“You’re so strong and so brave, my baby,” she whispers, her voice sounding hoarse. “I know you’re going to pull through. God, you have to Mia.”
I want to squeeze her hand and let her know I’m here but even that fails. I can’t seem to move anything. None of my limbs are listening to me. The paralyzing feeling so familiar. For a moment, I feel like I’m having a déjà vu moment because I remember…
I remember lying in that freezer, my body beaten and in so much pain, I couldn’t even sit up or breathe. All I could smell was blood and the only feeling I had was on my face, I couldn’t move anything, just like I can’t move now.
“I can’t lose you too, sweetheart,” she cries and then I hear her sob these really big, ugly sobs so gut-wrenching, I can’t stand it.
I really do try to wake up. I try to open my eyes so I can see her, comfort her, let her know that it’s all right but I’m quickly growing tied.
It’s as if I’m fading away as horrors and nightmares of being beaten and suffering play at the edges of my consciousness, I decide to give up and surrender to the darkness where everything means nothing.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mia
Two days later.
The next moment I become aware of my surroundings, I can feel the tension in the room before I even hear anything.
“You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m going to leave you alone with her,” I hear Nicky seethe. She sounds nothing like I’ve ever heard ger. She’s always so easy going and soft spoken, her voice airy and almost seductive. But that was my ‘aunt’ Nicky. The woman speaking is angry. No, she’s livid.
The atmosphere is pulsing with animosity.
“You forget Nicky, you don’t have any rights to her,” I hear Nathan says and my body tenses up into a block of stone as soon as I hear his nasally, disgusting voice.
“Listen here you asshole, she’s my daughter and no piece of paper will change that, you sonofabitch!”
I want her to get away from him. To get as far away from that bastard as she can. He’s dangerous and vengeful and can hurt her! I can’t let that happen, not after everything else.
“Well, those papers stand, Nicky and you’ll do well remembering it or right now in this moment, will be the last time you ever lay your eyes on her ever again!” Nathan snaps.
I want to get up. With the mounting tension in the room, I can feel the blood in my veins rushing on response.
“Oh, motherfucker I want to see you try!” Nicky counters, her voice nothing more than a hiss. “You think you scare me? You think you can order me around or control me like you did before? Yeah, well those days are over!”
“You don’t want to try me—”
“No, you’re the one who doesn’t want to try me! Your days are numbered you asshole, just you wait!”
Her words are so chilling and sinister, I think I shiver.
“Oh, I’m scared!”
“You tried to sell her…” her voice trails off, like she’s choked up. “Your own blood, and you tried selling her like sheep at fucking fair!”
“Oh well, like mother like daughter,” Nathan mutters, not even bothered and my soul sinks. There’s silence in the room for a long moment that for a time, I think he’s gone, that he left the room, until he speaks. “Look at you, finally standing up for yourself, your mother must be rolling in her grave.”
A low growl sounds in the room. It’s not rocket science to realize that it’s coming from Nicky.
“That bitch is not your mother!” she seethes, her voice full of venom. I stop breathing, remembering all the times both Nicky and Nancy would have this weird look on their faces whenever I asked about my grandparents.
“But she is!” Nathan says, laughing mercilessly. “She gave you to me!”
What?
I grow still, hardly breathing. How are they not noticing that I’m aware of what’s happening?
“Your mother, the ambitious bitch she is, gave you to me. Do you even know what she wanted in exchange?” The silence that expands in the room in murderous. I lie still, hardly breathing or able to move, just listening. “Nothing at all, ha!”
“You’re lying you bastard!”
“Am I?” he laughs. “Your mother only gave a damn about your superstar sister and the money she brought in!”
“Shut up—”
“Sharon knew Nancy was seeing my fucking step-brother,” he spits the word with venom. “and she wanted to be connected with the Fitzgerald family and the Masons!”
“I said shut up!”
“Did I strike a nerve?” Nathan mocks, laughing. “Does knowing your own mother gave you to me fuck your little mind? I mean, you accepted my proposal.”
“If you think giving me that cheap-ass dollar store ring in front of that bitch was a proposal then you’re out of your small sized brain!” Nicky spits back. “You’re not a man, Nathan! You’re nothing and you’re always be in the shadow, struggling behind everyone else just like you were abandoned!”
Wow.
The hurt and abuse here is deep, but the trauma, Jesus, I have no idea how deep that runs. Is it any wonder that I turned out a mess myself? In love with someone I know isn’t right for me?
I’ve heard enough. I can’t take it anymore.
I fall back into the abyss.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mia
Five days later
I feel someone breathing over me and become alert immediately. My flight-fight response kicks in as another ugly bout of déjà vu hits me.
“I know you can hear me, princess.”
I tense up! I was right to be on guard as I hear Nathan speaking over me. He must have been the one who woke me up.
“It’s the middle of the night and that bitch of a woman you call your mother is in the bathroom,” he whispers menacingly. “But I know in whatever state you’re in mentally, I fucking hope you will remember these words because princess, they will be the hell you’ve been begging for with your recent actions.”
No! Get away from me!
“You thought you could disrespect me?” I hear him growl over me. Internally, I’m screaming the roof off of here.
I hate you!
“Look at you, if you had just kept you word and not broken our agreement, you wouldn’t be here like this,” he whispers, I swear I can feel his hot breath on me and I want to flinch and get away from him. “If you hadn’t butted in and conspired to save John’s son and let him go to jail as he should’ve fucking done, none of this would have happened!”
He would still have sold me!
That knowledge is clear! God, when I wake up I’m going to make sure I put a hurt on this man so big, he’ll fucking feel it in hell. I’m going to expose him for the disgusting man he is and everything he’s done!
“So, this is what’s going to happen from this point on,” his voice drops to and I realize then why he sounds funny. He’s panicking! His cocky confidence from before is gone. “You are going to wake up and pin everything on that bastard, John’s son. The fires, both of them. The murder of Matthews’ son, everything! You’re going to say he did, Amy.”