Page 7 of Catch My Fall

My dad’s dying, and it’s killing me too. I hate seeing him like this. This isn’t how I want to remember him. I want to remember the good times, the happy times.

A tear escapes and my father reaches for my hand, giving it a weak squeeze. “Don’t… cry sweetheart.”

“I can’t help it. I don’t want you to go.” My voice cracks and I rise from my chair and drape my arms around him, my tears soaking into his shirt. “I’m scared, Daddy.”

I don’t usually call him by that name, I grew out of that when I hit puberty, but now it never felt more appropriate.

His bony arm goes around me. “I know you are, and for a w—while, I was too. But… I’ve made peace with it now. I love you, my precious girl, please remember that.”

I sniff and hold him tighter. “I love you too. So much.”

“You are bold, it is one of the m—many things I adore about you, Sierra. You… take what you want and speak your m—mind.” He coughs, a deep dry cough and he winces like it’s painful. “You are brave, and I need you to be just that for me, and for your b—brothers. And above all y—you are so beautiful, just like your m—mother…”

Drip… Drip… Drip… The repetitive sound snaps me back to my bleak reality.

There’s a tap leaking somewhere in the cold, dank, empty room I’ve been living in for the past however many days I’ve been down here.

That sound was irritating at first, an incessant noise that had me wanting to tear my hair out from the root, but it’s a sound that has become a strange comfort to me. Without it, there would be nothing but silence, nothing but my own thoughts to torment me, as if my captors haven’t done enough of that already.

I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think I’m in a basement of some kind. I remember being carried down a flight of stairs before being dumped in here like some kind of animal.

There are no windows. No daylight, only darkness. In here, there’s no day or night, no way of telling the time or how many days I’ve been stuck in his hellhole. The days and nights all blur into one, stretching on forever with no end in sight, like a dark narrow tunnel without the light at the end.

I was never afraid of the dark until I was brought here, I was never that kid who was scared of the imaginary monster hiding in my closet or under my bed. I wasn’t really afraid of anything. But here, in this room, with a single dim light bulb that flickers in the corner, the monsters lurk in the shadows. Only those monsters aren’t in my head, they’re real.

They touch me. Hurt me. Violate me.

They touch me in places reserved for the man I one day fall in love with, if that will ever happen to me now. They hurt me in ways I never thought possible and they laugh as I scream and writhe in agony. They use my body for their sick, twisted pleasure, finding new and exciting ways to inflict pain on me.

To belittle me. Degrade me. Break me.

There’s no point fighting back, I already tried that at the beginning and I ended up with a sharp kick to the stomach, a split lip and a swollen eye.

I made a pact with myself the first time they forced themselves on me. I vowed that they’d never break me. They could do whatever they wanted to my body, but they’d never break my resolve, never dim my spirit or steal my strength.

But it gets harder and harder as the days stretch on and I grow weaker.

I’m tired. Hungry. Thirsty. Dirty.

I lie completely bare on the soiled mattress beneath me, my naked body crusted with dried blood and dirt. My skin sticky with sweat, cum, and piss that’s not even my own. I’m rotting in filth, the stench alone enough to make me vomit—If I had anything in my stomach to bring back up, that is.

I’m allowed one wash a week, and when I say wash, I mean no soap to help get me clean, just a bucket of ice cold water to use while one of the men who hold me here watches with sick satisfaction. There’s no privacy here, no room for self-consciousness about my body and no way to keep your dignity intact.

Footsteps approach and I get ready for what comes next. What always comes next. My hands wrap around the chain that binds my wrists to the hook in the wall, bracing myself.

It’s Austin. I know it. I recognise his footsteps. His strides are set further apart than the others, slower and more collected than the other men who work for him.

The heavy door creaks open, and I have to squint against the bright light that floods in, stinging the backs of my eyes. His tall frame is silhouetted against the light and my stomach sinks.

The cool draft against my naked body makes me shiver and I draw my knees up to my chest against the cold. At first I was ashamed of my nakedness, on display for the predators that drool over my decaying body, but I’m too exhausted.

“Hello, Sierra.” Austin is the only one who uses my name rather than the derogatory names his men call me. If I didn’t know him for the bastard he is, he could almost be attractive. In certain lighting he looks like Ryan Gosling, only a little taller.

His shoes click with each step before he crouches down in front of me, his shiny dress shoes and pressed trousers in line with my face. He reaches out and sweeps my hair from my face and I shrink away from his touch.

“I think your brothers liked our little video. You’re so beautiful, Sierra, you belong in front of the camera. You were made for it.”

It’s almost as if he’s praising me.

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