CHAPTER ONE
Don’t break down.
SAMANTHA ROSE
six years earlier - 17 years old
HOW CAN I EXPLAIN I’m drowning in nothing but the air that surrounds me? How can I tell you my eyes are heavy and begging to close? The darkness is beckoning. It’s slithered its way into my veins, thorn-like tendrils of poison ivy intent on filling my soul with the hopelessness I’ve come to know and ultimately find comfort in.
I’m fighting for something I know I should want, but nagging doubt leads me to believe I am unworthy. Hope would be wasted on me.
My secret stash of drugs has dwindled down to two tiny blue pills. I made a promise to myself... when the last one touches my tongue and makes its way down my throat, I will run.
At least that’s my plan.
Fear is ingrained into my soul and scarred into my flesh. Painful, lasting reminders of each and every time I dared defy my husband, or worse, my father.
Through the cracked window the cold night air blows into my room sending shivers down my spine. In the distance, wolves are howling, and I wonder if they’re real or merely a figment of my overactive, drug induced imagination.
Pulling the thin, worn blanket around my shoulders, I lie on my bed and pull my knees to my chest so I can wrap my arms around them. It’s almost 2am. If I pretend I’m asleep, maybe he will continue walking down the hallway and past my bedroom. Wishful thinking.
Moments later the blanket is torn from my grasp and the chain is pulled so hard I’m forced off my bed and onto the cold linoleum floor. I clasp my fingers over the edge of the steel collar to keep it from digging further into the soft flesh of my neck, but when he notices, a kick to my ribs sends me flailing backwards and I raise my hands to protect my face.
“Stand,” he commands.
I do as he says, and even though my teeth are chattering, I hold still. If there’s one thing I learned about my father... he despises me and always has. Although, I’ve never quite figured out why someone who despises me so much is always eager to climb into my bed and use my body as a source of pleasure.
My father repulses me. I’ve spent endless nights plotting revenge and trying to figure out all the ways I could torture and kill him, but it would bring me down to his level, and I refuse to stoop that low.
Between him and my husband, there’s a constant, agonising reminder I am incapable of love—of being loved. I’m stuck here, on the other side of hope where languishing doubt extends its clawed hands and grasps at my throat with the formidable strength I long to possess.
A tug on the chain reminds me to follow him as he makes his way through my bedroom door, down the dimly lit hallway, and into the back room of the house where the trap door in the floor leads down to the room I share with my husband. I guess my father doesn’t want to waste his time on me tonight after all.
I should be relieved.
The smirk on my husband’s face lights up when he notices my gaze drop to the knife in his hand.
A rush of adrenaline laced terror surges through my veins.
“Ready to play, wife?” He nods to my father who drops the chain on the floor and leaves the room.
When the door slams shut, I swallow the lump in my throat, and reply, “Yes.”
First, he stalks around me while I pull my stained tank top off and drop it on the floor where it lands twisted around the end of the chain. His eyes travel up and down my body searching for wounds I’ve inflicted upon myself.
I know better now. Early in our relationship I thought harming myself would repulse him enough to keep him away. It never did. If anything, it made it worse.
I am his property, his to own. Anything I do to myself without his permission sends him into a violent fit of rage.
The pointed blade of the hunting knife nicks my flesh. A warm trickle of blood runs down my leg as he slices through my thin cotton underwear. I ball my hands into fists to stop myself crying out at the pain while he moves to press the tip of the knife against the soft flesh between my breasts.
My chest heaves and no matter how hard I try to hold my breath, it doesn’t work.
When my lungs finally fill with air, it’s as though a lead weight is bearing down, forcing me to exhale.
As the knife drags down between my breasts, the sting of the open wound brings tears to my eyes—still, I don’t cry out.
“You’re not having fun yet, wife,” he mocks.
Another heavy, deep breath. Another long, exhaled sigh. Don’t break down.
He shoves a hand into his pocket and when he brings it out, he shakes a small container of pills in front of me.
Thoughts of decadent silence and the weightlessness of drug induced euphoria swarm in my mind. Just one pill will give me freedom, at least for a little while.
“Want one?” He raises his hand and throws the knife behind me. I don’t see it, but I hear a thud as it embeds into the wall.
I shake my head, knowing the after effects will drown me for days beneath a swirling tide of self-loathing. I need to run, and I need to be relatively clean to do that.
He cocks his head and his expression changes from passive to aggressive. His lip curls in disgust and his jaw clenches. When he tips two pills into his palm and tells me to open my mouth, I don’t hesitate.
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII
My eyes open to a blur of shapes and colours. A myriad of hues in blue, white, and green. Everything is so bright. I squint to attempt to make out the blur in front of me, but when dizziness takes hold I’m forced to close my eyes and block out the world.
Minutes, or maybe hours pass before I finally open my eyes again.
Beneath me, the floor is rough, prickly, uneven. I clench my hands into fists and between my fingers I feel long, smooth blades of grass. Grass?
A wet nose sniffs at my cheek, it’s followed by a slick wet tongue. I shake my head hard and push myself up on my elbows. “Mack?” Why am I in the dog pen?
While rubbing my eyes I take in my surroundings and let out a quiet laugh. I wonder if they realise I’d rather be here than in the house with the real, vicious animals who call themselves men.
It’s not until I feel the chill of the air that I remember I’m not wearing any clothes. I’m naked and my father’s dogs surround me. The poor things look confused. They were probably hoping for a meal and instead got a waif thin girl with zero body fat.
Mack, the oldest of the dogs nudges his nose against my cheek again and I pat his head. When the gate creaks open, he releases a low, intimidating growl that tells me danger is close by—as if I don’t already know.
I drop my head and wrap my arms around myself as heavy black boots approach.
“Get up,” my father commands.
The dogs growl, but slowly back up as I stand. They won’t protect me; their fear of my father is stronger than my own. I suppose that’s what happens when one of their pack is brutally murdered at the hands of the man who controls and feeds them.
My father grabs the chain still attached to the steel collar around my neck and wraps it twice around his hand to pull me forward. With his other hand, he runs his calloused fingers across my breast and down between my legs.
“He still makes you wet. You’re a filthy little whore aren’t you... just like your moth—” his words trail off as his fingers move harder and faster.