The Filthy Series: The Complete Dark Erotic Serial Novel (33 page)

I had come to love her, even though there were moments when I hated her. When my jealousy ate away at me. The fact that I loved her made me hate her more in those moments. She was honest and pure. Things I would never be. But I could tell in the wrinkles around her eyes, even through the concern, that she was ready for this to be over. She wasn’t the only one. But I got the distinct feeling that she was ready for me to be gone. To be the sister that visited occasionally. Not the one whose life and problems consumed every moment of their time. I couldn’t blame her. If anything she was the only person in this equation who made the most sense. She never said anything to me about it. I knew she never would. But she didn’t have to. It was written all over her face every time she looked at me. There was a sourness that had crept into everything she did.

I was both thrilled and saddened by the fact that I was the person to bring this onto her kindly demeanor. That I was the one to make her wither and shrivel.

“I’m fine.” I looked down at my hands. The lie slipped out so easily.

“You’ll be great.”

But I think we both knew that was a lie as well.

“Faye Turner.” A bailiff stuck his head into the room. “They’re ready for you.”

I glanced around in panic. Where was Rhett? He hadn’t said that he would come, but I couldn’t imagine him not coming. This was what we had worked on for nearly year. Everything that led up to right now. And he wasn’t here. I was alone without him. Panic gripped my heart. “Ms. Turner?” I glanced at the bailiff and realized that I hadn’t moved a muscle. I was frozen in place.

But then somehow I was moving. My feet carrying me across the wood floor and toward him. Sarah said something, but I didn’t listen. Roger did too, but they became background noise of the horror movie I was about to walk into. In reality I knew that I was going to be fine. That nothing could happen to me. Everyone explained the way things would go. Where Taylor would be sitting. Where I would be. The guards that would be there. I would be fine.

But I didn’t feel fine. The black heels on my feet clacked against the wood. The skirt on my hips suddenly felt too small. My shirt stuck to my back. All in the matter of seconds as I walked into the courtroom.

The courtroom was full of people. But I didn’t see them. My eyes found his. Taylor’s. It was like we were two magnets. No one else existed when our eyes met. Just the two of us in this big room. His hair was longer. His face needed to be shaved. But he was the same. Ten months away from him hadn’t changed much. But I knew that would be the case. It was never different with him. No matter how much time apart we had. It was always the same.

Over and over. We were the same. The same fucked up people. The Lover and the Stranger. The people who fell down the fucked up rabbit hole and still hadn’t found their way out. Pulling each other down over and over until there wasn’t any light at the end of the tunnel. There wasn’t a light at all. And maybe there had never been a tunnel either. Just a space of time, of despair that destroyed us until we were both broken.

Rhett said I wasn’t broken. But he was wrong. I had never been whole. Not since I fell in love with my daddy. With the man who sat just ten feet away from where the bailiff placed me on the stand. The man who fucked me senseless and tortured me. The man who killed my baby.

The judge asked me some questions. Had me place my hand on a bible. I did everything as they said, but I didn’t really hear them. Just more background noise. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Taylor. There was love in his eyes. It was so familiar I nearly choked on air when I sucked in a deep breath.

“Can you please identify the man who attacked you?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere, startling me. I glanced away from Taylor for the first time to look at Jim. He stood just feet away, looking at me expectantly. I lifted my hand, pointing my finger. I would identify Taylor just as we had discussed.

I looked back at Taylor, meeting those blue eyes. There was something else there now. It wasn’t love. Something more familiar. A warning. A promise. It was the look that told me I was in trouble, that if I fucked this up things would be bad. Things would go from good to worse when he got ahold of me. And then I was back there. I didn’t want to be. I fought it. I was stronger. I didn’t have to go back to those times, those places. But there was nothing I could do. I was sucked into the hell I left behind.

“Don’t you love me, Faye baby?”

“Of course I do.” My voice trembled. I couldn’t help that I was scared. That I was terrified every time he came into the room. The baby in my stomach fluttered. Tiny hands or feet bouncing around inside me. I’d been afraid when I first realized what happened. That I was having a baby, but now I was happy. Something good would come from all the pain I had lived through over the last 5 months. Something beautiful and pure. I kept it from them at first. My mom and daddy. Even when he was torturing me and she was watching. I kept it from them. I was strong and I knew my baby would be too.

I’d made plans. I was going to run away. My baby and I. We were going to get away before Daddy or Mom found out. I used to believe that Daddy wanted a baby with me. That we were meant to be together. But I knew that wasn’t true. And I was scared. I was terrified of what he would do when he found out.

But then he did find out. I couldn’t hide it forever. My belly started to grow. And he knew. They both did. He didn’t seem mad. Not at first. He touched my marred belly with reverence. As if he couldn’t believe that a piece of him had lingered inside of me. There were moments when his eyes had shown with pride.

Those were moments I cherished. I coveted that look. It was the one I had always strove for. Longed for. But it was gone too soon.

“Then you know this is for the best.”

I glanced up at him. It was just the two of us in the stuffy little room. It wasn’t a very nice place. The chairs were old and worn. The floor dirty. This was to be my first appointment with the doctor who would deliver my baby. They were going to do an ultrasound and make sure he or she was okay.

“For the best?” I frowned. “Of course. We want to make sure the baby is okay.” My words sounded dead, even to me. The happiness of my coming baby was there inside me, but it was buried beneath all the pain. All the torture. The moments of happiness about the baby with Daddy had been less than short-lived and he’d had no mercy on pregnant body in the week since he found out.

“That’s not what this is.”

“Faye Turner,” A nurse called my name from the door and we stood. I followed her inside and she took my weight and jotted something on a chart.

“We’re going to take good care of you Ms. Turner.” She smiled at me and handed me gown after leading Daddy and I into a room. “George will be in to talk to you before the procedure.” She shut the door.

Panic flared under my skin. “Procedure?”

“Put the gown on, Faye.” Tayor’s voice was stern.

“We’re supposed to check on the baby. They’re going to tell me that he’s okay.” My voice shook.

“He?”

“Yes, it’s a boy.” I didn’t know for certain, but I had gut feeling.

Something strange flickered over his eyes. Hurt maybe. But then it was gone.

“After today there won’t be a baby.” He leaned against the wall, his arms folded over his chest, staring at me. And I knew he was waiting for me to get undressed so he could watch.

“What are they going to do to me and my baby?”

I knew the answer. It was there in my head. I should have known all along that he would never let me be happy. Not after what I asked from Rhett that night months ago. He’d done everything he could to suck the joy from my life. I should have known that my baby would be no different.

“Do you really want me to say it?”

“Don’t take my baby, please.” Tears dripped down my cheeks and I clutched my hand to my swollen belly, dropping the gown on the floor.

“It’s done, Faye. There is no baby.”

“No. No.” I shook my head, dropping to my knees in front of him. “There is. There is. Please.” I gripped his pants. Desperation flooded every inch of me. Consuming me. “Don’t kill my baby. Our baby.” And that’s when I saw it. That moment of hesitation that broke through his hate-filled demeanor. “It’s our baby, Daddy. It’s our baby. Please.”

But then the hate snapped back into place. “Undo my belt.”

My own hate wormed its way through me. Devouring me. “But the ba—”

“I’ll think about it after.” He moved my hand to his zipper and I could feel him on the other side of his pants. His thick erection.

But he didn’t think about it. Not while he was fucking my face, my knees grinding into the cold, dirty tile floor. Not while I was gagging on his length, while he was shooting his cum down my throat. He didn’t know that our baby was wriggling around inside my belly all the while. He didn’t care that a little life was twisting and turning inside me. A life created, divulged through bitterness and pain and filth.

And the little baby died the same way. Sucked out of my body like it had never been while I screamed. While I begged and pleaded for its little life. It died.
He
died. A little boy. Just old enough to tell the sex. He showed me the baby, while my body shook with pain. I’d gotten no pain medication. Nothing to relax me. Nothing. He held the little infant on a dirty silver platter. He held it to my face and made me look at him. My baby. The one he killed.

“You did this to yourself, Faye.”

And I was alone. The pain that wracked my lower body was nothing compared to the ache in my heart, my soul. It ravaged me, destroyed me and I wanted to die. Like him. Like my little innocent baby.

“Did you understand the question Ms. Turner?” Jim voice sucked me out of that darkness and back to the present. Back to Taylor’s eyes who sat before me in a packed courtroom. My hands trembled and the burning that was always there beneath my skin rose to fore. Demanding, needing a bump of coke. Something—anything to make the pain go away.

I clenched my hands in my lap but they wouldn’t stop shaking. The harder I tried to clench them, the more they seemed to shake.

“Ms. Turner, are you okay?”

“I—”

But the look in his eyes killed the words in my throat. Taylor’s eyes. They promised so many things. They promised pain. Endless pain. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live through those things again. Through more moments that would break me. Destroy me. I couldn’t fall apart again. It was that look that was so familiar, that promised he would always win. And he would. He always did. The things I said wouldn’t make a difference. The proof wouldn’t either. Because I would be back beneath him. Just like his eyes promised.

It was Taylor and I. I was his Faye baby and he was my daddy. And there was no escaping it. No matter how much I didn’t want it. No matter how much I wanted things to be different. No matter how many times he had destroyed me, ruined me. It would always come back to that.

He’s won.

And my heart broke. I didn’t think it was possible for it to break anymore but it did. It fractured inside my chest. And all I wanted was for it to go away. To drown in white powder and pretend like none of this was real.

“Faye.”

I looked up, away from Taylor finally. It was Rhett. He stood just in the crowd. But he was too late. I couldn’t be saved. Not now. Not ever.

“I can’t do this.”

“Ms. Turner—

“Wait—”

But I was already up, moving. Away. I needed to be away. The image of my baby. His bloody shriveled little body. I couldn’t blink it out of my head. Like I’d gotten so good at doing. I couldn’t move fast enough. My feet couldn’t carry me down the steps out of the witness stand. My head ran faster. Until I was tripping, tumbling my body sprawling forward. And then everything went black.

ELEVEN

I sat alone in my room. I could have gone to work, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to face the world. They all knew I was weak. They all knew how I had passed out on the witness stand yesterday. How I fell apart with just one look into Taylor’s eyes. I couldn’t face them. Especially not Rhett. Not when I let everyone down. He’d tried to talk to me. But I pushed him out, shutting the door to my room. I couldn’t even look at him. Sarah either. Her pity ate at me like an infection. I was just the pathetic prostitute junky who couldn’t keep her shit together.

The woman who couldn’t keep it together long enough to tell her story. Not even when it really counted. A lot of things hinged on my testimony. It was supposed to be the nail in Taylor’s coffin. The new evidence brought the charges from sexual assault to aggravated sexual assault of a child on multiple counts. But I was too weak to use the hammer. I was just a scared little girl. And apparently I always would be. No matter what changed about my life, I was always going to be the same when it came to Taylor.

“Faye!” Rhett’s shout from outside the apartment made me jump. I climbed out of bed just as I heard the front door open. I was halfway to my door when Rhett burst through it. His hair was a mess and he was sweating, breathing hard.

“What? What is it?” Panic flared in my blood.