Page 20 of Reed

“Actually, you don’t. I’ve taken care of all that. You are off for the next couple of days,” Reed says, pulling his keys out of his pocket.

My jaw drops. “I can’t. I need the money.” Why would he do something like that?

“Look, Ali. We don’t have time to argue about this. I need you to come to my house to discuss everything. I’m not trying to tell you that you can’t work anymore. Even though that is exactly what I want to do. But right now, we have to stop whoever isstalking you,” he says in that tone that tells me I can’t fight him on this.

Fuck, he’s right. I know he is, but I can’t help but panic at the loss of income from the two shifts. I do what I always do. I push my worry to the back and decide to deal with it later. Right now, I have to focus on the boys' safety, and then I will deal with money. “Okay, let’s go,” I say, agreeing, and allow him to walk me out of my apartment.

After a quiet ride back to his house, we sit around Reed’s table with Gabe, Jessie, Nick, and to my surprise Leon, whom I never thought I would see again. If he is here, then most likely, the guys already know about my past, at least the part that Leon knows about.

“So the time for bullshitting and lying is over,” Reed looks at me and me alone. “We know that Ali isn’t your real name or even the name that Leon gave you. So fill us in.”

I take a deep breath and then tell the story I have never told anyone.

Chapter Eleven

Ali

I was placed with Vivian Little when I was thirteen. At first, everything was perfect. It was one of the better foster homes. I was fed daily, had nice clothes, and the house was small but clean. Vivian made sure I went to school and even let me help work in her clothing store after school for a little spending money. She didn’t mind that I was quiet, and my nightmares didn’t seem to bother her. While I wasn’t happy about being in the system, I was okay about staying with her—until she met Dennis.

Just after my fifteenth birthday, she met him at the local coffee shop. At first, he seemed nice and polite. But it allchanged when they got married three months later. It started with him hitting her, controlling her money, and making life difficult. We had to move because he would spend all of the bill money on drugs and alcohol. Vivian didn’t have the strength or the means to leave him anymore. I begged her to send me back to the state and even threatened to tell my social worker about the abuse.

She told me that if she sent me back, Dennis said he would kill her. Then, one night, Dennis told me the same thing when he walked in on me screaming at her that I would tell someone about what he was doing. I was scared, truly frightened for the first time since the night my family was murdered. I promised to keep my mouth shut, and I did. I thought he would continue to ignore me, but I was wrong.

The first night he came for me was the night before I turned sixteen. He said he wanted to give me my birthday present early. I didn’t want anything from him. I fought him, screamed for Vivian to help, and even begged my parents or Caleb to save me. But no one came. No one came to my rescue that night as he brutally raped me. He took something from me that night that was never his to have. The next morning, I knew Vivian heard me because she helped clean me up and took me to the clinic for birth control and the morning-after pill. Dennis came home that night, and I found a single Lilly on my pillow.

My door would open like clockwork every night, he would come in and the next day I would find a flower. After the first month, I stopped fighting him and taught myself how to disassociate during the assault. I would go back in time to memories of playing with Caleb, shopping with Mom, or watching movies with Dad. Five months after my seventeenth birthday, I didn’t get my period. I knew what was going on. So before I went home from school, I bought a pregnancy test;sure enough, there was a little plus sign. I hid it because if Dennis found out, he would beat me until I lost the baby.

While I wasn’t ready to become a mom and didn’t want to carry his child, there was no fucking way I was going to let him kill it either. So, I started to plan my escape. I was too scared to go to Leon because I was afraid Dennis would kill both me and Vivvian before anything could happen. Dennis always told us how he could make it look like an accident, and I believed him. One night, while I was supposed to be at work, I was searching the dark web at a friend’s house. Link—my one and only friend—had heard that there were people out there who would help you disappear for a certain price. He was also amazing at everything computer related so he knew where to look.

That’s when we found a guy who went by the name of Demon. Link helped me contact Demon. Two days later, I heard back from him. He emailed me with an address and a time to meet. Link came with me because I didn’t want to go alone. The address was to an abandoned house on the other side of town.

“Are you sure about this, Kate?” Link asks, pulling me closer. “I told you I would go to the police with you. You don’t have to do this. You being pregnant is all the evidence you need that the sick bastard has raped you.”

“Link, he will kill her. Plus, he has friends in the police force. This is the only way.” I’ve thought over every possible way to end this, and this is the only way.

“And he won’t kill her when you fucking disappear?” Link asks the one question I’ve been worrying over.

The two-story house looks ominous in the white moonlight. While it’s abandoned, it’s not run down. There aren’t any broken windows or trash that you normally see when houses are abandoned. I open the front door stepping inside. The air is dusty and smells of musk.

“He might, but this way, if Demon is good at his job, Dennis won’t be able to find me,” I say, feeling a small amount of guilt over leaving Vivian.

“Or we could just make him disappear.” A dark voice comes from somewhere to my left. I scream and jump back into Link, who also screams but pulls me behind him.

“Who the fuck is there?” Link asks, his voice shaking, showing how scared he is right now.

I peek around Link and see a tall silhouette step out of the shadow. It stops in front of a window, and the moonlight illuminates him. He has blonde hair that is pulled back into a ponytail. His jaw is covered with a short beard. I can’t tell what color his eyes are. But I can see that he is built like a brick house. His arms are so big that the lower part doesn’t touch his body when they are down by his side. I feel the dangerous aura around him from where I am.

“Demon?” I ask. Thankful that my voice doesn’t shake like Link’s.

“Kate, I assume,” Demon says, stepping forward to where he is again in the shadow. A lamp flickers to light. I step out behind Link and take a small step toward the man who I’m hoping can help me. Demon’s head raises, and I suck in a sharp breath. I’ve never seen someone with eyes black as the night sky without any stars.

“Your eyes are black.” I slap my hand over my mouth to avoid saying something stupid.

“They are,” he says, stepping back and lowering himself into a lone kitchen chair in the middle of the room. “So you need to disappear. Why?”

I wouldn’t let Link tell Demon everything, but it looks like I’m going to have to. I quickly tell him my story. Pregnant by my rapist foster father. Demon’s face grows colder and harder, and the dark aura around him shifts. His body goes rigid withanger with each word out of my mouth. Once I’m done, Demon stands and walks to the window.

“I can help you disappear, but it will take some time. Which I’m willing to put in the work. However, I have another option for you,” he says, turning around. I swallow my fear and wait for him to speak. “I kill him very painfully and slowly.”

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