The Complete Inferno Series, page 24
part #1 of Inferno Series
Chapter 17
We’re alone at the breakfast table the next morning. It’s just me and Dad, and no sign of Richter and Skylar. The mother inside of me is screaming at me to demand answers, but the girl inside of me that wants so desperately to please Daddy is warning me to keep my mouth shut. All good things to those who wait, she tells me, and I have to force myself to eat the pancakes that Dad made for us so I don’t turn this quiet time into an interrogation.
I shove another forkful into my mouth and steal a glance at Dad. He’s reading his morning newspaper, obviously aware that I’m watching him. It’s apparent by the smile that curls the edge of his lips.
“Something on your mind, Darby?” he asks, flipping his paper to the next page and smoothing it out. Dad doesn’t look up at me, instead he reaches for his coffee cup, takes a hearty sip, and goes back to reading.
“No, Daddy,” I say quietly as I place my fork down onto the plate.
“You shouldn’t be afraid to speak up when something is bothering you, kid,” he says conversationally. “Besides, how am I supposed to fix the problem if I don’t know what it is?”
I take a deep breath and chew on my lower lip. I want to know, more than anything, where my children are, but I also don’t want to upset him.
Is this how Jocelyn felt?
But just the thought of her is enough to make me feel a little brave.
“Where are the children?” I ask him softly.
“Where they belong,” he responds evenly. “Where I should have put them to fucking begin with. Those kids haven’t done you any good, Darby; and they sure as hell haven’t done a damn thing for me either.”
I swallow the lump in my throat as I begin to think of the layout of the property. The back of the house is wide and stretches far out into the trees. There’s nothing on the side of the house except for the oubliette and he knows that’s the first place I’ll look when given the opportunity.
He came back dirty and tired, I tell myself, remembering what he looked like when he reappeared last night. That’s not a sign of the well, it could be the woods, but I won’t be able to look back there without being gone for too long, and Dad will notice if I’m missing.
“You know, I heard a saying once. Something along the lines of our hearts being wild animals and our ribs their cages..”
I look up at him and raise an eyebrow. What he said sounds so out of left field, that I almost want to brush it off, but the one thing about Dad is that he never says things just to hear himself speak. There’s always a reason for anything that comes out of his mouth. Be it in anger or quiet moments, his words always carry some kind of meaning.
“What?” I ask in confusion.
“Oh my sweet baby girl,” he says, letting out a long sigh. He drops his arms on the table, crossing them at the wrist, and smiles at me. “You’ve always gave too much of a shit for your own good. I know why, too. It’s that motherly instinct to protect your children. Your mother had it, her mother showed signs of it, but ran the moment she got the chance. Didn’t matter much to me with that one though because she wasn’t my blood, so I knew she’d leave eventually. Taylee had it for a while too until that brain of hers snapped one day and sent her looking for someone to keep her desires fed up at night,” he continues scratching his chin thoughtfully. “I wonder if she’d finally be proud of me now.”
“She would,” I tell him quietly as I reach over and place a hand on his. “I think Taylee would be really happy to see the man you’ve become.”
He chuckles and runs a thumb over the top of my hand. “Thanks, baby girl. I think she would be too. She’d be plenty happy to see that I’m the man she always wanted me to be.”
Dad leans over and puckers his lips, waiting patiently for me to give him a kiss, and I do. Gentle and soft—exactly how he always wants them to be.
When we pull away from each other, he lets go of my hand and goes back to his newspaper.
“Anyway, I don’t think you should worry about those kids anymore. I sure as hell won’t,” he says callously.
“May I be excused, Daddy?” I ask solemnly.
“Yeah, just make sure you clean up the table. And I’d like a refill on my coffee when you’re done,” he replies absentmindedly as he becomes engrossed in a section of the black and white print.
It’s three in the afternoon.
The house has been cleaned from top to bottom. There are still no sign of the children and Dad makes sure that he’s always in the same room as me when I move from one to another.
He doesn’t say anything.
He just follows me from room to room and watches me like a hawk. It’s obvious that he’s trying to figure out if I’m okay with the kids suddenly missing, and if I have any intent on trying to find them. In my heart, I do, but I can’t let it show and do my best to keep a cheerful demeanor and pretend it’s the greatest thing now to be child free.
I know that Dad isn’t easily fooled, so I put on as best a facade as I can while I wrack my brain trying to figure out where they are. Richter and Skylar still have to be on the property somewhere, while Cleo … I let out a quiet sigh. I’ll never know where she’s gone to unless he tells me and there’s no way to force it out of him.
He’s not easily intimidated from what I’ve been able to gather in the years I’ve known him, although I haven’t tried yet. The crowbar was my best shot so far and that backfired faster than I thought it would.
This punishment is worse than anything he’s put me through. The nights in the oubliette, the lashings with his belt, the forcing himself on me when I would first try to fight him off.
He’s left me a mother with no children, and I can’t think of a time I’ve ever felt more empty or useless than now.
I can’t help but think that this is how Jocelyn felt before the end too.
Chapter 18
It’s a nice afternoon out and Daddy decided that he wanted to go for a walk. He asked me if I wanted to join him, and I jumped at the chance.
A good little girl always does what her daddy asks her to do and I’m still playing the part of the doting daughter.
The air is cool, but not cold. The skies are clear, but not completely blue. And my heart—it’s still as empty as it was when he left with Cleo and came back without her. My soul is as dark as the cloud that fell over it when he took my two remaining children and hid them from me.
But I still wear a smile on my face for their sake. I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again, but the memory of them is the only thing that keeps me from breaking down completely.
It’s also the hope that he might take pity on me. That he’ll show me some kind of mercy and at the very least tell me what he’s done with them.
Hope; the one thing that will end up destroying me in the end if I let it consume me, is the one thing that I so desperately cling to now.
Dad begins talking, pointing out the different kinds of trees we have on the property that I never paid much attention to. The same ones that I’d watch my kids play near, and my heart breaks just a little more.
He squeezes my hand when we cross treeline and tells me to stay close to him.
“I got a little surprise for you, Darbs,” he tells me with a lopsided grin on his ruggedly, handsome face. “A part of this family’s history that I’d like to show you.”
“Okay, Daddy,” I say softly.
We walk deeper into the woods until we reach a clearing. It’s circular and seems so oddly out of place for some reason. My ears perk up when I hear the rustling coming from the trees, but Dad tells me that it’s just the wind and pulls me into the center of the opening.
“This is where your Grandma died,” he begins with a smirk on his face. I try to take a step back out of a natural reaction but Dad tsk, tsks, and pulls me to his side. “Is that anyway to behave when I try to tell you a story, little girl?”
He’s becoming agitated and I know that this is another battle I’ll have to concede and listen to every horrific detail that I know is coming.
“No, Daddy. I’m sorry,” I say as I step closer to him, wrap an arm around his waist, and look up adoringly into his eyes.
What kind of hideous thing do you do here?
“As I was saying,” he continues with an eye roll, “Laura died here. Had the youngest boy show her what he was made of before he killed her too. I think that’s the one time I ever felt proud of that kid.”
I do my best not to shudder as I continue to listen with a faux eagerness that seems so real, that it makes me wonder if some sick part of me isn’t honestly enjoying this little regalement.
“Man, the way he fucked her, you’d think he’d been hiding secrets behind my back. The kid worked her over like a pro, but being my son, I know it was just a natural thing, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Oh yes, Daddy,” I reply a little too eagerly.
Reel it in, Darby. You’re starting to sound like you mean these terrible things you’re agreeing to.
“And over there,” he says pointing toward the side of the clearing, “is where he left her bones to rot. Well, he tried too, anyway. Your mother dragged them back all into the heap and I think some wild animals eventually got to them or some shit.”
“Was she sad?” I ask quietly.
“Who? Your mother?” he inquires, arching an eyebrow. I nod and he shrugs, “Fuck if I know. I didn’t exactly stop to ask her, Darby.”
I look away from him. I need to be able to blink away the tears—to hide the humanity that’s still left inside of me that I know he’ll look disapprovingly on.
“You okay?” he asks curiously.
I take a deep breath, force a smile onto my face, and look up at him, nodding. “Of course I am. I’m here with you, Daddy.”
The smile on his face is a genuine one. The look in his eyes softens from harsh to loving and I wonder if that may have been the wrong thing to say.
He turns me to face him completely and takes my face in his hands. “Do you love me, Darbs? I know I keep asking you, but I have to know for sure before we continue our little tour.”
“I do, Daddy. I love you most of all.”
He leans down and I close my eyes. His lips press gently against mine, then move up my forehead as he pulls me close and I inhale his scent deeply. For now, it’s just us, the sound of the birds chirping, and the heart beating in his chest keeping me company.
And while I know I shouldn’t feel as suddenly content as I do right now, I can’t help it.
I’m in the arms of a man that loves me, and that’s a rare thing to come across, isn’t it?
Chapter 19
We stood in the clearing for what seemed like forever. We held each other tightly, content in the company of monsters, until Dad sighed and told me that we still had one more special thing to talk about.
Dad finally let his arms fall away from around me and took my hand, leading the way out of the woods. I could almost swear that I heard the rustling again, but he dismissed it as the leaves in the tree catching some of the wind, and I believed him.
As we walk down the side of the house, I can see the oubliette coming into view and I hesitate in my next steps.
“What’s wrong, kid? Think I’m gonna put you down there again?” he asks with a click of his tongue against his teeth. “You haven’t done anything to go back down there, have you? You hiding something from me, Darby?”
“No,” I say softly while the thought of Mom’s letter burns a whole through my chest. If he ever finds that, he’ll become so terribly angry that I didn’t immediately turn it over for confiscation. But it’s not his to take or read—it was meant for me, and it’s mine now. God knows how many years it spent down in that fucking hole waiting for me and had I not had the same instinct that Mom had to save my child, I never would have found it.
Thanks, Mom, I think in silent gratitude.
“Then you have nothing to worry about. Come on,” he says, giving my hand a gentle, but firm tug.
I nod and let him lead me to hell on Earth and try my best not to cry.
“Well, you already know how Jocelyn went, but did you know that I would bring you to visit her? She was my favorite girl for a long time, you know. That was until I tasted your sweet cherry for the first time. I got hooked on you after that. I know it sounds really shitty to say, but after you started loving me the way a daughter should love her father, I kind of forgot about her. I only ever really thought about her on the nights you were on your period and refusing to fuck, or when the kids got too close to the well. Other than that, I can’t say she’s ever crossed my mind,” he finishes with a shrug as we finally reach the oubliette.
I wait patiently as he leans down and begins to lift the wooden grate off when I do something incredibly brave. Something I never would have thought possible until I read Mom’s letter.
I shove him as hard as I can and because he’s taken off guard, he stumbles and falls. But not into the fucking oubliette like I intended him to. Thinking fast, I drop down on him using the weight of my body, which although not much, it’s sufficient enough to pin him in place for the moment. I have to move fast because when he gets angry, he’ll be able to overpower me easily.
I reach for the ladder and tie one of the rungs around his throat, then pull him up to his knees.
Dad is dazed, confused, and looks like he’ll kill me the moment he gets a chance, once the direness of his situation finally settles in. I use all the strength I can muster to lift half of his body over the oubliette and dig a knee into his gut, holding him in place.
“Where are my children?” I scream at him.
A sinister smile takes over his face as his eyes darken. He turns his head as much as he can and spits onto the grass before turning his eyes back to mine.
“I swear to God, I’ll throw you over the side and let you strangle to death, you piece of shit! Where are they?” I shout at him in a blind rage.
Dad tilts his head to the side and offers nothing. No words of anger, nothing that would give me hope in ever being with my kids again and I pull the rope tighter around his neck. His face is turning red as he coughs violently, but he maintains his steely silence and doesn’t break eye contact.
That’s the reason he’s able to knock me off guard. That’s the reason he’s able to get back to his feet, grab a fistful of my hair, and force me to my knees.
Daddy has always been much smarter than the rest of us, and because we’re from his body, he knows how to easily outsmart us.
I never saw his hands moving so slowly around me. I didn’t see the look of rage in his eyes turn cantankerous until it was too late. I didn’t pick up on a lot of the signals that he would get the upper hand, because I was too blinded by my own rage. Something he never taught me to control because it would always be an advantage over me.
Once Dad removes the rope from around his neck and tosses it to the ground, he picks me up to my feet by my hair. It hurts so much, but nothing compares to the pain of not knowing where your children are.
“The stupid one?” he breathes heavily, pulling me closer to his face, “I left that little shit with children’s services. Told them a family member dropped her off on my doorstep and that I wasn’t equipped to handle someone like her. She’s probably five families into the fucking system by now.”
Tears sting my eyes and when they roll down my face, he laughs as he continues, “And the other two? They’re still here. You’re just too stupid to fucking find them, Darby. But don’t you worry. I’ll take care of them like I did with you—like I did with your mother, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself, just like that stupid bitch that shot you out her worthless cunt.”
I raise a hand to try and strike him, but he easily swats it away and chuckles.
“You don’t know what love is, little girl. I tried so fucking hard with you and this is how you repay me? By stomping all over my fucking heart after I give it to you? You’re just like your worthless fucking mother. It only makes sense that you die like her too.”
“Dad—”
With a grunt, he shoves me violently down into the oubliette. I know that I’ve broke my leg on the way down. My head hurts from slamming into the wall when I landed. The world is impossibly bright in the darkness—stars exploding behind my tightly closed eyes. The air has been knocked out of my lungs, and while I know there’s no coming back from this, I have the slimmest of hopes that he’ll throw the ladder down. That maybe this was a mistake on his part.
I shift on the dirty ground, grimacing as tears sting my eyes from the pain my body is experiencing all at once.
How I didn’t manage to die or break something else is nothing short of a miracle, but I know if I don’t get help soon, my leg will become infected and I’ll die a painful death.
"Useless fucking kids,” he mutters as he closes the wooden gate on the oubliette, and sliding the lock into place.
“Daddy! I’m sorry!” I scream up in terror.
But if he heard me, he doesn’t acknowledge it. I’ve betrayed his love and that’s the worse offense in his eyes.
“Daddy! Please,” I whimper as I slap the side of the well.
He won’t come back for me.
He’s much too stubborn to care now.
Especially since I’ve become nothing more than one of his useless fucking kids.
I’m sorry.
Epilogue
Ten Years Later
“Stop crying,” I tell her as I push deeper into her wet, warm core. “This is how things are now. It’s how Dad would have wanted it, remember?”
Skylar turns her face away from me as fresh tears spill down her face. I don’t think she’s crying because it feels bad, but because it feels good and we both know that it shouldn’t.
Dad died a few years after Mom. Old age finally caught up to him, and the man that I thought would live forever, was suddenly no more.
