Page 44 of Demons & Damnation

In less than a second, he was offering the crying woman just what she needed. Grabbing at them without another thought, Sam blew her nose into one and wiped her eyes with another.

“Sorry,” she said, keeping her eyes down in embarrassment. “I just don’t know what to do to help her. I never expected her to go back there...”

Annoyed at the cryptic conversation and having no juicy gossip, Adam drummed his fingers on the table and sighed. “Some detail here might help, you know. All we know so far is that her first love was a politician’s son and him dumping her sent her into a decade worth of pills and shrinks. Not seeing anything traumatic there, honey. Welcome to ‘love’.”

When he said the word ‘love’, Adam couldn’t resist looking at his brother as he mimicked the quotes with his fingers. Love was a load of horse shit in his eyes. Ben glared at his brother, rage boiling up inside him at his blatant disregard for anyone else.

Sam snapped her head up and narrowed her eyes at Adam. When she spoke, the venom dripping from her words would have killed a King Cobra. “I never said he dumped her, asshat. This isn’t some sad tale of a first love breaking up. It’s so horrific you couldn’t even dream this up.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Adam said, smiling. “I bet I know a situation or two that would fit that title.”

“Really?” Ire bubbled inside her at his sheer arrogance. “You might have a pretty face, Adam Worthington, but there’s definitely nothing deeper than that, is there? I bet if I had a black dog, yours would be blacker, wouldn’t it? If I’d...skydived twice, you’d have done it three times—”

“Six, actually.”

Sensing the tension building up inside her, Ben acted before Sam reacted. He punched his stoic brother on his upper arm, sending him sprawling across the floor.

So emotional, Sam didn’t even find it funny. She simply looked at Ben and said, “Thank you.”

“Would you rather go somewhere else to talk?” Ben asked, wondering if the openness of the café made her feel uncomfortable.

All too aware a break would make her chicken out of revealing her best friend’s sordid tale, Sam declined. Apart from an elderly couple across the other side of the room, they were the only ones in here now the breakfast rush had left.

She took a deep breath and continued. “All was fine for the first eighteen months or so. Then he got her pregnant,” she said. Folding her arms across her chest, she managed to hide her clenched fists. “And insisted she had an abortion. Kyla refused. Not because of how in love with him she was or anything like that but because she didn’t see it as fair that their carelessness had created a life. To her, that gave her no right to extinguish it. She was prepared to carry to term and give it up for adoption.”

The clatter of Adam’s wooden chair being righted cut through her explanation. Not even daring to look at his brother for fear of exploding, Adam sat back down and forced himself to pay attention.

“But that wasn’t an option for Tony’s father. It would be nothing but an embarrassment for his son to have an illegitimate child palmed off on other people, so he piled on the pressure. Kyla ended up taking a couple of trips down the stairs. When that didn’t work, Tony got desperate.”

For the first time in years, Adam felt nausea churning around in his gut. Whatever Sam would say next would be sickening. He could feel it. He suddenly felt more than foolish for his mocking comments.

“He drugged her one night, put some rohypnol in her drink.” She choked back a sob. “It was me who found her—” Sam took a deep breath before carrying on “—there was so much blood. God, I’ve never seen so much blood.” She took a swig of tea, not caring it was cold, her throat raw with dryness. “He’d attempted to give her a home abortion with a coat hanger. Needless to say, it’d gone horrifically wrong and he’d ripped...inside. She nearly died. If I’d been any longer—”

She burst into tears. Whilst supporting Kyla through all of her turbulent times, not once had Sam given thought to the fact she might need some help too. Nightmares were frequent and always involved the sickly grey face of her best friend dying in puddles of her own blood.

Without even thinking, Ben wrapped an arm around Sam’s shoulders, unsure of the best way to comfort her. Truly shocked by what he’d just heard, he looked up to see his brother’s features paling. Was he actually feeling something from hearing this harrowing tale?

“Shhh,” Ben said, rubbing the tops of her arms. “You weren’t any longer though and you did save her. It’s all ok.”

Sam shook her head, tears flying from her flushed face. “No, you don’t understand. That’s not the worst of it.”

The brothers looked at each other, exchanging part worried, part enquiring thoughts.

“It’s ok,” Ben said. “I get that she probably can’t have kids now. Is that right?”

“No,” Sam said. “I mean, yes, you’re right. He did so much damage to her that it’s pretty much all scar tissue in her womb. If by some miracle she ever fell pregnant, chances are she wouldn’t be able to carry to term anyway.” She shook her head. “But that’s not what I meant. Haven’t you wondered why I found her and not one of her parents?”

That queasy feeling hit Adam’s gut again. He wasn’t used to feeling human things...not the bad side anyway. He enjoyed pleasures of the flesh but blocked everything else out. Except, somehow, this had snuck up on him from nowhere.

“Her father skipped out years ago, but her mother...ha.” Sam wiped at her eyes and sat up straight again, filling with irate defiance. “Her mother had been having an affair with Tony. Whilst Kyla was in hospital, the pair of them took off. She’s never seen or heard from her mother since.”

---