Page 102 of Hell Hath No Fury
“When was the last time you left here?”
“I d…don’t leave,” I stammer.
“You don’t?” he repeats with a question.
“After my mom died, Daddy said I wasn’t well, and I needed to stay in here otherwise people would take me away from him.I've not left the room since. I think Daddy said it’s been at least ten years." I hear Caim take a deeply inhaled breath. "Are you the people he was talking about? Are you going to take me away from him?"
He doesn’t reply straight away. It’s strange. I can almost hear the cogs of his brain trying to figure out what to say to me.
“What Daddy does to me is wrong, isn’t it?” I blurt out.
Caim growls a low rumbling sound that vibrates off him in waves, filling the room with more truth than words ever could.
“I need to get you out of here.” He stands up and walks over to the table. “Do you know where the key is to the chains?”
"No," I reply and bow my head.
I know from where he’s standing I’m still shrouded in darkness, and I prefer it like that. He can't see what I really am—a dirty little whore.
I get lost in my own thoughts, and I don’t notice he's right in front of me until he bends down and lifts my chin, forcing me to look up at him. My body’s screaming at me to push him away, but I’m lulled into a sense of security by his warm breath on my face and the spell he weaves from the pools of his charming, black eyes.
"Layla, I'm going to go and find some bolt cutters. I’ll be back. No one’ll come in here. You have my word. Prez is taking care of your father.”
“Is he going to kill him?”
“Yes, but not yet,” he replies with such bluntness I gulp.
Caim gets up and disappears without any further interaction. I’m left alone in the room that has been my home for so many years. Despite what’s occurred within these four walls, it has always felt like my sanctuary—the place where I can lose myself in my books and in thoughts of an imaginary life where I’m a princess in a massive castle with a husband who’s my knight in shining armor. He worships me, he cares for me, and he rescuesme from fire-breathing dragons and all the evil within the world. But it’s a dream I know will never come true, because I’m too dirty and dead inside to be worthy of love.
Heavy footsteps draw me out of my brief daydream, and I see Caim coming toward me with what look like giant scissors. I cock my head.
“Are those bolt cutters?” I ask.
"Yes. I need you to come toward the middle of the room a bit more." My eyes go wide, and I look to where the light from outside shines in and creates a beam of angelic brilliance. "It's dark where you are, and I don't want to hurt you."
I push myself up, and with stiff movements, I lock my knees into position and make my feet move forward one step at a time until I’m standing in the light.
“You won’t hurt me with them, will you?” I ask nervously.
"No." He reaches down and tugs on the chains that are joined to a bolt on the wall at one end and to the cuffs around my wrists on the other. "I can't get the cuffs off here. I'll need to do that at the compound, but I'm going to cut these chains."
“Not my flesh?” I question, and a growl fills the room again.
“Never.”
I nod at him to proceed. In seconds, the age-old barriers to my movement are gone. My legs wobble, and dropping the cutters, Caim wraps his arms around me. I don't have the energy to fight him. The significance of being free is sending me into a spiral of emotions I'm not sure I can handle. I want to scream, cry, lash out, but I don't have the strength. He tucks me under his arm, grabs the t-shirt from where he left it, and then holding me steady, he slips it over my head. I instantly feel constricted. The material claws at my skin, and I try to pull it off.
“No, wait a minute,” he orders. “The material will feel strange at first because you aren’t used to it.”
"I'm scared," I whisper.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to leave you.”
He pulls me into his chest, and I don’t try to stop him. I can hear the steady beat of his heart, and I let the tears finally fall. These ones aren't for my daddy, they are for me, for all I've suffered. I weep for the victim I've become and allow the salty water to start healing the wounds of my fragile mind.
Eventually, Caim swoops me up into his arms, and effortlessly strides out of the room where I've been held captive for nearly half of my life. I’d thought the moment would be more significant with a choir of angels singing hallelujah, but there’s nothing.I feel nothing.The room that’s been my world for so many years is no longer my sanctuary.
Everywhere in the house, there are men—all of them wearing cuts with green eyed skulls. A memory from my childhood slams into my head of men standing around wearing cuts with the same emblem, but not here. It was a different place—a black room filled with women, noise…and sex. My temple pulses, and I feel as though my head is going to explode.
