Claiming Crusher: Savage Brothers MC (3 page)

“Look at you! You think you can hide things from me, Melinda? Will you never learn? Do you think you could paint yourself up and people won’t see how ugly you are? You’re lucky I agreed to your father’s request and kept you from being on the streets. The least you could do is know your place and be grateful—instead of being a sneaky, conniving, cold bitch. Your cunt is so fucking dry it’s no wonder I have to fuck other women. You’d freeze a man’s dick off. Then again, maybe you just need more practice. You want to be a whore?” He asks, and his face goes close to my ear and his voice drops down. “I’ll give you exactly what you want, dear wife…DONALD!” He screams and it’s in that moment I know, if this happens, I won’t survive. I won’t even retain a piece of me. He’s been slowly killing me since I married him, but this…this will destroy me.

Donald comes in like the ever faithful dog he is. I can see him through the mirror.

“Melinda wants to be a whore Donald, so I’ve decided we will teach her. You may fuck her face while I continue to teach my wife how a woman accepts her man.”

“Yes, sir.” He says and the eagerness in his voice awakens what fight I have left.

I can’t do this. I can’t. I know I will never be able to stop them, but I have to try. I have to. Donald comes around to the side of me. Michael, uses my hair to pull me onto my knees. He bends down and whispers into my ear.

“Open for him and suck his cock all the way in. Show us what a whore does, Melinda—since you wish to be one so badly.”

He pushes my face towards Donald’s hard member and I refuse to open my mouth. Donald yanks hard on my hair and I yell out and he pushes my mouth down on him. It’s vile. I promise myself that I will never taste a man’s cock again. Never have them in my mouth, and never feel powerless around them again. With the last ounce of rebellion I have, I pull away, releasing him, then I look Donald in the eye and
bite
. I bite so hard on the head of his cock, I know that it’s his blood filling my mouth now, not my own.
I don’t let up
. Michael is pulling at my head and my shoulders, but I don’t let go.
I bite
. I bite and I hold on with every ounce of anger I have inside of me.

Donald is screaming. That just makes me clench my teeth together even firmer. I know there will be hell to pay. I don’t care anymore.
I just don’t care
. That’s the last thought I have before I see from my peripheral vision a large bottle of liquor slam into the side of my head. I don’t want to stop biting, but the world goes dark.

*

I don’t know
how long I’ve been out. It could have been hours or even days. I am in my room. I’m lying on the bed, and I’m not wearing anything. There’s a stale smell of smoke in the room. For a minute, I’m afraid that he has set my bed on fire, but there is no heat. I can barely see. My face is even more swollen and I feel…heavy and drugged. They’ve continued beating me, even while I was unconscious. My sides are sore, I figure I have some cracked ribs. It’s a feeling I can recognize, because it’s happened one too many times. I try to sit up, but I can’t.

Michael enjoys hurting me, but it has never been this bad…it has never been like this. I know if I don’t get away soon, he will kill me. I drag myself with my good hand up the bed, pulling on the sheets beneath me. I reach the edge and look down and there’s a waste basket with the burnt remnants of my box. My things are gone… on top of them is the medallion. It’s unrecognizable now and is charred from the fire. I’ve been out awhile, because the metal is no longer hot. I stare at the medallion. I stare at the charred, unrecognizable medal of Saint Alexander. The patron saint of bachelors, victims of betrayal and
torture
. If that is not irony, I don’t know what is. I grasp it in my hand and pledge to get away. I don’t know how long it will take, but I will get away from Michael Kavanagh. It’s the last thought I have before I go under again and lose myself in the darkness.

Melinda

Six Months Later

Six months
…I
have tried to get away for the last six months. I haven’t stopped trying since my rape. Every time…every damn time…he finds me. You would think in a city as big as Manhattan and in a state as populated as New York, I could find safety. It makes me feel stupid that I haven’t. The truth is, living with Michael and listening to him talk about me, I’ve not felt smart in a long time. I’ve not felt…able? I feel
alone
. I have no one, save Nicole and Ray who are friends left over from TOA days. It hasn’t been that long since I was at Three Oaks, but it feels like another lifetime. I’m not that person anymore. I will never be that person again. The name Melinda makes me physically sick.
I hate her
. She is
weak
. She is
stupid
.

Melinda is a failure. Melinda tried to run away again, got to Maine and…got caught. Michael owns the police. He owns….everyone. I know this for sure now, because he carted me back to New York and I’m currently locked in the basement of Michael’s house. It has never been our house, or my house. Everything belongs to Michael…even me. I’ve decided this after a week of being beaten, and having him show me over and over just exactly how stupid I was. Those were his words. Melinda is too stupid to know when she has it made. Melinda is too stupid to know when she has everything other women would kill for. Melinda is too stupid to live.

My bloody hands reach up to touch the leather dog collar around my neck and move it around just a little to get air on my neck.

If you’re going to act like a dumb animal Melinda, I shall chain you like one.

My hands are raw from trying to protect my body against Michael’s and Donald’s blows. My eyes are swollen shut and my lips are busted and cracked, from both the abuse and the fact that Michael hasn’t really been feeding me or giving me water regularly. I’m having trouble breathing and I’m pretty sure I’m running a fever.

I hear the door at the top of the stairs open and I know I must be really sick, because I can’t drum up the courage to care. The creaking noise of the wood can be heard with each heavy footstep. I can’t see, so I don’t bother raising my head off of the cold cement floor. I prepare myself for more abuse. That is all I can do. Because Michael is right, I am stupid. No smart person would be trapped like this—would be living in this hell.

“Oh honey! What has he done to you?”

I hear a woman’s voice from somewhere above my head. I know the voice. It’s Mrs. Marten’s voice, from next door. I don’t know her that well. She’s an odd bird in her fifties, with purple hair, who wears yoga pants and tank tops with in your face sayings like
‘Sucking Cock since 1959’
. I have always liked her, Michael refused to talk to her. He would have forced her to move years ago, but she has more money than him.

I want to talk, but I can’t make my throat work. It’s so dry and sore…

“Don’t you worry honey, we’ll get you help. I knew when I hadn’t heard from you this past month that fucker was up to something. Someone needs to cut off his balls and shove them down his throat. Yes, indeed…Hello? I need an ambulance and the police right away at 103 Pleasant Hill Drive. Yes! It is an emergency! If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have called!”

I want to warn her, to tell her to stop. The minute the police are contacted, they will let Michael know. I can’t manage it though. I hear some noise and I wish I could see, but the room is black to me. There’s so much pain and my head is too foggy to make anything out. Hell, maybe she’s not really here. Wouldn’t it suck if I am dying and my last dream is of Ms. Martens?
Jesus, couldn’t I at least have Johnny Depp save me?

I don’t know how much time passes. I feel someone brushing my hair along the side of my face. I want to scream at them to stop, because even that faint touch…
hurts
. Eventually there are more footsteps and voices. I want to try and stay awake to find out what is happening. I can’t, no matter how much I fight it, darkness beckons.

*

It is days
later when I wake up in the hospital. I don’t know how Michael explained things, but somehow he managed to. I know, because his face is the first I see when I come through. I look around the room for help, but it’s empty. I reach out for the nurse-call button and Michael grabs my hand, exerting so much pressure I feel like he may re-break the fingers which are already splinted.

“I wouldn’t do that, darling wife of mine.”

I lick my lips and try to speak. At this point, I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve spoken, but obviously awhile, because my voice comes out dry and cracked.

“I didn’t Michael, I wouldn’t…”

He leans down closer to me, so that his lips are beside my ear. He’s wearing some expensive cologne, which might smell great on another man, but the scent is what I associate with Michael and it makes my stomach burn in revulsion.

“I must play nice while you’re in here my dear, but I thought you would need a reminder of why you shouldn’t try to upset me.”

“A reminder?” The fear is thick in my voice.
I hate it
.

“Oh yes, Melinda”

He holds his phone in front of me. I’m relieved, because I thought he was getting ready to beat me again. I honestly don’t think I can survive another beating. Then he pushes a button and a video plays on his phone.

Ms. Martens is tied and in a porcelain bathtub, gagged. Her large, eyes are wide with fear. I know, because it is an expression that is permanently worn by me. My heart kicks up in denial and a moan of sadness escapes me. My hand goes to my mouth to keep from screaming, as I watch Donald place her fingers in this metal tool and with one push of a lever a finger is cut off. Donald continues, one by one with such a perfect, cold precision until all that is left is her hand from the knuckle down and blood is everywhere. I gag and try to turn away, but Michael grabs my hair and pulls my face back around and it gets
worse
. I watch as he stabs her, slowly and shallowly at first and then with more vehemence. I watch as the life drains from her eyes. I don’t cry.
I want to
. I don’t scream.
I need to
. Instead, I let the weight and truth settle upon my shoulders.
I am the reason this woman died
.

Michael says more words. I have no idea what they are. I am in shock. I don’t even react when he puts pressure on my chin and forces my lips and gives me his cold kiss. He leaves and I’m sitting in the bed, listening to the beeps of the machines around me and crying. That’s how I am when the orderly comes in. His voice works through the haze surrounding my brain.

“He’ll kill you next time. You need to leave.”

I look at him. He’s older, late forties maybe? His dark hair is definitely more salt than pepper and he has kind green eyes. But, then what do I know of kind?

“I know.” I whisper, because I do. I just don’t care anymore.

“You have to get away.”

“I’ve tried. He always finds me.”

“Do you have any friends to help you? To help you leave the state?”

“I’ve left the state, he finds me,” I answer, tired of this conversation already.

“What about friends he doesn’t know you talk to? Is there somewhere you can go that he’d never suspect you would pick? A way for you to get lost?”

My mind immediately goes to the only two friends I really have in the world, Ray and Nicole. I don’t want to get them involved. I couldn’t live with getting them hurt…or worse. I just couldn’t…
Could I
?

“He wouldn’t stop hunting me down…”

“Unless he thought you were dead.”

I look up at this stranger’s words. They give me hope. It’s a strange feeling…an
odd
feeling.

“How? He would never believe it.”

“Make him think you died trying to get away from him.”

My mind goes over his words. Ray would be able to help. He was bragging just last month about dating a hacker. He could help me…
Can I do this
? Can I risk my friends and put them in danger to do this? Would they be in danger if we succeed in making Michael think I am dead?

My palms are sweaty, my heart rate is crazy and I feel like I’m on the edge of a cliff. The orderly hands me his cell phone. Briefly, I worry he is setting me up. Then I stare at the phone like it might bite me. I have two choices. I can stay here and die—let Michael kill me. Or, I can call Ray and get his and Nic’s help. I hesitate and can feel fear crawl all around me—surrounding me. I can’t let it win…
not this time
.