Invictus, page 5
I never did quite understand all of his intellectual bullshit but I never do tire of hearing it. I had to build up a tolerance for it, much like he had to build up one for my freak-outs.
It’s a give and take, our relationship, but we never take more than we can afford to give—emotionally, anyway, because monetarily, neither of us give two shits on what we spend.
“Am I interrupting?” I ask him in a meaningful tone.
“No,” he replies, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Come in.”
Auggie turns on his heel and starts back up the stairs. Atasha’s close behind him and I can’t help but take in how beautiful she is.
I wonder if he’d be pissed if I had a go at her, I think as I watch her hips sway from side to side and appreciate as her thick, bitable ass teases me all the way back upstairs.
“What brings you home?” he asks, as soon as we step into his kitchen. He pulls out a chair at the table and motions for me to take the other one, while Atasha lingers in the doorway.
“I missed you,” I reply simply.
I’m not lying; I do miss my brother and he knows I only ever show up when I need him to help me with his psychobabble bullshit. Auggie would have made one hell of a psychiatrist, but something isn’t exactly right in his head either—he just knows how to control it better than I do.
He crosses his arms loosely over his chest, his eyes shifting to the brunette. “Can you give us a minute?”
I glance over my shoulder at the third party in a two-party conversation and she lingers for just a moment longer before nodding in agreement and disappearing into his bedroom.
“Nice catch,” I say with a sly smile, leaning back in my chair.
“She’s not mine.”
A wave of confusion washes over me as I look at August. “I thought you didn’t pay for sex.”
He lets out an amused laugh and gets to his feet and walks over to the refrigerator, retrieving two amber glass beer bottles. He hands me one and I screw the top off of the container and take a healthy swig.
“She’s not a hooker—are you, Tash?” he raises his voice slightly.
I glance over my shoulder again and see a flash of raven hair vanish into the room before the door closes.
“Chicks,” I scoff, setting the bottle down. “So fucking nosy, you know?”
“Always,” Auggie replies, finally screwing the top from his beer and taking a sip. “What’s really going on, little brother?”
“Nothing. I told you already; I missed—” I start.
“Trent…” Auggie pulls his glasses off and tosses them onto the table.
“Alright, fine. I need a place to stay and I was hoping you’d let me crash,” I relent angrily.
I hate when he calls me anything other than Robbie—it means I’ve probably pissed him off. I hate being on his bad side. I can feel his eyes on me for a moment before he pushes his chair back again, making a loud scraping noise with it, and leaves the room. I scoff and shake my head, take one more swig of my beer, and get to my feet. I guess he’s not going to be the hero this time but that’s okay. He’s been there for me more than enough and sometimes we have to save ourselves no matter how dark shit seems to get.
Sometimes the only hero we have is ourselves—but I’m not cut out to be a hero so I guess I’ll just wander around and hope that this shit in my head stops on its own and soon before I leave too many bodies in my wake.
As soon as I reach the door to the stairs and pull it open, I feel Auggie’s hand strongly grip my arm. I look down at his fingers for a moment before I look up into his eyes and feel a small smile start to crease my lips.
“The guest rooms have been closed off for months. The couch is all I can offer for tonight, but it’s better than the floor,” he says, holding out a blanket with two pillows adorning it in his other hand. “Tomorrow, I’ll figure out where I can put you for a while.”
I take the gifts from him—because that’s what they are to me, gifts—and nod.
“Thanks, man.”
“You’re welcome, but I expect answers first thing in the morning. Now get some sleep while I decide how to take care of her,” he says, jerking his head back toward the bedroom.
I wake with a fire raging between my legs. Stumbling in the dark, I make it to the bathroom by memory, and I flip on the light.
I’m not surprised to see the cold pack I keep between my legs is caked with dried blood. The spotting is actually an improvement. He won’t give me a hand mirror no matter how much I beg, so I straddle the toilet and sink, angling the one on the medicine cabinet to get a look between my legs.
I no longer cry when I see what’s left of my lady bits. It’s not worth the energy. I observe the healing progress scientifically, wishing I’d paid more attention in anatomy class so I knew what all he hacked off. But I’d been too busy flirting with Will Cavanaugh, hoping to get a ride on his Harley to even open my textbook. Story of my life.
I had potential once. That’s what my mother used to tell me. “You’ve got so much potential, Mary Jane. You could really be somebody and get the hell out of this god forsaken town!”
Whatever potential she saw in me evaporated the second she found the birth control pills and two joints in my jewelry box. I was sent to Christian camp and deemed the problem child. No matter what I did from that moment on, it was tarnished by my new title.
Word spreads as quickly as they thought my legs did. Once you’re the bad girl, everything is scrutinized through tinted glasses. If you ask a boy to borrow a pencil, you’re fucking him in the back seat of his parents’ Aztec. If you stay after school to ask the teacher for extra help on algebra, you’re bargaining for better grades with a blowjob. It isn’t long before you decide just to go with it. If you’re gonna be accused of whoring, why not get off along the way?
It was this faulty logic that made my best friend Jenny and I take her father’s van and my mother’s money card and drive eight and a half hours away for a Fallout Boy concert. We were sweet sixteen, hot, and invincible. It was summer and we wanted to come back to school with stories. We figured we’d take the grounding when we got back, but it would be worth it to get a glimpse at the inside of that tour bus and a taste of a rock star.
We never made it onto the tour bus. We never even made it to Portland. We got a flat tire just outside of Baker City, Idaho, and while the snaggle-toothed mechanic changed it out, we hurried next door for cigarettes and milkshakes. Mom’s money card was declined (luckily we’d already paid for the tow and the tire), and we coughed up the cash to pay for our food.
Jenny wanted to turn back. She said she didn’t have enough money for a scalped ticket and gas to get home if we went all the way to Portland. We were arguing about it when a group of guys at the next table struck up a conversation.
“You’re going to Fallout Boy? So are we! You can ride with us!” His lopsided grin was my kryptonite, and I flashed him a flirty smile.
Even though they had an extra ticket for her, Jenny still wanted to turn back. She cornered me in the bathroom, begging me to listen to reason.
“I’m going,” I told her, reapplying red lipstick. “If I’m gonna pay for this stunt, you can bet your ass I’m gonna play first.”
“I have a really bad feeling about this.” Her brown eyes pleaded. I still see those doe eyes some mornings, just before I wake up with someone on top of me.
“You worry too much,” I told her.
I waved goodbye, taking the flask one of the guys handed to me. I drank deep, the liquor burning all the way down to my belly. I was psyched, one hundred percent committed to my rebellion. I wasn’t so psyched when I woke up a few hours later, bound face-down on a hotel bed.
I wouldn’t have gone home afterward…even if they had given me a choice. I knew my mother would tell me I’d asked for it.
Maybe I had.
When I think about that first night, I wonder if the little things might have made a difference. If I’d have been driving instead of Jenny when we came across that muffler lying in the road. If we’d gone to Boise to see The Black Eyed Peas instead.
I concluded that the butterfly effect started way before the gang rape. Maybe if I’d listened to my mother about the miniskirts in junior high. Maybe if I hadn’t let Bobby Jones go all the way the summer before freshman year. If I hadn’t let him do anal a month later. Maybe if he hadn’t told the entire school about it when he ditched me two weeks after for Courtney Smalls.
Maybe if Dad hadn’t had a midlife crisis and ditched us for his trashy secretary. Maybe if my older sister hadn’t been such a prude and I’d been able to confide in her. Maybe if Mom hadn’t used Dad leaving as an excuse to hide behind Jesus. Maybe if my last name wasn’t Siemen, for fuck’s sake. Talk about being born with a target square in the center of your back.
The deck really had been stacked against me. I was destined for a life of blow jobs and black eyes. From the moment I entered this world, it was my place to ride bitch.
The guys and I never made it to Fallout Boy, but they’d never intended to go. They took me with them to Seattle and traded me to a drug dealer for three hundred dollars’ worth of prescription drugs. Not until I proved I was worth it, though. He demanded I deep throat him right there, in front of an entire house full of people.
“You’d better make him happy, bitch,” Mr. Lopsided Grin said, flicking his cigarette in my general direction. As I went into the bathroom to rinse my mouth, he demanded a verdict from the dealer.
My new owner shrugged, zipping up his pants and tossing him the bag of oxy. “She has potential.”
Potential.
Mom would be so proud.
That was a decade ago, and I’d earned him a hundred times his money back turning tricks and tipping his mules a little ass. I was even his lady for a while, back when I was still firm and still had great skin. But while time and hard living makes a guy look “seasoned,” it takes a toll on the ladies. It won’t be long before I’m unfit for the corner, and I have no exit strategy.
Maybe it was a blessing this psycho picked me up that night. Maybe he’d put an end to this joke of an existence once and for all.
I hear the clang of a distant door, and footsteps.
He’s coming.
I involuntarily start to shake, and it’s not because it’s so fucking cold down here. It seems I’m not so ready to end things after all.
I hurry back to the bed and burrow under the covers like a child hiding from the boogeyman. Maybe he’s just bringing me breakfast.
Or maybe you’re finally healed enough for him to test the goods.
The locks on the door begin to flip, and I tense.
“Magda…” He sounds so pleasant, like a loving husband, or maybe Mr. Rogers with a machete. “Wakey, wakey…”
The smell of bacon and eggs makes my mouth water, and my traitorous stomach growls. I’m starving, and the stupid girl inside me who makes all the great life choices is happy to see him. The dumb blonde who cares more about instant gratification than paying attention to that little voice inside her head.
The one that tells her when to just keep walking.
The one that tells her to run.
I roll over and he’s there, hovering over me, all tall and broad-shouldered.
“Are you hungry?”
I nod.
“Good. Protein helps you heal.”
I sit up and reach for the plate on the bedside table. I notice he has plastic silverware on my tray again.
He’s a smart fucker, this one.
“Ah ah ah,” he scolds me. “I need to take a peek first.”
My shoulders slump, but I fall onto my back. It’s a position I’m used to, and bargaining from this vantage point isn’t new to me.
My captor pulls away the pad I wear in my underwear, moving between my legs for a closer look.
“No infection; healing nicely.” He sounds like one of the doctors on General Hospital. “Are you using the ice packs like I asked?”
Asked? That’s a fucking joke and a half. My split lip is a testament to how this creepy son of a bitch punctuates his requests.
I nod again and remain silent. He’s not this pleasant when I dare to open my mouth.
“Excellent,” he says, his reptilian eyes watching me like some robot programmed to sound like a person, but without any firsthand experience. “In a few more days, you should be ready. I planned on you being my trial run, Magda, but I’ve changed my mind about working on Tash. I like that she likes it, so you’ll just have to be the starring attraction. No sense in letting my hard work and your sacrifice go to waste.”
He turns his back on me without any concern. He knows I won’t jump him again. My broken nose is healing, but the memory is fresh enough.
As he locks the only way to freedom behind him, I turn to gobble down the food.
“I’ll need my strength, alright,” I murmur, barely recognizing my own harsh voice.
Because I know what happens when I’m ready.
And I plan to make him pay dearly for it.
I still don’t know if I’m angry with Robbie for showing up or not; I haven’t exactly decided. It does make me happy to see him though, because it’s been too long and he’s got that damn look in his eyes. The one that tells me that he’s fucked up again and even though he hasn’t admitted it to me yet, I know he’s here for my help.
There’s a flaw in his timing, two really, and he doesn’t know about one. I have to keep it that way until I know that whatever brought him back home is fixed. I can’t let Robbie find my little secret, and I know Atasha wouldn’t appreciate it much either.
In another universe it would be ideal to let everyone stay here with me—especially Robbie—but this isn’t what I need right now. However, he’s my little brother and even though our parents are still alive, I know that I’m the only person he trusts to make whatever the fuck happened this time right again.
I close the door quietly behind me and make sure that the latch is locked firmly in place before I head to the living room to check on him. I can’t help but smile when I see him curled up on his side, and I listen to the sound of his even breathing as I watch him for a while.
It’s not Robbie’s fault that he is the way he is—something is really fucking loose in his brain, but he’s never shown me that side of him to its fullest extent. He almost did one time a few years ago and managed to get his outburst under control, ending up as a sobbing heap on the floor telling me over and over how sorry he was that he yelled at me. He begged me to forgive him and swore to me that if I helped him just that one more time, he’d be able to get it under control.
Whatever the fuck it happens to be, I think with a sigh as I turn and walk back into the kitchen.
Atasha is sitting at the island in my kitchen half asleep, face in her hand and hair wild around her head.
“Did I make too much noise?”
“No,” she grunts. “It’s always hard for me to sleep in a strange place.”
“You’ll get used to it,” I assure her as I walk past the island back to the stove. The pan is still warm from Magda’s rations. “Hungry?”
I glance over my shoulder when she doesn’t reply and see her shaking her head slowly. “Just coffee. Please.”
A chuckle escapes me as I reach into the wooden doors above the stove, pull out a plain white mug, and place it in front of her.
“It’s already brewing. Help yourself.”
I wonder if Robbie will be hungry when he wakes up.
“Thanks,” she mumbles before she produces a wide yawn. Atasha rubs at her eyes, smoky and smudged from last night’s fun, and scrapes the chair back on her way to the coffee machine. I can feel her eyes curiously on me as I lay a few more strips of bacon into the warm frying pan.
“Yes?” I ask her tightly.
She sighs and uses her hands to pull herself up onto the counter. Once she’s seated as comfortably as she can be, I can see her legs swinging slowly back and forth. She wants to ask me questions, but she’s more than likely wondering what’s off limits to ask.
Everything.
“So, um, that guy…he’s family or—?”
“Yes. My kid brother. And his name is not ‘that guy,’ it’s Robbie,” I correct, giving her a quick, firm glance.
I catch her rolling her eyes as I turn my attention back to the bacon. I can barely remember if he likes it crisp or chewy so I decide I’ll do my best to find a happy medium. Until now, Atasha was my main focus, but Robbie is my immediate concern and everyone else will have to take a back seat to his needs.
“I take it you guys are tight?” she asks, as the coffee machine sputters its finale and she leans over to search for the sugar.
“Very.”
“You’re not being very wordy this morning. Want me to go?”
I slap the spatula on the side of the pan and sigh. I don’t want to have this conversation without my brother present because I feel like it would be a betrayal to talk about him behind his back, but I also have to let Atasha know something about Robbie.
“No,” I say, turning slightly to face her and rubbing my face irritably. “Listen…I don’t want you alone with him. Ever. Do you understand me?”
She wrinkles her nose as she stirs her coffee and takes a sip.
“Why not? Am I his type too?” she asks, batting her lashes coquettishly. Suddenly her face transforms with a lascivious grin. “Or maybe you think he’s too much my cup of tea…”
“Stay the fuck away from my brother,” I hiss, losing control for a moment. She freezes, her cup halfway to her lips.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
“He’s off limits. Period. He’s not exactly… stable.”
“Who’s not stable?”
I turn to the left and grin when I see my younger brother walking in, rubbing his bedhead away and blinking his big, sleepy eyes.
“Still talking about yourself in the third person, Aug?” he asks with a yawn, as he scratches his bare chest and goes to sit at the island.
