Page 49 of Embracing My Nightmare
“What are you going to do with me, Cameron?” The quiver was back in my voice and I allowed it out. Fear was a healthy emotion, or so my shrink told me for years.
“Whatever I want, my little cockroach. Ishouldslice you up and mail you back to Devlin, so he knows the pain of losing you like I felt with her. But I’d rather tell you a little story, roach. One of a little girl named Penny and the mother who never wanted her.”
The name he was calling me pulled old memories to the surface, and as I looked around the room, the details of the first few years of my life began to play out. I could hear people having sex, the smell of alcohol and urine thick in the air, the beatings—and worse—that I endured while I was here. I didn’t remember how I got away from here, but I was glad that I ended up in that church. The years with my adoptive parents had been horrible,but they were better than what I lived through here.
“Penny was the punishment she got for running away from home. Penny was a naughty child who always got into trouble, scurrying around, causing problems for everyone. Her mom was so beautiful, and everyone loved her,” he droned on and my head pounded as the memories assaulted me from every direction.
“What the hell are you doing here, Penny?” my mommy asked as she closed her bathrobe and stormed out of the room. There was a strange man on her bed, and he didn’t have any clothes on. There were always men in her room, her friends, and she loved to spend time with them. She never spent any time with me. Slapping me hard across the face, I fell to the floor as she yelled down at me, “You’re always getting into things that aren’t your business. Go to your room and stay there. GO!”
My feet tore through the house until I bumped into the man my mommy said is her boss. He pinched my ear and I rose to my tiptoes as tears fell down my face. “You’re worse than a bad penny. You’re more like a cockroach scurrying around the room. I think that’s what we’re going to call you now.”He released me and pushed me down the hallway. “Go to your room, cockroach, or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
I ran into my room and closed the door. Crawling under the bed, I pulled my blanket under with me and scooted against the wall. I was sucking my thumb and if mommy found out, she would hit me again. She kept telling me to grow up and stop being a baby, but I didn’t know how.
The door opened and I stilled as someone walked into the room and sat on the foot of the bed.
“You can come out, lamb.” I recognized the voice.
I slowly crawled out and looked up to see Lynn smiling down at me. He was the only person who was ever nice to me and sometimes, he snuck me toys. Once he brought me a candy bar. I had never had one and it was delicious. I offered him a bite, but he wouldn’t share with me. He said it was all mine and smiled as I finished it, chocolate smeared around my face.
I sat on the bed next to him and leaned my head against his arm. He spoke softly into the room, knowing that people listened to everything around here.
“I’m going to get you out of here, Penny. I promise.”
“I believe you,” I whispered back.
Lynn was a kid like me, only older and bigger. He wasn’t an adult, but the adults treated him like one. I looked up and his blue eyes were locked on the window next to the bed. He seemed mad and I was afraid I had done something to make him hate me. I couldn’t lose Lynn. He was the only friend I had.
He stood up and looked at me, a sad smile on his face as he walked to the door. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, he walked out without another word. The door shutting behind him was loud and my tummy hurt watching him leave.
I didn’t see him again. A few days later, I woke up in a church, with clothes that didn’t fit me and no memory of how I got there. The people asked me my name, but all I wanted was Lynn. They asked if that was my mommy, but I didn’t want to talk about my mommy. I never wanted to see her again.
I spent a couple of days in the hospital and talked to all kinds of people, but I wouldn’t tell them my name. They started calling me Elise. I didn’t care as long as no one ever called me ‘cockroach’ again.
A hard slap across my face had me falling from the bed and onto the dirty floor, hanging by my wrist. The plastic tie was digging into the small cut and I felt blood trickle down my arm. Grabbing my cheek, I looked up to find Cameron looming above me, rage twisting his face into that of a monster.
“Why the fuck won’t you listen? I was telling you about how much your mother did for you and how he killed her for his own sick amusement. How dare you share your body with the man who murdered her? How fucked up are you to be with him? You should be loyal to her!”
“I . . . I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand, Penny? He kidnapped you from her and it devastated her. I was here with her that night and I saw how it broke her. Then he fucking pushed her off the top of a building. I had to watch her fall eight stories, knowing I couldn’t do anything to stop it! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT’S LIKE? I loved her and he killed her!”
“Why would he kidnap me?”
“Jesus, you’re so fucking stupid. He took you for himself. He wasn’t even a teenager, and everyone saw how he looked at you. He was a pervert and you were a dirty little girl, showing off your body and flirting with him. He was a sick freak who wanted a little girl for himself and you were eager to give it to him.” He shook his head in disgust and I turned my head, throwing up the last of the contents from my stomach.
He was lying. There’s no way that Devlin . . .Lynn.
I let the tears flow freely as I sobbed on the floor, my face resting on the filth. How could that be the truth? If he wanted me, why did he leave me at the church? Why did he leave me tied to the bed? Why wait all these years?
I’m always watching.
I shook my head, begging Cameron, “Please, stop. It’s not true. It’s not.” I was fighting to catch my breath, but I was dizzy and it was making the room spin.
He wrenched me up by my hair and laughed into my face, the rancid smell of whiskey surrounding me. “Did you think your nightmares were over, now that you had embraced one? Oh no, little lamb.I’m your worst nightmare. I’ll keep forcing you to connect the dots until you finally understand the depths of his obsession—no, hisperversionfor you. Devlin was born without a soul, and he groomed you to be his perfect little pet. Where is he? Where’s your savior now?”
Cameron tossed me to the floor and walked into the hallway. Looking back through the open doorway, he locked eyes with mine. “It’s time to decide, Penny. Do you continue your life as his possession, or do you finally reclaim your identity?”
I sobbed into the floor and felt my heart shatter into dust. Devlin never loved me. He only wanted me as something he could manipulate or control. Chuck didn’t care that I was gone, and I was trulyalone. How did my life go from happy to horrible in a single day?
