Page 130 of Savage

Much later, when the crying has stopped, and she’s had several hours of fitful sleep, I drift into my own state of restless slumber, but I’m woken by scratching, and the frustrated gasps from Ivy attempting to loosen the knots on her leg rope. No sound comes from the TV upstairs, there’s no creak of floorboards above us, just silence.

“That’s it, baby. Just keep going,” I say.

“It’s not budging,” she huffs and exhales her exasperation loudly.

“You’re doin’ just fine, Warrior Princess.”

“You know I used to have days down here. Some days I didn’t want to escape because I wasn’t sure what was waiting for me on the outside, and others I just didn’t have the strength. I had nothing to fight for.” She looks at me and frowns. “I still don’t.”

“You got me. I know I’m no fuckin’ prize. I’m a bastard, and I push you to do things you don’t want to, and I’m a cunt when I’m hungry, but you have me,” I say, and I wish more than anything that I could have held her as I said those words, as if it somehow would have given them more weight. “You’ve always had me … for what it’s worth.”

“It’s worth,” she says solemnly and goes back to working on the rope.

I wish it were true, but the fact is I promised to keep her safe, and I failed. I fucked up, and the two of us—well, we’ll pay for it for the rest of our lives.

Sometime later, after picking at it for hours with bleeding fingers and lifted nails and blisters that are red raw, Ivy finally frees her leg from its tether, and looks at me with wide-eyed wonderment, though I can clearly see her fatigue.

“I did it,” she whispers, and I can’t help but grin, because even weakened and exhausted as she is, her eyes are lit with fire. With hope.

“Get over here,” I whisper back, and she scrambles off the bed and gingerly walks over to me. She carefully climbs into my lap, and I’ve never regretted the loss of the use of my hands so much because I can’t hold her right now the way I want to. I pepper her face and hair with kisses, and she takes mine in her hands, careful to avoid my black eye, and the laceration at the corner of my mouth.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so, so sorry,” I whisper into her hair. A lump forms in my throat and tears spill out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks. I haven’t cried since I was a boy, but now that the floodgates have opened, I can’t seem to stop them. I don’t much care either. “I couldn’t do anything. I tried, I nearly took the skin off my fuckin’ hand, but I couldn’t protect you.”

“Shh. It’s okay. Shh.” She kisses my forehead, my cheeks, tastes my tears, and then she glances at my hand, and the revulsion and pity on her face almost flattens me. “Oh God, Tank. It looks bad.”

“Yeah, it’s about to get worse,” I say, taking a deep breath. “I hope you haven’t got a weak stomach, darlin’, ’cause I’m gonna need your help.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

IVY

Inever told another living soul about my mother’s murder. I was too afraid. I was afraid he’d find out, and that he’d kill me too. Some days, I fantasised about it. When I’d spent my childhood locked down in this basement, I’d dreamed of breaking out and telling someone all the horrible things my father had done to me, to my mother, and to the boy across the street. But I never told, because I never had an opportunity to, and when I did finally escape, I was free—if only in the physical sense of the word. I’d never be mentally free. He’d made sure of that.

He made sure that I’d never think of another man again when they fucked me. Even with a clubhouse full of men. Even when it’d just been Tank and me alone in his room, I’d never seen the man in front of me. I’d seen my father, and the years of repression and the pain that he’d taught me to crave. I was sick, and I’d loved every second of it because it was all I’d ever known. It was what I was bred to know, it was what I’d become accustomed to, and it was safe.

Pain, hurt, anger. They were safe.

Now though? Now pain is my enemy. It’s a bright slash against the night sky. A burn, rendering my flesh useless. It’s fear like I’ve never known, because for the first time ever I have something, someone to fight for. I never cared whether I lived or died. I craved death. I longed for it, but now that is the last thing I want. Now I want to fight, I have a reason to fight, and I’ll be damned if I let him take that reason from me.

I hope you haven’t got a weak stomach, darlin’, ’cause I’m gonna need your help, he’d said. But I couldn’t do what he was asking.

“There’s another way,” I say, shaking my head. “There has to be.”

“There isn’t time.”

“Oh God. I can’t.”

“Listen to me—I need you to do this,” he says, with a clear, level voice. “You do this, and you do it now, and you don’t fuckin’ stop until I tell you to and my hand is slapping outta those cuffs, you got me?”

“It’ll hurt you,” I say. I can’t even look at it, much less inflict more pain on him by trying to slide the cuff over his mangled fist.

“Stayin’ down here is gonna hurt me and you a lot more.”

“The sound will bring him running.”

“You give me somethin’ to bite down on then,” he whispers, and I still shake my head. I can’t make my legs move to stand, my arms to take hold of his hand. I can’t do this. I can’t hurt him.

“Ivy,” Tank says in a warning tone. “You do this now. I know you been wantin’ to pay me back for all those times I said no to givin’ you drugs.”

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