Page 55 of Hurt to Love
“You don’t remember us, do you?” Scarface shook his head in mock disgust and tutted.
“Well, it has been fifteen years, give or take. I guess we’ve changed a bit since then,” the younger one said, not taking his eyes off me for a second.
Fifteen years? I wracked my brain, trying to think what’d happened fifteen years ago. I was just a child back then. Damn, I couldn’t even remember where we’d lived. We moved around so much in those days. Was this something to do with my brother, Michael? Had something happened at his school that I didn’t know about?
“You had an older brother, Matthew or Mitchell? I can’t remember his name.” The younger brother narrowed his evil eyes at me. “It doesn’t matter though, he was pointless. It was all about you back then, Paige. Little Paige, all pretty with her plaited hair and bows. Was your mum in on it too? Was that why she dressed you up to be so damn cute? To pop you out on that street corner looking all fresh-faced and friendly.”
I didn’t know where they were going with all this. Yes, my mum always did my hair nice, and yes, I did play out a lot wherever we lived. What the fuck did that have to do with anything that’d happened to me in the last year?
“The penny still hasn’t dropped, has it?” Scarface grimaced.
I didn’t move or shake my head. They knew I was clueless, but I wasn’t going to make this easy for them.
“We watched you every day from our end of the street.”
My blood ran cold at his words.
“We watched you playing with your dolls in the front yard, and having your little tea parties. You lived in a world all of your own back then.” Scarface’s expression softened slightly, and then he glanced up at me, and the hardness returned in an instant. “We wanted to find out more about you. Your brother too, but he rarely came out. No, you were the perfect little carrot to dangle in our faces, weren’t you? You just reeled us right in.”
I couldn’t help but blurt out. “I’ve no idea what you’re on about. What have I ever done to you? I’ve done nothing.”
“Oh, you’ve done plenty,little girl. You pulled us in and fucking ruined our lives.” Scarface leant forward and rested his arms on his knees. “Because of you, we lost everything.”
“I don’t know what I’ve done.” I sobbed, not caring for anything other than the gaping hole of pain where my heart used to be.
“Then let me enlighten you,little pumpkin.”
That icy chill flowing in waves through my body turned to frozen pain, when I heard them use the nickname my dad had given me when I was younger.
“We might go by our names, Isaac and Enzo now, but back then, you knew us as Zac and Lenny.”
I frowned, digging deep into my brain to locate those names. They sounded familiar. Lorenzo…Lenny? I seemed to remember playing with two brothers with names like that, but those sweet boys could never have been these two murderers sat in front of me.
“Once you’d reeled us in, we kept coming back. First we started out playing in the street with you. Then we joined you in your front yard. Getting any flashbacks yet,pumpkin?”
I shook my head in disagreement. This was all too surreal. I couldn’t focus.
“Then one day, you invited us into your house for dinner. You said your mum had to work, but your dad was home, and you were having a barbecue. We’d never had a barbecue before. The only burgers we ate came from a crappy fast food joint in town. You also said your dad had a PlayStation and an X-box in the basement, and that he’d said it was okay for us to play on them anytime we wanted. We didn’t care about computer games though. We just wanted to be with you. You had this hold over us, you see. You were like a siren to all the kids in the area.” Scarface stroked his jaw then frowned. “Didn’t you ever wonder why you moved around so much? Why you had to run away so often?”
“We never ran away. We moved for my dad’s work.” I didn’t need to justify myself to anyone, but I answered all the same.
“Is that what he told you?” The younger brother huffed. “And you all believed him?”
“Why? What’s going on?”
Scarface sat back into the couch and scrubbed over his face on a sigh. “We went home that day to get cleaned up. We’d never been so excited to go to someone’s house for dinner. When we knocked on your door later, you answered wearing the prettiest daisy patterned summer dress with yellow ribbons in your hair. You took us outside into your backyard, where your dad was grilling burgers and hot dogs, and we stuffed our faces before heading downstairs to play Mario. Ringing any bells yet?” He gritted his teeth in fury then continued.
“We heard the doorbell go, but didn’t think anything of it. Then your dad came down the stairs with a…friendof his, and said your uncle, whatever his name was, had come to see you. You raced up the stairs and left us behind… and I guess that’s where the story ends for you, doesn’t it? Only it never ended for us. That was just the beginning.”
My throat was as dry as sandpaper. I didn’t want to hear what came next, but I knew they were about to tear my childhood apart in the next few seconds.
“Your dad locked the basement door so you couldn’t get in. I think you might’ve tried a few times, but you probably thought we’d just left without saying goodbye. We hadn’t. It was fucking hours that your dad and his pedo friend kept us locked in there. They raped us, Paige. Your dad was a dirty fucking paedophile who used you as bait for every kid in the area, luring them into his house and then robbing them of their innocence. You mean to tell us you had no fucking clue? Are you really that stupid?”
I sobbed into my hands, feeling vile and disgusted with myself and my father. Was it really true? And if so, why hadn’t I seen anything? Had he done this to all of my friends? Was that why we had to keep moving, because he was on the run from the police? Did my mum know? I almost choked on my next thought… had he done the same to my brother?
My ears rang and my body convulsed in shock. These men took me because they blamed me for their childhood abuse? They blamed me, for what? Not helping them?
“I didn’t know,” I cried out on a pained sob. “What could I have done? I didn’t know.”
