“Gotta find somethin’ different for you,” he muttered. “I’m thinkin’ I don’t like you knowin’ what you’re gonna get for your birthday for forever.”

My head jerked back and my eyes honed in on his face. “If you ever, ever get me anything but my peridot pendant, Creed, I… I… well, I don’t know what I’ll do but I’ll be super, extra pissy.”

I saw the white flash of his teeth. “Wouldn’t wanna make you super, extra pissy.”

“Don’t joke. I’m serious. Those necklaces are the only things I own that mean a thing to me.”

I saw the white flash of his teeth disappear right before I heard the guttural tone of his, “Jesus, Sylvie.”

“And they always will be,” I finished.

Both his arms closed around me tight, my head tipped back, his dipped down and he kissed me, hard, wet and long. A new kind of kiss. An unrestrained kiss.

Pure beauty.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last forever like I’d like it too. Creed broke it.

Then he murmured, “Let’s get you dressed and home. Our life starts in about four hours. Don’t want you nodding off when it does.”

“Probably a good plan,” I agreed, smiling at him.

I caught his smile back at me then he shifted, we were up and he placed me on my feet.

He held my hand as he walked me to my clothes. I gave him his shirt. He gave me my bikini top. He tied the back for me and I pulled on my tank and shorts and slipped on my flip-flops. Creed grabbed the blanket and again he held my hand as he walked me to my car.

At the door, again, he kissed me. This one I’d had before.

A good-bye kiss.

I savored it because it was the last one.

The last good-bye kiss ever.

Tomorrow, there would be nothing but the rest of our lives kisses, free and easy.

“Sleep good, beautiful,” he muttered against my mouth.

Like I was going to sleep.

Not.

“You too, Creed.”

“Soon, baby.”

“Soon, Creed.”

His arms gave me a squeeze. “Love you, Sylvie. Didn’t think I could do it more but after what you gave me tonight, know it can be more until infinity.”

Oh.

Wow.

People in town thought Winona Creed was a redneck hick, a floozy, stupid and a loser.

Creed fell very, very far from that tree. What he said might not rhyme but still, it was poetry.

“I love you too, Creed. Seems like I’ve loved you forever but I know that I will love you that way. Forever.”

I wasn’t as good at it but Creed didn’t seem to mind. I knew this when he bent his neck and gave me another good-bye kiss, soft, sweet and short.

Okay, so that kiss was the last one.

In my car, I waved, staring at his shadowed form in my rearview mirror, feeling light, feeling free, feeling happy, not having any clue I wouldn’t see that tall, muscled frame for sixteen years.

Not having any idea.

And feeling so happy, when I stole into the dark house I grew up in, through the foyer and up the stairs, thinking it was for the last time, I didn’t feel Daddy’s eyes watching me.

Chapter Twenty-Three

You Can’t See It

Present day, six days later…

They had him chained to the floor, cheek to the cement, tape on his upper and lower eyelids, stuck to his lashes, holding his eyes open.

So Creed saw her when they pushed her down and chained her to the floor six feet away.

At first glance, he thought she was me. Same hair. Same build. Same face shape. Even the same colored eyes.

She wasn’t me.

Daddy held his head down so Creed couldn’t even turn it. The tape held his eyes open so he couldn’t shut the visions away. There was no way he could close out the screams.

No.

He had to watch.

Watch as they ripped her clothes away.

Watch as, for hours, repeatedly, brutally, they raped her.

Watch as she fought the chains, strained, shrieked, begged.

Watch as the blood flowed from between her legs, where the chains gouged into her wrists, her neck, her ankles.

Watch as the fight left her, the light died in her eyes and she lay, her head turned, her gaze locked to Creed’s as they kept at her for hours, one after the other and then back again.

Five of them.

Then they were done.

“You know,” Daddy whispered into Creed’s ear, “you take her, you think to escape me, you know I’ll find you.”

He knew. Daddy had a lot of money. Daddy had a long reach.

Daddy kept talking.

“I’ve tried to talk sense into you but it’s come to this. You’ve already sullied her, taking her virginity. You take her, Tucker, I’ll find you. I’ll bring you both back. You take her, she’ll mean nothing to me. If you take her, I’ll bring you back and I’ll make you watch like you did just now as they do the same to Sylvie. But she’ll be safe if you leave her be.”

This time, Creed didn’t say, “never”.

His eyes forced open, his head still held down, he had no choice but to stare into the girl’s eyes. The girl, so young, maybe seventeen, maybe even sixteen, my hair, my body, bloodied, bruised, violated, the light in her eyes extinguished.

So like me.

So very like me.

He knew, if Daddy would do that to her, he’d do it to me.

Creed’s voice came, weak, raspy, “Promise me.”

Daddy’s hand left his head but she didn’t look away so Creed, now free to move his head, didn’t either. He gave her his gaze, the only thing he had to give, the only thing he had to offer her as even a scrap of comfort as she endured a nightmare.

“Promise?” Daddy asked.

Creed stared at the girl who was almost me.

“She’ll be happy.”

Quickly, Daddy declared, “I promise, Tucker, she’ll be happy.”

“Swear it.”

“You leave, never come back, never phone, never try to see her, I swear. She’ll be happy. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure she’s happy. You come back, phone, ever, ever try to contact her again, she’ll be lying there as that girl is and you’ll be lying right where you are, watching.”

“Just make her happy.”

“I’ll make her happy.”

Creed stared into the girl’s eyes and watched the fresh tear roll over the bridge of her nose, drop and mingle with the blood on the cement by her face.

So me.

So very me.

“Then I’ll leave.”

* * * * *

I shot up in the bed and, not thinking, my skin prickling, cold sweat trickling between my br**sts, I jumped to my feet and for some reason hurdled over Creed’s body. My feet landed on the other side of the bed and I bounded to the floor. My foot lifting to run, flee, escape like that girl sixteen years ago was me and I had the chance, one shot, to get away before they destroyed me.