Caleb
Hailey’d finally gotten to the point where she’d stopped fighting. It didn’t seem to matter that I pinned her down or started taking her clothes off, she just, let me. She let me do whatever I wanted with her.
I wished she would’ve hit me, I wished she would’ve stopped me so I had an excuse to get out of doing this. But she didn’t. She didn’t even have enough strength left to sit up straight.
Liam had done exactly what he’d set out to do. He’d made me look like a monster, and stolen Hailey’s fight right out from under her. I watched her slowly let herself go and I—
I felt like I was less than nothing. Like I was worse than Liam, to her.
Just before she passed out, Hailey looked up at me with those eyes of hers, and made sure that I knew she wasn’t going to forgive me for any of this. Whether I went through with what Liam wanted me to, or not, she’d never forgive me. But God, I wanted her to. I needed—
“Are you waiting for the Pope’s blessing Caleb? Strip her down!”
Liam was taunting me. The son of a bitch knew I couldn’t go through with this. Hailey’s clothes were frozen solid either way. I could barely cut through the fabric on her shirt anymore. My hands were shaking so bad that I couldn’t even keep Liam’s knife straight. Maybe God was staying my hand, but He wasn’t the one standing in the room with me.
“Liam, I can’t—“
“Don’t you say it, don’t you dare. We had an agreement, Caleb.”
Marcus stepped off the wall and walked over to Liam. I already knew what he was going to say. It wasn’t gonna work.
“Leave it, Liam. We’re not here for that,” Marcus said.
“We’re not. He is. Haven’t you seen how he’s been acting around her all day? Playing hero for the hostage? If he screws the tramp, he’ll be over it and then maybe he’ll take his priorities out of his pants and focus on our family,”
“She’ll freeze to death before he does anything that low, Liam. This is going too far, even for you this is—.”
Liam suddenly stuck his hand into his back pocket and pulled out Rusty’s pistol. Before Marcus could flinch, Liam cocked it and pointed the barrel at the center of his head.
“What’s this? The preacher’s fallen silent and the congregation’s suddenly all ears. Speak up, Marcus, what is it you were saying about going too far?”
I didn’t know what to do. Liam seldom bluffed about anything. He’d shoot the three of us if we tried to reason with him any further—family or not. Maybe he’d lost too much blood, maybe he’d lost it all together. I don’t know what had happened to him, but he terrified me.
“I’ll do it, just take the gun off Marcus, please, I’ll do whatever you want, okay? Just get that thing out of his face,” I pleaded.
Liam took his eyes off Marcus, who’d gone completely white, and turned his head as slowly as he could until he faced me. When I looked at him straight on, it was hard to recognize my brother in the state he was in. Eyes sunken, pupils as big as dimes, skin paler than I’d ever seen it.
Liam looked possessed, like he was completely out of his mind, and I didn’t know what to do. Our Mum would’ve fallen into despair at the sight of him. If she hadn’t died as young as she was, the four of us would’ve sent her to an early grave. We weren’t anyone’s sons anymore. We weren’t good enough for that title.
“Atta’ boy Caleb. Don’t worry we’ll have lots of fun with the girl, just you and me. Marcus! Cillian! Piss off and go watch for the cops outside. Caleb and I are gonna spend some quality bonding time together.”
Liam waved Marcus and Cillian in the direction of the door with the pistol. Marcus was reluctant to leave, but he couldn’t really do anything else at gunpoint but listen.
Cillian seemed genuinely worried about me for the first time in a while. Cillian never really emotionally involved himself in much of anything, so if he was shaken up, I knew this situation wasn’t headed anywhere good.
My stomach knotted up once the metal door closed behind my brothers. I was out of ideas. Now that Liam had me backed into a corner, he would force me to do what I’d agreed to. I didn’t want to touch her.
Thinking about even laying a hand on Hailey while she wasn’t conscious made me sick. This wasn’t some goddamn fraternity, this was my house, but I didn’t have a choice in what I was or wasn’t going to do anymore with Liam in the room.
I tried to think of a way I could get Hailey out of this, but I kept running into walls. I didn’t care too much about what Liam did to me at this point, but she was a different story. She’d been a different story for a while now, and she deserved better circumstances than this.
If I had anything to do with it, Hailey wasn’t gonna die here. She’d die eighty-something years from now—once she’d had the chance to live. I guess I realized that I’d taken things away from her that I didn’t even think about. It was my fault she was here at all.
I could’ve let her catch her train. She could’ve been home with her mom, not freezing to death on a steel floor in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn’t have known about her, she wouldn’t have known about me. Simple. At this point, I couldn’t think of a way to tell her how sorry I was. There probably wasn’t one.
“Snap out of your day dreams, Caleb, and get on with it.”
Before I had a chance to talk him out of making me do anything, he turned the gun towards me and fired twice.
The first shot whizzed past my shoulder and hit the wall behind me. The second felt like it burned the top of my ear off.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
“Getting you motivated, little brother.”
Liam started laughing at me when my eyes welled up. I didn’t cry, but Jesus it hurt so bad I could barely get a breath in. I reached up to touch the side of my head where I’d felt the burn and found blood trailing down my neck. He’d grazed me with a live round, and was smiling at me like I’d deserved it.
“I’m tired of the resistance act, Caleb. I don’t want to have to murder my own brother on the account that he can’t follow orders. C’mon, I’ll turn around if you don’t want me to watch. Either way someone’s gonna die if you don’t do something soon.”
I was out of options.
Completely.
So, I did what he said.
I cut off what was left of Hailey’s shirt, and pulled her out of her shorts. I couldn’t look at her, though. Trying to pull my shirt off over a busted ear bought me a little time, but I didn’t take long enough for Liam to think about shooting at me again.
The second my shirt came off, I started shivering worse than I had during any winter in Manassas. I was way bigger than Hailey was and the cold tore right through my bones. I took her into my arms and held her as hard as I could.
Her skin was so cold.
I’d never felt anything like that. I thought she was dead, but she was close enough to me that I could still feel her heart beating. She needed body heat. If I could hold her for long enough to figure a way out of here she might have a shot. All she needed was a shot. Liam was in the way, but maybe if I was quick enough—
“Well, look at the pair of you growing up right in front of my eyes.”
“Turn around. I can’t do this if you’re staring at me.”
“Suit yourself.”
I fumbled around with my belt buckle long enough for him to buy it.
“See? This isn’t so bad is it, Cal? You’ve gotta trust me on these things. I’m proud of y—”
He didn’t even hear me coming. Before he knew what was happening, I had my belt around Liam’s neck so quick he didn’t even have a shot of defending himself. I figured that with a bullet wound, he wouldn’t put up much of a fight. I was dead wrong. He fought like a goddamn bulldog.
I tried tightening the belt from behind to choke the air out of him, but he kicked off the ground and launched himself backwards. He slammed me into the wall so hard I spat blood all over the back of his shirt. He crashed backwards into the wall a second time, knocking the wind out of me again, but I’d be damned before I let him go.
The third time I hit the steel, something cracked around my left side. I didn’t realize I’d fallen to my knees. I guess I’d blacked out somewhere between standing and hitting the floor. Breathing felt like sucking concrete through a coffee straw. The air was too cold. Too thin to fill my lungs fast enough to keep up with Liam in a fight.
I looked up and he clamped his hand around my neck and lifted me up to eye level. I kicked my feet and he leaned in with 180 pounds of muscle to pin me to the wall. He jammed his forearm right into my chest to keep me still and fired off a round into the air.
“Try not to scream, little brother.”
Liam shoved the mouth of his pistol into the side of my neck. I smelled my flesh burning before I felt it. When I finally did, my nerves exploded, and I started screaming. I couldn’t stop myself, despite how much I wanted to pretend the pain didn’t faze me. No matter how many times I begged him to stop, he didn’t. Liam’s eyes were dead. I needed someone to help me. I needed Marcus or Cillian to hear me, because if they didn’t he’d—
“That new tattoo I gave you is for the police, Cal. They’re gonna need all the help they can get identifying your corpse. Be a good boy and say, ‘ah’.”
Liam tightened his fingers around my jaw, pried my mouth open, and shoved the end of his pistol between my teeth.
“Liam pl—“
Click.
Click.
Click.
“You better thank God for that, Caleb, cause next time, I’ll be sure to put a bullet through your skull. You’re a traitor in this house, so I’d suggest you prepare for what’s coming to you little brother.”
Liam swung his arm out and sent the barrel of his pistol crashing into my forehead. Blood spilled out from the cut, and seeped into my left eye, burning me between blinks. I couldn’t fight, anymore. My legs gave out and I fell to my knees again, shaking beyond the point of being able to control it, and waited for Liam’s next hit to come. It never did.
He stared at me for a long while, thinking about God knows what, probably making up his mind whether or not to kill me as I was, or leave it for another time. I didn’t breathe until he finally walked out.
When the door shut, I don’t know what happened in me, but I just—lost it.
I tore my hair out.
Slammed my fists against the floor.
Made myself bleed until I couldn’t take it.
Sucked in mouthfuls of cold air just to scream it out.
Didn’t seem to matter how many times I tried, ‘cause I couldn’t make a goddamn sound.
Just silence and salt water.
That’s what I’d reduced myself to.
Less than nothing.
The cold eventually hit me full swing and I knew if I didn’t get to a body soon, I was gonna die kneeling right where I was. So I crawled over to Hailey, wrapped her in my t-shirt, took off my pants, and slid her into them so she could keep her legs warm.
I pulled her in as tight as I could, and held her for a little while. God, she was cold. I rubbed her arms to try to heat her up, but I didn’t know if it was making a difference.
If she came to and found me holding her like this she’d probably never let me near her again. She’d probably misunderstand everything. She’d definitely misunderstand me. But even so, I just wanted to get her back to the point where she’d be conscious enough to misunderstand. That was good enough for me, at least.
Looking down at her as frozen as she was kinda felt like staring at a snow globe. All you gotta do with those things is turn em’ upside down and wham suddenly everything inside is chaotic and beautiful.
Hailey’s lips were all busted up and swollen, and she had more cuts and bruises on her body than a roughed up street kid. I’d never seen princess turn prizefighter, but she was the kind of girl who’d drive a guy half-crazy with all the things you didn’t know about her.
After taking the worst and probably only beating of her life, she’d passed out swingin’. Maybe it was the light, or maybe the cold was making me crazy, but strange as it sounds, she looked like a thousand little plastic snowflakes to me.
Chaotic and beautiful.