Page 86 of Save Me
“I remember making rock cakes and putting on ridiculous shows for her. She always smelled of cinnamon.” I smile nostalgically over the memory.
“Did she?” he asks with the cigar placed firmly back inside of his mouth, seemingly over his moment of sadness. “And what did she tell you about me?”
I falter for much longer than is going to seem normal. She never once made me think that Tom Taylor wasn’t my biological grandfather. I very much loved him like one, even after he disappeared shortly before she had to go in a home. Not a single thing enters my head to say to him. Not anything that will end nicely for me, anyway. In sheer panic, I look to Oliver for some sort of answer, but all he does is frown at me, like an embarrassed parent, gesturing for me to answer the old man and to do so quickly.
“Er…she didn’t,” I reply honestly, being that it’s all I have. As soon as the words leave my bone-dry lips, I have to swallow back the lump of fear lodged inside of my throat. “I was always led to believe that Tom was my blood relative.”
As I could have predicted, this answer is not well received by either of the men before me. Carl stares at me blankly, but with a hint of a sneer as he continues to puff away on his revolting cigar between his yellowing teeth. The intensity with which he glares at me has me dropping my eyes straight to a small, chipped tile on the floor, feeling desperately inadequate under both Carl and Oliver’s unimpressed scowls. My palms are sweaty, and I feel a surge of bile traveling up my gut as my body sets itself up for a fight or flight situation.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, just to break the unbearable silence.
“Not your fault, my dear,” he eventually says, fake smiling and clasping his hand over my knee as I let out a steady stream of a long-held breath. “Oliver, let’s eat, shall we?”
“Of course,” Oliver replies tightly, obviously not as forgiving as my grandfather is, and still looking highly irritated by my answer.
Dinner is a fairly quiet affair, for me, anyway. Carl and Oliver talk about business while I try to grasp at any kind of information that may give me the upper hand, but it’s all jargon. I suppose to the men sat with me, I am behaving exactly as I should be, being seen and not heard. I begin to slump in my seat when I consider how different this dinner is from the ones that I’ve been used to all through my childhood. Ones that were full of mutual conversation, laughter, and the safety to talk about whatever we want. Feeling desperate, my mind begins to try and contemplate any possible way to get myself out of this mess, even though all past attempts to do so have always resulted in disappointment.
It takes me a while to realize their conversation has now ceased and all eyes are on me, looking expectantly for a response to something I haven’t paid attention to. Of course, I have no idea what they’ve just said, so all I do is drop my fork and look at them both rather sheepishly. To my relief, Oliver smirks at Carl over my ignorance.
“You were a million miles away, my dear,” Carl chuckles, “somewhere nice, I hope?”
“I’m sorry, did you ask me something?” I question him at the same time as I think that anywhere away from here would be nice enough.
“I asked you about your brother, Riley?” On the mention of my little brother’s name, my heart feels like it’s stopped beating altogether. My limbs turn to jelly, and I have to seriously talk myself out of throwing up.
“Y-yes,” I stutter, “why do you ask?”
“He’s still young,” Carl says suggestively, “he may wish to join his grandfather and brother-in-law in Mayfield. He could accomplish great things under mine and Oliver’s guidance.”
“No!” I slam my hand down onto the table in anger, no longer thinking straight enough to even begin to care about what this act of defiance will earn me.
Carl looks completely shocked, then horrified as he pulls his eyes away from my hand and looks to Oliver over my outburst. I let out a long breath when I see Oliver glaring at me with such a dark expression, I feel utterly frozen for a moment or two. But then I remember Riley, my little brother, the person I’ve been trying to save in all of this. It gives me a slither of courage to slam back my chair and stand resolutely before these two bullies.
“You promised if you had me, you would leave him alone. He doesn’t need to be ‘brought in’; he’s a happy little boy who deserves to live his own life!”
Carl laughs menacingly before gulping back more of his whiskey as if in complete disgust over a woman trying to tell the menfolk how to behave. I narrow my eyes over his smugness, just as Oliver marches over to grip hold of my elbow between his fingers.
“Now, don’t be too rough on her, Oliver,” Carl smirks arrogantly, “the poor girl hasn’t had the proper upbringing.” His comment only has me adding a snarl to my angry little slits while desperately trying to restrain myself from grabbing hold of his withered old neck.
“But she’ll learn, quickly if under your care, I’m sure,” he laughs to himself at the same time as I’m pulled away by the man I’m meant to be marrying in a few months.
As I’m dragged away at speed, falling over my heels and trying to resist the painful grip of his hands on my bare flesh, I am given a hard slap for openly defying him. He then hauls me up the staircase and toward the bedroom.
Once inside the room that I unfortunately know so well, he throws me against the end of the bed before he goes to his bedside drawer and retrieves something that looks like a long, thin, metal ruler. Only now do I begin to consider what terrible danger I am in and how much pain I’m going to suffer over my insubordination. I begin to tremble over the rage that is emanating from him whilst he glares at me.
“Take off your tights and panties, Beth!” he orders me, to which I rapidly shake my head because all my vocal cords have seized up in fear. “Do it fucking NOW!”
With tears streaming down my face, I slowly do as he says, with my hands making a bad job of it as they tremble against the fabric. Once I have completed the insidious task, he comes over and pulls my dress up to reveal my naked skin. He then pushes my head roughly onto the mattress. This is it. This is when I am taken against my will. All I can think about is how on earth I’m going to be able to tell Xander that I let another man have me, how I’ve let him down.
As I quietly sob, I don’t expect the sudden onslaught that hits my naked backside. The low growl that emits from the back of his throat makes it all the more painful, all the more humiliating as he strikes me with the cold, steel instrument. I can’t tell you how many times he hits me because the burn it creates eventually causes me to go numb. The force with which he strikes me only seems to intensify to a point where I convince myself to use my mind to go somewhere else, somewhere safe.
I’m lying on my bed with the sun shining through the open window, my naked back warming in the rays that fall across my bed. The hard chest I’m on top of vibrates a little as its owner laughs at my fingers tickling him while I run them up and down his body. I smile warmly when he strokes my hair, telling me I’m a wicked tease, but that he loves me all the more for it. I tell him I love him too, and always will. With a move so sudden that it makes me yelp, he flips me over and holds himself on top of me. It has me laughing so much, I’m left gasping for air. He continues to play, asking if I’m ticklish. Every time I call out that I am, he does it even more. We fall into kissing, slowly, passionately, and as he enters me, he tells me how I am his. I’ll always be his and he will always be mine.
When Oliver’s beating finally ceases, I lie in a sobbing, crumpled heap, unable to verbalize how I’m feeling. As an added act of disgust and complete disrespect toward me, he chucks the ruler he’s just used to attack my flesh on top of me. He then starts to pace around the room with angry strides.
“You made me do this, Beth!” he growls through clenched teeth. “You needed to learn a lesson and I hope you have fucking learned it because I don’t like hurting you, Beth. I really don’t, but you need to learn your damn place! Don’t you ever make me look like a fool in front of anyone again, or trust me, I will punish you!”
I give nothing back, not even a flinch of my limbs when he walks to the door where I hear him pause in his determined footsteps.