Page 52 of Sinful
Now it’s my turn to cry. We’re in this mess because of me, and she’s the one who is asking me not to hate her. I reach across and take her hand. “I don’t hate you. I don’t hate you at all. I hate myself and I hate Josh for doing that to you, even though you did want it.”
“You don’t hate Josh,” she whispers. “You love him. You always did.”
I blink back the tears. I’ve not talked about Josh for years. It was always too painful, but my sister knows me better than I know myself.
“I love you.” I squeeze her fingers and elicit the first smile from her since we set off. Josh has obviously gotten under her skin the way he’s under mine, but he’s in our past. He’s history.
“I love you too, Lucy.”
I turn to give her a smile, but as I do, there’s a flash of black behind her. I don’t have time to process it before I’m violently slammed to the side of the car. Someone has crashed into the side of us. The road ahead is clear, so it’s no accident. Lauren screams as we’re hit again. I try to keep control, but after the third hit, I swerve off the road. The car skids down a ditch before rolling. My brain rattles round in my skull as we rotate over and over. I lose count and then I lose everything. It all goes black.
* * *
“Come on,princess. Wake up. You’re no good to the boss if you die.”
I flutter my eyes open. The pain is unbearable, and it takes me a few seconds to focus on the man holding me. He’s upside down. No, I’m upside down. I turn my head swiftly to the side. I’m still buckled in the car. The passenger seat is empty. Glass is everywhere.
Panic washes over me. “Where is she? Where’s Lauren?”
I recognize the man now. He works for my father. He’s not one of his main men, but I’ve seen him around. I don’t even know his name.
“Don’t worry about her, princess. You’ll never have to see her ever again.”
40
THE BEGINNING - LAUREN
One week earlier
“This is our only chance, Lauren,” Lucy says, encouraging me to move from the bed. Panic laces her voice in a way I’ve never heard before. If Lucy is scared, then there’s good reason to be. She takes my hand and draws a pattern in the palm in the way she used to when we were young. Before I could speak. Before I knew how to communicate at all. The feel of her fingertips sooths me and reminds me that it’s just me and her. That it’s always been just me and her. Three presses follow. We are ok. We are totally fine.
Fear holds me in a vice-like grip, but a twinge of excitement propels me forward. Today is the day I’m going to feel the sun on my face for the first time. Today is the first time I’m going to breathe fresh air. Today is the first day of my twenty years that I’m going to live. I’ve never been more terrified and more excited in my life.
“Father is out. He’s not really the problem anyway. He doesn’t give two shits about either of us, at least not in private,” Lucy says as she guides me from my room. A room I’ve inhabited since the day I was born. I count the steps to the door. They feel more urgent than they have ever done before, but the number remains the same. Seven steps to the door. Fourteen steps to the outer door and seventeen steps to the bathroom. I won’t be going to that bathroom ever again. Today I’ll go through the outer door. I try to focus on what Lucy’s telling me, although she’s speaking to herself as much as she’s speaking to me. This has been planned for weeks, ever since Father announced that he was having the security system updated and there would be a two hour break between the old security system being taken down and the new one getting up and running. I know she’s as nervous as I am. If things go wrong, I won’t be punished. Or at least I won’t be punished any more than I’m used to. Lucy is the one that gets to have her legs and arms painted black and blue in the shape of our father’s fists. It doesn’t happen much anymore because Lucy has learned to toe the line, but if he finds out what we are about to do, I hate to think what will happen.
I focus on the part about him being away. Some business trip or other. The monster can’t hurt either of us if he’s in another city, another state, another country.
I’ve never met our father. I’ve lived in the same house as him my whole life, but from the day I was born, he has never laid eyes on me. Not knowing him doesn’t limit the fear I have of him. If anything it makes it worse. I wonder if I’d met him, would I feel less scared. I doubt it. Lucy has to deal with him all the time and I can feel her terror of him by the way her hand trembles.
The outer door opens. My heart gives a small flutter. A muscle memory. The door opening usually means Lucy is here to visit with me, but of course she’s already here. This time the sound of the door opening is the sound of freedom.
“We have to be quiet,” Lucy instructs, squeezing my hand for good measure. Three times. “There’s a step. Lift your foot, Lauren.”
I know what steps are, but I have no idea how high to lift my foot.
I’m twenty years old and have never used stairs before.
Lucy guides my foot and after the first couple of stairs I’ve got the measure of them. I count. Seventeen stairs to the main floor of Waldgrave House. We are both barefoot as we run through the house. I marvel at the feel of carpet beneath my feet. Another first. I wonder how many firsts I’m going to have today. Many.
Lucy squeezes my hand again. This time a signal to stop and be quiet. It’s not such a stretch. I’ve spent my whole life being quiet. My heart pounds as I take in the sounds. Somewhere in a distant room someone is banging. The fitters for the security system, perhaps? It sounds like the ratatatat of a hammer.
“Ok, go,” she whispers.
I grip her hand and follow where she leads. She knows this house. I don’t. I trust her implicitly as she leads me from room to room, corridor to corridor. The one thing that strikes me is that Waldgrave house is so big. I’ve imagined it plenty of times and Lucy has described it in detail, but before now, it was abstract in my mind. The basement must have been a lot bigger than I knew. I only occupied the tiniest part of it.
The air around us changes abruptly forcing me to shut my eyes. I stop and dig my heels into the ground as my face is pounded with icy water. The first tendrils of panic begin to grip me causing my breathing to speed up.
“It’s rain,” Lucy explains gently, urging me forward.
