk. I did something they couldn’t foresee or expect.