Page 133 of Gunner

She shook her head, then buried it against her knees. “This is harder than I thought.”

“Take your time, Amber.”

She sat up, her eyes turning cold again. I recognized it for what it was. She was going somewhere else. Somewhere she felt safe. Somewhere she could disconnect from the story she was recounting.

“I let him take me one last time. I participated willingly. I gave him the best fuck of his life. When he passed out, I slipped out of the bed. In the kitchen, I quietly opened the drawer. The bastard was so stupid, or maybe I was because I waited so long. But he never restricted me from anything. He never hid the knives. Even the big ones.”

She turned to the window again. Staring through it, she continued, “I pulled out the largest knife we had. Holding it at my side, I walked back to the bedroom we shared. I wasn’t allowed my own after he started fucking me. I climbed back on the bed and laid the knife next to him. Then I climbed back on him. Picking up the knife, I held it behind me while I squirmed over his soft dick, waiting for him to harden. I knew he would wake once he felt me over him. He opened his eyes and looked at me. I had never willingly given myself to him until that night. He smiled, thinking I wanted more. His hands went to my tits, and he squeezed them roughly. He got off on my pain. Lifting his hips up, he tried to enter me. I kept myself still. I needed him to be so consumed with what he was doing that he wouldn’t notice what I was about to do.”

“Amber, why did you wait for him to wake up?”

Her eyes snapped to mine, and the woman I saw before me was not the same sweet easy-going woman I had met before. When she smiled, there was a frisson of fear that washed over me.

“I wanted that bastard to know what was happening to him. He was going to experience every moment. Just like I had for years. His hands grabbed onto my hips, and he ground meagainst him until he worked his dick into my pussy. That was when I struck.”

Her eyes glazed over, and I wondered if she was back in that room.

“When his eyes closed in rapture, I lifted my arms, both hands wrapped around the knife, and I plunged it into his heart. I will never forget the way his eyes snapped open and the look of shock on his face when he realized what I had done.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Haizley

Listening to Amber share how she killed her father after years of sexual assault, I expected to feel something other than what went through me. I expected to feel disgust at her premeditation in taking a life. Condemnation at her lack of remorse. And judgment for her disregard for the life of another human.

I felt none of those things.

What I did feel was admiration at the strength it required to take her life back by any means necessary. I wanted to applaud the courage it took to put herself in a position of being abused again in order to finally put an end to it. Most of all, I accepted that life wasn’t black and white.

We lived in the gray areas. There was right and there was wrong, but in the gray area lay the power to right a wrong. Sometimes that included doing the wrong thing.

“How did you feel after?”

Amber blinked a few times, like she was returning to the room we sat in together.

“I want to say I felt guilt. I want to say that I regretted what I did. The truth is, all I felt was relief. Never again would I be at his mercy.”

“What did you do next?”

“I took a shower.” She laughed. “I cleaned myself up and then I searched the house. I needed money, and I knew he didn’t keep it all in the bank. There was nothing of any value to hock, so I dug through his wallet, his drawers, the kitchen cabinets. Anywhere I could think of, to walk away with a start.”

“How much did you find?”

She took a deep breath. “Not enough.”

For the next hour and a half, Amber shared every detail about what happened after she left her father’s house. She told me about the man who took her off the streets, only to pimp her out to his friends.

She shared about the man who bought her with flowery words of freedom, only to lock her underground until she was rescued by a motorcycle club.

She told me about a nurse in the hospital in Louisiana, who told her she couldn’t trust the club that rescued her. And the woman who arrived in her room and whisked her away. A woman named Valhalla, who had spent her life helping abused women and children.

And she told me about a man named Danny, who helped her change her identity to Amber Marks. A man she only ever spoke to on the phone until just a few months ago, sparking the memory of the warnings the nurse gave her, when she realized he was part of the club she had been told would only hurt her more.

Her nightmares had been borne out of fear of being discovered. She shared that, within days of Danny leaving, other men showed up, including one she recognized from that same club.

We discussed her conflicted feelings about what the nurse had told her and what she had experienced. She shared about the man who sat in her cell with her. How he spoke with her quietly, never moving closer until he handed her a patchand explained that it was like a get out of jail free card. She remembered it was the first time she had felt any levity in years. Considering they were sitting in a literal cell when he said it.

“He didn’t talk to me like I was a victim. He acted like he wanted to be my friend. I hadn’t had a friend since I was a kid. So, when he offered to carry me out, I let him. He held me in his arms, and I felt safe for the first time in over ten years. Like he would give his life to protect me.”

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