Seven Days (28 page)

“
And you didn’t call anyone? The police?” she asked, trying to wrench her arm from his surprisingly strong grasp.

“
You are still a minor for a few more hours,” he explained. “I was trying to hold up the promise I made you on Wednesday, but I see that my goodwill was just thrown back in my face,” he growled, pulling open the door and yanking her inside.

“
It wasn’t like that, Ben,” she struggled. The stench of the interior was far more concentrated than it had been from outside. Britton gagged as the scent filled her so deeply that she couldn’t breathe. There was no escape as she dropped to the rug and puked all over the floor at the foot of the couch, her eyes cast down so she didn’t have to take in the state of her father.

“
Get the fuck up,” Ben snarled, pulling her to her feet and toward her bedroom as she wiped the vomit from her mouth. “Now I see why your sister wouldn’t let me get ahold of you. You are pathetic,” he told her, throwing her on her bed and grabbing for his belt. Before she had the chance to struggle, she was bound to her bedpost. The woven pattern of the belt dug into her wrists, leaving a burn in their wake. “Luckily, Uncle Ben is here to show you how your sister got to be so damn good and obedient.”

“
Please, Ben,” she begged, finally finding her voice. “I’m sure there’s some kind of mistake. Carrie wouldn’t do this to you,” she vamped, hoping to buy some time to figure a way out of this. She’d had an abstract knowledge of everything her sister went through to protect her from this part of her life, but seeing it firsthand, she would always be grateful for everything Carrie had protected her from over the last four years.

“
You will address me as Uncle,” he commanded, slapping her across the face so hard the metallic taste of blood exploded on her tongue as her lip split. “Your sister calls me Daddy, but I think you need a different title,” he explained, reaching under her skirt and gripping her panties. “Now, say you’re sorry.”

“
I’m sorry,” she complied, immediately, trying not to cringe as the fabric of her underwear slid down to her ankles.

“
Look at that light little cunt you have,” Ben said, pushing her skirt over her hips. “I’m going to like this,” he grinned, backing away from the bed so that he could pull off his clothing.

“
What are you doing?” a gruff voice asked. Britton turned her head in time to watch as Dallas charged into the bedroom. Ben’s hands were wrenching apart her thighs as if the other man’s presence didn’t matter. He was naked, his meaty cock completely engorged and headed for its target.

“
What does it look like?” the man scoffed, trailing his hand up her thigh in a way that was meant to be seductive, but only made her skin crawl even more. If she hadn’t already emptied her stomach on the living room floor, she would’ve been wracked with more than just dry heaves.

“
You need to let her go, man,” Dallas commanded, like he was going to be her knight in shining armor. Britton almost sent up a cheer when Ben finally pulled away from her to address the other man in the room.

“
Carrie needs to pay for lying to me,” he explained. “That bitch has been gone all week with some guy, not giving a shit about everything we’ve done to keep her dad off her back.”

“
She what?” Dallas asked, the color draining from his face. “She can’t be, she’s at training, right?” his eyes shifted to Britton and she was able to see the panic in them, even in the dark of the room. Storming to the bed, he unwound the belt from her wrists, freeing her much to Ben’s ire.

“
No! They’ve been lying to us, they need to pay!” the older man lunged for Dallas only to be taken down with one punch to the temple.

“
It’s okay,” he soothed her. “I’m going to tie him in your sister’s room, just in case he wakes up. I don’t want him to come after you again.”

Britton smiled, weakly, and nodded. As soon as Dallas dragged Ben’s limp body out of the room, she jumped from her bed and pulled her panties back into place. Taking a breath to process what had almost happened could wait. She needed to get packed and as far away from this place as possible.

“
Where are you going?” Dallas asked, coming back into the room as she stuffed another pair of socks into her duffle. The wildness in his voice gave her pause. He’d been gone long enough for her to pack enough clothes for, at least, a week. What had he been doing?

“
Carrie’s on her way,” she lied. “My birthday starts in twenty minutes, not that it matters now. My fucking dad is dead,” she vented. “We are getting the hell out of here and away from this bull shit,” she screamed. “I can’t believe she suffered through all of this for me. God, she’s such an amazing sister. I can’t believe I almost—”

“
You’re leaving? It’s true?” he had her pushed against the bedroom wall by her throat before she processed he was even moving. “Was she with some guy this week? She’s leaving me?” his stricken voice scared her, but she needed to stand up to him. She had to be strong for Carrie. No one else had protected her sister, so it was Britton’s turn.

“
Yes,” she choked out, kneeing Dallas in the balls. His grip loosened enough for her to escape as he crumpled. “We are leaving and we aren’t looking back,” she threw over her shoulder as she ran for the bedroom door, only to stopped by his hand on her ankle. He pulled her backward and she landed, face-first in the carpet, the breath knocked from her.

Then, he was on top of her, pummeling his fists into any part of skin that was exposed to him. Blows rained down on her as she tried to curl into a ball to protect as much of her body as she could. After a few minutes of enduring the onslaught of his fists and feet, she submitted to the rhythm of his hits, trying to find some solace in the beating, trying to escape into her head.

A pause in his fists had her hoping he’d tired himself out, as he stood over her, panting manically and mumbling about ungrateful women. Just when she thought he was done, something crashed into the crown of her head, hard. Renewed pain exploded behind her eyes and everything was blurry as the warm trickle of liquid trailed over her forehead. The snow globe Carrie had given her for her thirteenth birthday dropped to the carpet, her blood covering the glass and a distinct red handprint obscured the base, bringing the acid from her stomach and into her throat.

“
I’m going to put a stop to this,” he declared, getting to his feet and heading for the bedroom door. “She’s not going anywhere. I swear, Britton, if you are fucking lying,” he pointed at her crumpled body on the floor before disappearing from her cloudy field of vision. “You’ll both pay for this.”

As she listened to his footsteps echo through the house, she remembered her cell phone in her pocket. She couldn’t see anymore and breathing was getting more difficult as the feeling of drowning over took her. Hitting a contact blindly, she waited for the call to connect.

“
Help,” she choked out as the black seeped in.

“
Britton, where are you?” the male voice that answered asked. She rattled off her address with her last ounce of strength. She could only hope that whoever she’d called would get there in time. What if Carrie came home while Dallas was still on the war path? Why had he left her on the carpet? What if he wasn’t done? She tried to fight back to the surface, but it was too late.

Tears fell freely as I listened to my sister’s story. This was exactly what I’d hoped to prevent when I left the diner. Hearing that I might’ve been too late in more ways than one nearly ripped my heart in two. I fought to stay in control of my emotions, but I could hear the increase in my heart rate and I knew that Britton heard it, too

“Holy fucking shit, Britton,” I gasped as she finished. I didn’t know what else to say. Should I thank her for getting that call to Ryan? I knew it was the only thing that saved both of our lives that night, so of course that was obvious. But I didn’t know how to respond otherwise. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and protect her from anything else that might happen to her in the future. “I’m so sorry,” I groveled. “If I’d never—”

“Stop that, right now!” Britton shot to her feet, wiping stray tears from her eyes. “This is NOT your fault, Carrie!”

“The hell it isn’t,” I shot back, trying to sit up, but failing.

“Look at where you are right now,” she gestured, getting in my space. “You didn’t do this. Our parents, Dallas, and Ben, they are the people that made this our reality. Ben was a predator and he took advantage of your guilt and overwhelming need to take care of me. It was up to our dad to be the adult, to take care of the bills. He failed, Carrie.
You
didn’t fail. Our livelihood should not have been on the shoulders of a fifteen year old,” Britton ranted. “No one can be upset with you for taking the only road you were really given, especially when the only other option would’ve been foster care. I would’ve done the same thing.”

“Don’t say that,” I shook my head, trying to clear my own tears and calm my escalating breathing.

“Deep breath, Carrie,” Britton coached, seeing my distress. “I can’t watch you have another seizure, deep breath.”

Giving her a puzzled look, I followed her instructions until I was able to get my emotions back under control. Her declaration had the words pinging around my head, bringing the pain I was now in back to the forefront in my mind. I’d done well to keep my finger off the trigger for the better part of the last two hours, plus the time that I’d been napping prior to that. I wanted to try to make it another hour before allowing myself to take more dilaudid, but I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.

“Seizure?” was the only word that I could say after my heart rate returned to normal and my head cleared.

“That’s why they had to put you back under,” Britton explained, taking my hand and sitting down beside me again. “You had one after another and they were afraid they’d lose you anyway. Otherwise, you would’ve been up and out of here days ago. Watching you go through scan after scan, waiting for the news that something else was broken…God, Carrie. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared. Even after everything that happened”

“Oh,” I blinked, laying my head on the pillow and staring at the tiles, trying to count the holes as I processed the massive amount of information I’d received. Ben was dead, Britton wasn’t raped, and I’d nearly died more than once in last week and a half. “Is Dallas…?”

“Yeah, he’s gone, too. Apparently, starting a shoot-out with the police will get you killed really quickly,” she frowned. “He was lucky he didn’t get you twice. They got his shoulder first, but he didn’t just go down, he got one more shot off before they got him in the head.”

“Ugh,” I closed my eyes. “I can’t talk about this anymore,” I decided out loud, pressing the button on my medication, knowing that I was playing a very dangerous game but not caring at the moment. I was in pain, but I knew my decision was based on emotion more than the need for pain control.

“There’s one more thing we need to talk about,” Britton said, carefully. “When you get discharged.”

“Okay?” my brow furrowed. I knew we needed to discuss if we were still leaving or if we were going to find a place in town after all.

“I wanted you to go with Ryan for selfish reasons,” she confessed. “I know I told you that I wanted you to go because you deserved to act your age, but that wasn’t the truth.”

“Then why?” the fog was starting to infiltrate my senses as she talked. I hoped I would stay lucid enough to hear what she wanted to tell me.

“The way you talked about him, I knew he was different. I knew that if you spent time with him, that you might let yourself fall for him,” she sighed. “And if you did, then you might decide that we should stick around here.”

“You didn’t want to leave?”

“I wanted to go wherever you wanted to be, Carrie,” she said, sadly. “But I got a full ride to Arizona State, including room and board.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, it just seemed insane to move away and spend money on an education I could have for free if I stuck around, you know? But I didn’t want to leave you,” she explained, her words coming out in a rush.

“You want to stay. You want to live in the dorms,” I stated the obvious.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Is that okay?”

“Oh my God, Britton! That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you,” I praised, doing my best to smile. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to me. You’ve worked hard in school and you deserve to take advantage of these opportunities. Isn’t it too late to accept the scholarship though?”

“That’s the thing…” she looked toward the window, her face a mask of guilt.

“You already accepted it.”

“Yeah, back in April, but I didn’t know how to tell you. I figured if I couldn’t get up the courage, I would just go with you and bow out at the last minute. I know it’s not exactly mature, but I didn’t know what else to do. I, um, I move into my room tomorrow.”

“That soon?” I coughed. “But, I’m— I can’t—”

“Tildy and Marco promised to help me if you were still in here,” my sister waved me off.