Redeeming Rhys (16 page)

“Psalms 31:16,” Wren returned, her voice low and flat.

“Good girl.”

Rhys brought himself in closer, letting his roughened hands grab onto her hips tighter than before. He had waited, for what seemed, like a lifetime for that moment. But, just like everything else, it wouldn’t be what he expected. Her body went rigid and she didn’t lean into him like she imagined. Her back remained towards his front, and Wren was grateful. She wasn’t sure she could stand to see his face and those icy blue eyes of his that made her lungs constrict and her heart stop.

“What’s the matter, my darling? Kitty cat got your tongue?” Rhys nuzzled further into her, then pressed his chapped lips to her ear. His hot breath made her sick and she couldn’t keep her tears silent any longer.

“Answer me, Wren. I’ve been silent for far too long. I will not be ignored by you.”

Between sniffled sobs, Wren decided she would answer him, or try her best to, and then run.

“Answer me,” Rhys said again, coolly.

“This isn’t right, Rhys.”

Those words made the lost little boy push himself over the edge and finally enjoy the fall.

He turned her hips around to make her look at him. Wren kept her eyes closed, knowing that if she opened them, it would be her downfall. It took every ounce of energy she had not thinking about him as well as the fucked up encounters they shared when they were barely teenagers. Ten years later, she was facing a reunion that was less than blissful and she knew she would never make it out unscathed.

“Open. Your. Eyes.” Rhys seethed.

The disdain in his tone made Wren quiver, making goosebumps rise over inch of her petite body.

“Don’t you see, my darling?” Rhys asked, stroking her face with his calloused fingers.

“Our love is a forever kind of love.” With those words, his tone softened, then he pushed his lips onto hers.

Wren’s hands came up to his chest, and for a moment, Rhys thought that she was embracing him.

Ahhhh, finally, the lost little boy has reclaimed his lover.

But, Wren applied a steady amount of pressure to his chest, her small hands fighting a futile match. She heard a faint growl escape Rhys’ mouth, a sign of displeasure, and she opened her eyes, instantly hating herself for it once she was greeted with the monster of a man before her. His eyes seemed bluer than before, standing out in the most devilish of ways against the black and charcoal hues that were painted perfectly onto his unshaven face. Wren continued to breathe quietly, fearing that she would wake a beast that was ready to kill for peace, and in that second, Rhys seemed pleased with her actions.

Wren realized that she was still under his fucked up spell as she was becoming drunk on an emotion she wasn’t familiar with the longer she stared into his eyes. She couldn’t do it again. She had to try to run. What would life be like if she didn’t? There were too many questions running through her head as the face of the man that ruined her stood before her, manipulating her with a single stare.

She thought of what her life could be like if she was strong enough to let him go… to let the past go. She could be a wife to a good man. She could bake and go to PTO meeting while still changing others’ lives at the shelter. She could be a desirable woman, right? A decent mother…

Contemplations surged through her distorted mind and she began to cry silently again, still hooked on the look from Rhys. Little did Rhys realize, he wasn’t the only capable of manipulating. Her tears were what he wanted; they were exactly what he expected. Those tears, to him, represented defeat and her will to already be broken again. Rhys had thought he had gotten what he wanted.

Tsk, tsk, you fucked up little boy. Two can play the game.

Wren inhaled sharply, preparing her body for a fight, one that she didn’t have much chance of winning. She blinked once more, letting the tears of so many past emotions leave her and mark her cheeks. She looked over Rhys’ shoulder, eyeing the black cast iron skillet that sat atop her stove. It was shining with oil beneath the poor luminance from the overhead lamp, and Wren was faced, yet again, with her isolation, understanding that she was always cooking for herself. She used that black cast iron skillet most nights, taking precaution to wash it and oil it up after every use so it wouldn’t rust.

A twinkling later, she attempted to move quickly past Rhys, the tips of her right hand barely grazing the skillet that would provide her with meals most nights, but the cool iron left the tips of her fingers as she was pulled back violently against the wall. She felt the crack of the drywall as she was smacked against it and the only picture she had in her home of naked trees in sepia in a simple black frame on the wall fell down next to her, smashing into hundreds of little bits of glass.

The wind left her lungs and she desperately tried to hold onto the sanity she knew she would lose. Her arms came out in front of her as she attempted to hold onto something, or someone, that would save her. Wren felt herself falling down a tunnel back to her past, one that she knew she wouldn’t survive if she revisited. But Rhys was clearly giving her no choice. She always knew it was a matter of time, but she never thought it would be. He was just a boy, a lost little boy who left and was never heard from again. Everyone assumed he was dead.

But he was very much alive. And domineering. Terrifying. Strong. And hungry for life.

“Oh, my darling, don’t be scared. Running only makes it more fun for me. We have a lot to catch up on,” Rhys whispered, taking her tiny neck into his hands and squeezing just enough to let her know that he could kill her if he wanted, but that would be far too easy for him.

Wren’s still bleeding palms continued to try to battle for an escape, but it was useless. Rhys was like a mammoth against a flea. It took hardly any energy to restrain her and it made the yearning for their official reunion intensify ten-fold.

Wren pursed her lips to try to speak and she attempted to swat and smack him, but she wasn’t sure if she could or would speak. Rhys saw that she was moving her lips, but nothing was coming out, so he loosened his grasp and glinted his eyes at her, a nonverbal way for Wren to understand that he was the one in control.

“I would have killed it and you if I was given the chance,” Wren seethed between panted breaths.

Rhys cocked his head to the side, conflicted and confused about the emotions that he felt in the pit of his stomach. He was more aware of something, yet he didn’t want to be. That angered him deeply. He didn’t appreciate feelings, or life for that matter. He was the man that was responsible for destroying and taking it. But that statement made his heart ache. He felt worse than the day he was thrown down to the basement to piss and shit in buckets while having make-believe conversations with rats.

Then, he made himself shove that unfamiliar sentiment to the side and let the one he felt comfortable with take the reins. Anger. His old, only friend that would take him on rides like no other. It was the only thing, besides his knife, that he could rely on.

“You underestimate me, my darling. I must’ve been a silly boy for those seconds that I saw you for the first time since that bloody night to think that this would be easy, but,” Rhys paused as a chuckle escaped his lips, “easy isn’t fun for me. And it certainly won’t be lollipops and rainbows for you, sweet little Wren.”

Wren attempted to swallow her fear, but before she had the chance for a rebuttal, the monster of a man in the flesh grabbed her by her long black strands and yanked her head back so far, she was surprised her neck didn’t snap. Rhys turned Wren around abruptly until her body was facing the wall. Her limbs quaked in terror, which increased his arousal. He was ready to take it to the next level. He hadn’t ever been with a woman like her, fuck, most of the whores he had bedded didn’t even come close. Now, he could actually feel heaven in his hands. Smell those perfect little clouds he used to dream of between her legs, and clutch that backside of hers that she had grown into so nicely.

“Welcome to the dark side, my fucking life, princess. Goodnight.”

Rhys banged her head against the already cracked wall and let her limp body fall to the ground until a small amount of satisfaction consumed him. He sat there for a moment, staring at her unconscious body, overwhelmed with eroticism. Her faint breaths were dancing around in the air so fluidly, like a ballerina floating across the stage in the most glorious of ways. Rhys saw a little blood seep from a cut on her forehead and he knew he would have to relieve himself before taking her into the bedroom where things would be done right.

He bit the inside of his mouth until it bled, nursing the self-induced wound until he drew up enough courage to pop the button of his jeans and push the zipper down to expose his hard cock. Rhys stared at her pert breasts, recollecting on the first time he nursed them flawlessly and how she begged him to stop, but he knew she didn’t want him to. Her body pleaded with his for their secrets to be shared. It was that night where things changed again, so he took her, and ever since, he would be reminded that heaven was for real.

Rhys’ shaking hand made its way into his pants until his dick was clutched hard in his hand. He began fisting himself while staring at Wren, who was still unconscious but breathing appropriately. Rhys started to stroke himself harder when he remembered how her pussy felt when he kissed it for the first time. Her forbidden fruit tasted like the sweetest of nectars and he wanted nothing more than to taste it again. Her sweet cunt would be the end of his hunger. Her touch would cure his disease. Her flawed angel wings would forgive him for the life that he has led.

Rhys would make her see all of that. Thoughts of the times he shared with her along with the tragic beauty that was sprawled limp before him were too much. He exploded in his hand, not allowing himself to close his eyes or miss a moment of her beauty. After Rhys came completely, he pulled his hand free from his pants and wiped it on his already dirtied jeans, grabbed Wren by the hair like a ragdoll, and dragged her down the hallway into her room.

“DO YOU HAVE SECRETS,
Wren?” Rhys questioned his step-sister with concern as she stayed huddled in the corner of their shared bedroom. He stared as her white nightgown flowed from the fall night’s wind as it danced perfectly inside from their opened window. Wren was the most enchanting thing he had ever seen. He was enamored, and eight years after their parents had wed, it was only intensifying, not subsiding.

Since he had gotten into trouble the day of the swing-set incident, and after his encounter with Mr. Rat, Rhys had managed to be a decent boy. He was quiet, but he listened to his mother and step-father. He didn’t speak often, only when spoken to. He would typically respond with one word answers. But, that was never much of an issue. He had disappeared in the shadows and was becoming an imperceptible boy. Not many people cared to speak to him, even his family. He didn’t mind much because he liked to be alone, but he had fallen in love with the dark haired angel when he was just six-years-old. He still remembered how her hair smelled like cotton candy and how the pronunciation of her R’s was funny. When they first met, she called him Weese, instead of Rhys for a few years, but he didn’t mind because he loved her. He didn’t know why. He didn’t even try to recognize it. It was just one of those things in life that was. She was the only constant that didn’t upset him. He knew from an early age that he would have to taste what heaven was like. Smelling her cotton candy hair when she was asleep wouldn’t be enough for him for much longer.

Wren didn’t respond. Rhys didn’t expect her to. He was testing her with his statement, wondering how far he could make her go by manipulating her. Maybe she didn’t remember, or maybe he really was the bad boy. Either way, he planned on playing the card in his favor.

“When are you going to answer my question, Wren? Sooner or later, I will break you and it will be harder to fall from that,” Rhys stated, walking closer to her in their bedroom.

Rhys knew right where to step to avoid the creaking wood, walking zig-zagged over warped pieces of hardwood planks on the ground. Fourteen-year-old Wren stayed huddled in the corner with her knees drawn up to her chest, crying silent tears. She usually did that when her father got out of hand with Rhys’ mother, but everyone, including Father Sullivan, would justify that.

‘He’s a good Catholic man, Julianne. A vow is a vow. Forever is forever. Say ten Hail Mary’s and pray for strength. Everyone makes mistakes,’ Father Sullivan would say to Julianne, Rhys’ mother, when she would beg and cry at his feet for both his blessing to leave her husband and his love, neither of which he would give her.

Instead, she would end up sucking him off in the confession room because she was his dirty little secret and nothing more. She believed that heaven wanted her to be his dirty fuck doll. Langston Sullivan was Julianne’s version of God, and she would do anything that he asked of her, including praying away her pain and sorrows. She stayed with an abusive man because it was not permitted by him to leave. Divorce wasn’t an option, and he made her remember that every time she came to him, pleading for it.