Page 10 of Thorns Laced In Blood

My classmates had no idea how lucky they were. I took my shoes off at the door before putting my bag in my room. The smallest thing would set my mum off, and I wasn’t in the mood for a screaming match or to get slapped around today. The kitchen was bare, but there was enough bread and jam to make a sandwich. I took my plate into the living room to watch some TV.

It was time to start clock-watching and wonder when she would return and, more importantly, if she scored or not. I ignored the fear, briefly thinking of my Dad before I switched off to immerse myself in the cartoon blaring on the TV.

???

I blinked in the dark but realised I was in bed. When I heard someone talking outside my room, I lifted my head to listen. It was my mum and Gavin, the local dealer. They were talking about money. I clutched Bear a little tighter, listening to them argue.

“I suggest you take this somewhere else. I don’t have all night,” a man said, interrupting them.

It wasn’t a voice I recognised, but there was something about the way he spoke. He sounded—posh, but it was more than that. He was cold and dismissive. The way Gavin and my mum reacted was to try and pacify him. My mum had a mouth on her, but she stayed quiet until my door opened.

The light poured into my room, and I saw her silhouette before my head hit the pillow. I closed my eyes, hoping she would go away. She turned the lamp on but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what was going on, but it couldn’t be good.

“I know you’re awake. It’s time you earned your keep,” she said, but I didn’t react or open my eyes until I heard the door close.

I sighed when I finally opened my eyes and saw she was gone. The footsteps down the hallway were heavy, and I heard her and Gavin laughing before the TV volume went up. I frowned at how loud it was but pulled the covers around me and turned over.

A man stepped out of the shadows, and I almost screamed. He was unbuttoning his shirt as my mind returned to my mum’s words. He was tall and slim, but the malicious, twisted expression on his face turned my blood to ice. Under the dim light of the lamp, his cold blue eyes stared at me in a way I’d never experienced before.

“I will be etched inside forever, Maeve, but I like pretty broken dolls. When I come back, that is what I expect,” he said in a cold,calm manner while pulling his shirt off. “And I always get what I want.”

I sat up, but instead of running or screaming, I sat there frozen in fear. His threat was more like a vow, and little did I know that his words would remain with me for the years that followed.

Fighting made it worse, but eventually, I lay there bruised, battered with him on top of me, grunting like an animal. The demeaning words he uttered and the clean scent of mint turned sour, mingling with the smell of sweat and aftershave until it no longer mattered.

I counted the cracks on the ceiling, glad I’d pushed Bear off the bed. When that stopped working, I focused on the sound from the TV, the dull sound coming from the wall. The only sound I would remember vividly from that night was my mother’s laughter as she spoke to Gavin.

This was the beginning of her clientele list.

Maeve

15 Years Old

You learn to wear your skin like a costume—too tight in the wrong places, gaping where the real you used to be. The smirk in the hallway is armour. The eye-roll at teachers, a deflection. You let boys touch you not because you want to but because if you control the ruin, it can’t control you.

They label you slut. Troublemaker. Lost cause. You lean into it, brazen, because the truth is a fist in your throat. No one knows the girl who whispers to Bear at 3 AM. No one sees how you flinch at the smell of mint or aftershave, how you count the seconds until the front door unlocks. That was their perspective.

No one ever knew the real me. I never let them. No one knew but my mother and the men she brought home. The mother who never spoke about her cruelty. Part of me began to hate my father for leaving me, but it didn’t stop me from crying into Bear, the last gift he gave me.

My silent witness.

At night, I press Bear’s matted fur to my nose and inhale the last trace of before, pretending he wasn’t as tainted as me—the scissors glint in the moonlight as they press into my skin. The vodka burns the back of my throat. And for a moment—just a moment—I feel nothing at all. Just for a moment, I forget the man who started it all.

Then morning comes.

Another day begins.

And life goes on.

???

The blue-eyed man came on shortly after my sixteenth birthday. My eyes snapped open when I heard the front door close. The cold voice that made my stomach churn. I gagged as I listened to my mother simper. Within a few moments, my door opened, and it was my mother. I remembered the pain of his cruel fingers around my neck and the blows to my abdomen when I fought back, but that was when I was a different person.

She stepped into my room, but my eyes remained in the doorway until he stood there. I didn’t need the light to know who he was or see the evil in his eyes. The black silhouette of his body was enough. He switched the light on, and I searched his eyes, but they were the same.

Cold. Dead. Cruel.

I was so focused on the man that I never saw my mother come at me with the needle.

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