Page 57 of Grave Kisses
Something is attached tothe rope around my wrists before I hear footsteps go back up the stairs. Everything is dark, and I don’t know where I am. I don’t move at first, but eventually, I move myself down to sit in a corner. It feels like a concrete wall and floor, so maybe a basement. That would make sense.
I hear something that’s like a scuffing sound against the dirty concrete floor, and I snap my head in that direction. I still have the hood over my head, but the tie is behind my neck so I can’t get it off. “Who’s there?” I squeak out. Wow, Kendra. Can you sound any more pathetic?
A scream rips out of me when someone grabs my wrists and pulls me away from the wall. The hands move to my neck and start working on the hood tied around my throat. When I feelit loosen enough, I yank it off. A sound that is equivalent to something like a wounded animal comes out of me when I throw myself away from Archer. My ankles are tied so I can’t maneuver well, which ends up just making me look like a worm.
“Stop. Kendra. Stop. I’m trying to help,” Archer says, grabbing the rope binding me and pulling me toward him. Sobs shake out of me as he unties the rope. When my legs are free, I scramble back to my corner and pull my knees to my chest so I can bury my face in my arms and cry.
“Kendra,” Archer says softly. I hear him get closer and I whimper as my entire body starts to tremble. “I won’t touch you but I need you to look at me. Okay? Just look up at me.”
I force myself to look up and I see that he is chained to the same hook in the floor that I am. The concrete room has a small bathroom area and a simple cot. It’s dimly lit and there is a ground level window on the other side that sunlight is coming through. “I don’t understand,” I sniff.
“You know you have a twin?” he asks.
“What the fuck do you want from me?” I snap.
“Look… I am shit person. I will admit that. What I did to you… Dad had every right to cut me off…” he starts to say.
“What do you want?!” I yell.
“To help you,” he says with a heavy sigh. “There is so much you don’t know… I don’t want to blow up your life again.”
“Just fucking say it,” I snap.
“That detective. Jeff Collier. He is the one who brought you here. Your twin, Tina, helped him,” he says.
“That… doesn’t surprise me,” I say quietly. “And?”
“And I’ve been here since… Fuck, I don’t even know. There was an apartment fire. I was with Tina but she convinced me to drive with her. We got pulled over and it was Jeff. He said I was being arrested for the fire but then I woke up here. I don’t even know what happened. I’ve tried to remember… I don’t know if I want to,” he explains.
“You didn’t set the fire? There were propane tanks in my apartment, Archer,” I say. “Why should I believe you?”
“When he gets back, you’ll see,” Archer says with a sad smile. “I don’t want to dump everything on you but you should know.”
“Just tell me and I’ll decide if I believe you,” I sigh.
“Okay… Jeff is Dad’s little brother. He was raping Kimberly and is the one who gave me all the drugs and shit I took back then. I was so goddamn high when he killed her… He didn’t mean to. He had fucked with her like this so many times before. This time he started cutting her while he raped her, but she wouldn’t stop bleeding. I tried to tell him that she had that bleedingdisorder, but I just… couldn’t. I couldn’t speak. It hardly felt real. Dad loved Jeff so much. He trusted him with us… I’ve always thought he killed Mom too… I never told Dad because I didn’t want him to feel guilty. He already felt like he failed me and her, but I didn’t want him to think that trusting his brother got his daughter killed. I took it all on and disappeared when he told me to because it felt safer.”
“Why did you do all that to me?” I ask quietly.
“Because I’m a fucking idiot,” he sighs. “Dad was so goddamn convinced that I killed Kimberly. I knew the truth, but I was afraid of telling him. I was afraid that Jeff would kill Dad or me. I figured that if I was such a fucking monster, then I might as well do something to make me a monster… I did all that… I shouldn’t have. Obviously. I don’t know how I got so addicted to drugs, but I was. I stayed high, and it kept away the nightmares of my sister’s screams. He had me sitting in that shed where she was tied up. He left for a while, and that’s when she told me that this had been going on for a long time, but she was too scared to tell Dad. She made me promise that I wouldn’t say anything because I would die too, and then Dad would be without all of us… Look, I don’t wanna give you some fucking sob story. I did horrible things to you, and there is absolutely no way I can make up for that. I own it, and I don’t want forgiveness. I am so fucking sorry for hurting you, but it doesn’t matter now. The only thing that matters now is getting you the fuck out of here. You don’t deserve any of this, and the only reason you are a target is because you had the property where he hid the bodies, and he is trying to pin all of the other murders on me. If I have all of the blame, he continues to get away with it.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I admit. “He thought you did all of the other murders too.”
“Yeah,” he says, dropping his head to look at his hands. His knuckles are scabbed in some spots but bloody and raw in others. Like he’s been repeatedly hitting something. He looks broken and tired. I never thought I’d have empathy for my rapist, but… Jesus. If what he is saying is true…
“I’m pregnant,” I say after a long silence. Archer snaps his head up and looks at me. “I’m with Marcus and Bellamy. I don’t know who the father is, but I’m pregnant with twins.”
“That’s amazing, Kendra. Really,” he says. “I can’t promise he won’t hurt you, but I’ll do my best to take on as much as I can. He’s… demented.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I know what you sound like when getting raped, and I’d rather take all of that on than to ever hear you sound so broken again,” Archer says bluntly.
“He rapes you?” I ask.
“Uh. Yeah,” he says nervously. “He’s fucking sick about it too. He… you’ll see.”
“I’m worried about my babies… I’m only ten weeks, but… he knows I’m pregnant. What if he… I don’t want to lose these babies,” I say as I start crying again.
