Page 50 of Bailey

Chapter twenty-three

Ifoundapieceof paper and a pencil and entered the living room with Witch following me. I sat on the couch, and she jumped up to lay her head on my lap. I stroked her soft ears as my mind drifted to the guys. I knew they were worried that I was about to kick them out of my life, but they couldn't be more wrong. I love them with everything I am and know that I haven't always been easy to handle. The patience and understanding they've shown me from the day we met helped cement them in my heart. The truth was I wanted to be able to give something back to them. Not because they felt they deserved it but because they didn't.

While bringing a child into this world terrifies me, and more thinking on the subject, I could do it. I would do anything for them, which was why I wanted space to think. I needed to exercise some demons, starting with my rules.

1. Love is a weakness, and it makes you do some really dumb shit.

2. Nothing is freely given. Every kindness comes with a price, and you better make sure you can pay it.

3. Children don’t belong here.

4. Promises have no meaning.

I read the lessons I had learned throughout my life. There were more, but these were the four that always stuck out the most to me. I thought about my time with the guys and how they've altered my perceptions and began to adjust the rules accordingly. With each corrected rule, I accepted my new reality and vowed to be more open to change.

Witch stirred, looking toward the kitchen and growling softly. She gets off the couch and stalks toward the kitchen on silent paws. I put my paper down and followed her into the kitchen to grab my crossbow and load an arrow. My stomach drops as I hear the porch creak. If it was one of the guys, Witch wouldn't be growling, and they wouldn't have been sneaking around.

The door was suddenly kicked open, and I released the arrow without thinking. The man yells, but it doesn't slow him down. Witch lunges for him, and he shoots her. I'm frozen to the spot as I meet his eyes, and recognition washes over me. If I had randomly passed him somewhere, I might not have recognized him. He now has a beard, and his blonde hair is greasy and so dirty it almost looks light brown. He’s thinner more ragged, and his clothes are torn. But his eyes, the piercing blue eyes from my nightmares, haven’t changed. It's him, it’s Scott! Oh, God. I snap out of it and run for my bedroom. I manage to get inside and lock the door, but I know that it won't hold him back for long. I dive for my knife and bring the blade to my neck. I couldn't let him capture me alive. I say a silent goodbye to Matty and my men, and as my muscles flex to drag the blade across my throat, the bedroom door splinters as Scott kicks it in. He's on me in an instant.

"I'm not letting you go that easy, bitch," he snarls as he wrestles for the knife. The blade bites into my skin briefly before he can overpower me and take it. In the next instant, I feel a blow to the back of my head, and everything goes dark.

When I regain consciousness, I'm naked and tied to the bed spreadeagle. I force myself not to hyperventilate. I need to keep my wits and find a way to escape this. I look around the room and see Scott sitting in the chair in the corner naked and stroking himself.

"There you are," he says. "I thought I would have to start before you woke up."

I didn't respond to him, shifting my eyes to the ceiling. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a reaction from me.

"I have to say, Bailey, you grew up well. I'm not usually into older women, but you're special. Your body will feel like coming home; I just know it. Did you know that you were my first little girl? It was my idea to take you and Matty in. I knew as soon as I laid eyes on you that I had to have you. You were so brave. I knew I would enjoy breaking and molding you into my perfect little toy."

He stood and approached the bed, trailing a finger from my ankle to my hip. I fought back the bile that threatened to spew from me. Suddenly, his face was over mine. "Matty was supposed to be my first boy, but you had to go ahead and ruin that. It was clever of you to drug our drinks. Too bad you gave Jenny too much. I woke up right before she attacked me. I didn't understand what had happened until I killed her and discovered that you and Matty were gone with half my shit."

He grins widely, licking his lips before continuing. "That's when I discovered my other sick fetish. Fucking recently deceased zombies. I have you to thank for that revelation." He mounts me, and it isn't until I feel the total weight of his body on me that I struggle, trying to buck him off before he can violate me again. "Stop fucking fighting me, you dumb bitch," he swore as his fists connected with my face. Once. Twice. I'm unsure if there was a third time, as everything went fuzzy, and my ears rang.

I feel a sharp pang between my legs and embrace the fuzzy space I find myself in instead of focusing on what Scott is doing to me. Instead, I thought about my men and how much they loved me. They will never stop blaming themselves for leaving me alone, but I hope they will find peace one day. And I hoped that they knew just how grateful I was to have had them in my life. Thanks to them, I could experience love and be loved purely, something that I had never expected to happen to me.

My mind shifted to Matty. My sweet boy... man. I was so incredibly proud of the good and honest man he's become. I fulfilled my promise to my father all those years ago. I took care of Matty. He would be ok now. He has someone to love and love him back to start a family with and live a long and full life. That was all I ever wanted for him. This would be hard for him, and I prayed for one last request to whatever cruel God let the travesties of this world occur that Matty wouldn't be the one to find me. I tried so hard to keep my darkness from touching him. Please, God, grant me this one last thing.

I'm not sure how long the abuse lasted or when it stopped. I became vaguely aware of my surroundings when Scott was fully dressed again and leaned over to peer into my face. I felt like I was viewing everything through a fog, more shadows than anything else. He holds something close enough to my face so that I can identify it as my knife. It disappears, and I feel pain in my stomach and then warmth as my blood flows. Somewhere inside my head, I understand that he cut me. Scott's voice reaches me, and it sounds like he's speaking to me from the other end of a long hallway.

"As much as I would like to kill you myself, I think I'll leave you for the zombies to find. Perhaps you'll bleed out first and turn into a zombie naturally. I hope I'll be able to come back and revisit you before you are found so that I can see how good a fuck you are as a zombie." He chuckled darkly and then leaned over me one last time. "Right now, I have to pay little Matty a visit," he whispered.

His words helped to clear some of the fog. No! Not Matty! I groaned as I struggled against my bindings. I had to protect Matty!

Scott laughed. "You have no idea how much it delights me that I didn't completely break your mind." I watched him leave, and I struggled to free myself until I fell unconscious again.

The next time I awaken, it's from movement on the bed. Vaguely, I recognize Witch, but I'm not sure if she's really here or I'm hallucinating. I saw Scott shoot her and assumed she was dead. Her fur was bloody and matted, and I could tell from the careful way she moved that she was hurting. She sniffs my face and whines as she gives me a tiny lick. I can hear the blaring of the truck horn outside as she lies across my body, facing the door. Maybe this is how they will find our bodies. Girls gotta stick together, after all.

I must have passed out again because suddenly, I woke up to my body vibrating. It took me a moment to realize it was from Witch's growling. I hear movement in the house. It looks like a zombie finally made it in. Hopefully, I will die quickly. What's left of the barely hanging door begins to creak open.

Chapter twenty-four

Boone

Matty'sfarmtourwasover as we followed him out of the barn. "Bailey will calm down," he assures us. He suddenly stopped short, causing me to run into him. "That's him!" he exclaimed angrily.

"That's who?" I asked. I peered around him to see an unkempt stranger talking to Anna's little sister in the yard.

"That's the man that hurt Bailey!" he growled.

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