Page 18 of Nasty
I couldn’t react. I couldn’t try to run. There was no option for me, other than to do as Sixsmith had bade me. He would be here, after all, back in the house, effectively holding Amy hostage until I got back,and Sam gave me a shining report.
I lifted my chin, shoving down the bile that was trying to rise in the back of my throat. I could do this. I had to do this. It was only a couple of hours. It was only my body. I’d learned the hard way already that a person could cause you pain and physically hurt you, but so long as you stayed strong inside, they could never break you. This encounter with Sam would be just like that. He would use my body and take whatever he wanted from it, but I would retreat into my mind, strengthening the walls there that protected me. I would get through it, and one day…one fucking day, I would repay Sixsmith for all that he had put me through.
No matter how long I had to wait, it would be worth it.
Steeling myself, I turned and opened the bathroom door, just as Sixsmith yelled out my name. “Sera! Get the fuck down here. Your ride’s waiting out front!”
Ice filled my veins. I took one step down the stairs, and then there was Amy, tiptoe-running toward me down the hallway. She was still in her pajamas, and her hair was a mess. The shadows under her eyes were soft purple—the color of a bruise just as it starts to develop.
“Sera.” She hurled herself at me, throwing her arms around my waist. “Are you okay?” she whispered. “What is he making you do?” She was old enough to know what a grown man could want from a young girl in order to settle a debt. I tucked her hair back behind her ear, squeezing her arm lightly. The smile I gave her cost me dearly, but it looked genuine enough.
“Don’t fret, Aim. Sam and I are going to watch a movie, then afterwards he’s going to take me for a milkshake at Remmy’s. Should be fun.”
She looked doubtful as she frowned up at me. “Tell him you don’t want to go.Or tell Sixsmith you want me to go, too.”
Sixsmith would probably delight in selling both of his daughters off. Twice the money? Even more than double the money probably, since Amy was not only still so young, but also so unbelievably innocent and sweet. I shook my head firmly, chucking her under the chin.
“It’s okay, I promise. It’ll be nice to get out of the house for the afternoon. Just keep out of Sixsmith’s way. Stay in your room. Don’t make a lot of noise or anything, and when I come back we can hang out, okay?”
“What movie are you going to see?” she asked, pouting.
“I’m not sure yet. I don’t know what’s playing.”
“Will you bring me back a milkshake?”
God. I was going to throw up. I managed to nod, drawing in a deep breath. “Yeah, of course I will.”
“You promise?”
“Promise. What flavor do you want?”
She grinned at me. “Chocolate, stupid.”
“All right, stupid. Chocolate it is. Now I gotta go.”
******
The SUV was black and sleek, unlike any other vehicle you might see driving around the streets of Montmorenci. Inside the back seat, the air was blasting, freezing cold. It was ninety degrees out, so I hadn’t brought a jacket, and I had to wrap my arms around myself to stop from shivering. The man sitting opposite me in the black suit held out an open bag of peanut M & Ms, offering me some of the candy.
I shook my head. “No thank you, Mr. Halloran.”
Sam Halloran used to be a body builder back in the eighties. He had framed photographs of himself all over the bar he owned on the other side of town—pictures of him half-naked, wearing a thong, lubed up with fake tan and baby oil, in a multitude of poses that showed off his bulging muscles. I’d seen the photos myself, when Sixsmith had taken me with him to the bar when I was younger, back before Sixsmith had borrowed money from Sam and my father still felt comfortable drinking in his bar. Sam no longer looked like the man in those photos. He was only in his late forties, but he’d quit working out many years ago, and all of that muscle he’d been carrying around with him had since turned to fat.
His hair was still shockingly dark and thick, though there were touches of salt and pepper at his temples. His blue eyes were small and beady in his heavily jowled face, and his lips were thin—two mean looking slashes across the great expanse of his face. His eyebrows seemed to have fallen out for some reason, and all he had left were two small, round patches of black hair, no bigger than dimes, right above each of his eyes. He looked like a hard man. An unhappy man. The kind of man that enjoyed the suffering of others.
“You look just like your mother, y’know,” he said, observing me coolly. “Beautiful woman. I asked her out before Sixsmith, but she turned me down. I could never figure out why she chose that drunken piece of shit over me.”
I kept quiet, my hands gathered in my lap, my back pressed as far into my seat as possible. His leg kept touching mine, but there was no room to move away. He snorted, stuffing his hand into the bag of M & Ms. “I could have been your father. Kind of ironic that I’m here with you now, don’t you think? I got the younger, prettier, sexier version of your mother in the end.”
“I wish you had been my father,” I murmured under my breath.
“I’m sorry?” There was a sharp edge to Sam’s voice.
“I wish you had been my father,” I repeated. “If you had been my father, I probably wouldn’t find myself in this position. Unless you’re the kind of man to touch his own children, of course.” God, I was playing with fire. I was alone with this man. Alone, and completely at his mercy. I had no idea where Sam was taking me, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that once we arrived there, I would be on my own. There would be no one there to protect me or intervene if things got out of hand. Sam could slit my throat if he wanted to. There were any number of fucked up, depraved things Sam could do to me, and I wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. So baiting and offending him? Sassing him, and being sarcastic? That wasn’t a good idea. I knew it, and yet I couldn’t stop myself. He was scum. A vile monster loosely dressed in a once powerful man’s skin, and he had traded non-consensual sex with a minor in payment for money owed. Sam laughed, his cheeks shaking.
“You got spirit. I like that, Seraphim. Your mother was a bit of a hell raiser, too. Got her into all kinds of trouble when she was a teenager.”
This piece of information surprised me; the woman I remembered from my childhood hadn’t been fiery at all. She’d been calm and quiet, her voice the most soothing sound I could have possibly imagined at the time. Her touch had always been gentle, soft and kind. I didn’t like that this miserable old fucker had known my mother since she was a teenager. I’d only known her for eleven years before she’d passed away, whereas Sam had known her for closer to twenty-five. That didn’t seem fair at all.
