Kristen Ashley - Creed

“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 breasts, 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.

Creed’s arm hooked my waist and I flew backwards, landing in the bed and Creed rolled over me.

“It’s a dream, Sylvie. Just a dream,” he said what he’d said over and over again when I woke up after a dream assaulted me.

“I know those men. I know those men,” I panted, my breath coming fast, sharp, heavy, hurting as it tore up my throat and out of me. “I know them… knew them. Served them beer. Nachos. I knew those men, Creed.”

“Beautiful, what are you –?”

“The men, Richard’s men, those men who Daddy forced you to watch raping that girl who looked like me.”

“Fuck,” he clipped then bit out, “You’re dreaming that shit.”

My hands drove into either side of his hair and held tight. “I knew them. I brought them beers while they watched games on Richard’s huge ass TV.”

“They’re out of your life, Sylvie.”

“I knew them.”

“Baby, they’re gone.”

“I knew them!” I shrieked, Creed stilled then he rolled, sitting up, forcing me to straddle him but his arms clamped tight around me.

“Calm down, Sylvie,” he ordered firmly.

“I can’t, Creed.”

“You gotta try, baby.”

“I can’t, Creed. It’s hideous.”

I stopped speaking, shook my head and struggled in his lap. I had too much energy. I had to move. Pace. Run. Sprint. Stand up and scream.

Creed held firm and wouldn’t let me, so I gave up and kept talking.

“I can’t believe they did that. I can’t believe they taped your eyes open and made you watch. I can’t believe they found someone who looked like me and hurt her like that. Just because she was unlucky enough to look like me and they needed to make a point, hurt her in a way she’d never get over. Alter her life forever and you didn’t even know who she was. They probably didn’t know who she was!”

“I know who she was.”

That made me go still.

“You knew her?” I asked quietly.

“Not then,” he answered. “After. When I got into the business. When I had the resources. A few years later, I tracked her. She was from a county over. She was the girl in the picture with Dixon who I was too fucked up to note really wasn’t you.”

“Is she okay?”

Creed didn’t answer.

“Is she okay, Creed?”

Swiftly, like pulling off a Band-Aid, he gave it to me.

“She committed suicide two days after they released her and me.”

I closed my eyes and, not able to hold it up, my head fell forward and slammed into his collarbone.

“Maybe the best thing for her, baby,” he whispered. “She went home.”

“You don’t believe that,” I replied.

Creed said nothing.

I was right. He didn’t believe that. He was just spouting that shit to make me feel better.

“God, if they weren’t dead, I’d kill them,” I told his collarbone then lifted my head. “Or, in Richard’s case, I’d kill him again. Though this time, I’d find a better way to do it.”

“When you told me what went down, Sylvie, and while you were deciding whether or not to listen to me, got a buddy who has a buddy back home. I made a call and he made a call and his buddy looked into that shit. You hit Scott’s jugular. Report says he bled out in minutes. Seems you found the best way to do it.”

“Right then, I’ll amend. If I knew he was even more of a heartless sociopath than I already knew he was, I would have made it last a whole lot longer.”

“Baby, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. It’s over and you keep dreamin’ this shit so you need to see somebody.”

“I’ll call someone.”

“Yeah? When?” he shot back. “We been back here two weeks and you haven’t called anyone.”

“It’s been a little busy and the kids come up today. Not to mention, soon, I’m moving so why start now when I’ll have to find someone in Phoenix?”

“So you won’t wake up in a cold sweat and leap over me, runnin’ to God knows where to do whacked shit that freaks me way the fuck out.”

He had a point.

“I haven’t had a dream in days. Maybe they’re waning,” I suggested.

“He tied you down. He took you repeatedly,” Creed returned. “He violated you in ways you didn’t want. He controlled you. Sylvie, I am no psychologist and you got a heart of gold. You don’t know that girl, you weren’t there, it was nearly two decades ago and she is very dead but I still know you feel for her but this isn’t about her. This is about you. This is about you learning I watched that happen to her and then I learned that pretty much the same thing happened to you for six fuckin’ years. You givin’ me that shit and remembering it happened to you, both are fuckin’ with your head. I do not have the tools to sort that. You have got to find the tools to sort that. People in counseling move all the time. Psychologists know the drill. They start therapy and they transfer you to a new doctor but you gotta start therapy, Sylvie. You gotta work this shit out. For you. For me. For the family we’re making. For Charlene. For Adam. For everybody.”

Fuck it all, I hated it when he was right and it happened a lot.

So I did the only thing I could do.

I snapped my, “Okay.”

“That okay is an okay as in, you call to-fuckin’-day. I’m standin’ over you, Sylvie. Clock strikes nine in the morning, you’re on the goddamned phone finding a therapist you think you can work with.”

“Fine,” I bit out.

“Don’t think I’m joking.”

I didn’t think that. His tone told me he absolutely was not.

“I said fine,” I clipped.

“Jesus, this shit makes me wonder if I should have just let you think I left you.”

My blood turned cold.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s haunting you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s bringing it all back. You had it under control. Now it’s in your face.”

“Don’t say that!” I shouted, jerked away, breaking free from his arms. Jumping to the side of the bed only to lean forward and point at him. “If you didn’t tell me, I’d never have let you back in.”

“Come back to bed, Sylvie.”

I swung my arm out. “You didn’t tell me, we wouldn’t have this.”

He leaned toward me, his tone cautious, and he ordered gently, “Baby, come back to bed.

I ignored him and carried on, this time my voice hoarse, beginning to grate, sounding like it would break, “You didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t have you.”

“Sylvie, come back to me.”

My voice was abrasive when I declared, “I’ll take nightmares every night for the rest of my fucking life if it comes with waking up to you.”

He reached out a hand, caught mine but I leaned back, putting my weight into tearing free.

I couldn’t because Creed held tight.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I said that, beautiful. I should never have said that.”

“I watched you in my rearview mirror,” I told him.

He pulled on my hand and his voice was gruff when he pleaded, “Baby, fuckin’ please, come back to bed.”

“I was so happy.”

“Jesus, Sylvie.”

“I sat on that pier for hours the next day. It was so hot, the Snickers bars melted in their wrappers. I got sunburn.”

His hand tugged at mine and his voice was harsh when he said, “Fuck me, Sylvie, please, come back to bed.”

“I looked everywhere. I couldn’t find you.”

“Fuck.”

“Days, I looked and I couldn’t find you.”

“Baby, please.”

My voice broke on my repeated, “I couldn’t find you,” and Creed was done.

I knew this because he yanked on my arm and I went flying to him. Then I was in his arms in bed, tucked mostly under him, one of his hands cupping the back of my head, pressing it into his throat, both arms holding me tight.

“I couldn’t find you,” I whispered into his skin.

“I’m here.”

“You always protected me.”

“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” he murmured into the top of my hair.

“When Daddy gave me to him, I knew you’d come back and take me away. Take care of me.”

“Fuck, Sylvie.”

“You didn’t come back.”

Creed said nothing.

I lay in his arms and it hit me what I was saying and what it must sound like.

“I don’t blame you,” I told him quickly.

Creed said nothing.

“After that, what they did to that girl, I would have done the same thing,” I declared.

Creed said nothing.

“You did what you thought was right. You couldn’t know. We didn’t know Daddy was hooked on blow. Hooked so bad, in so deep, he had to pay Richard off with me.”

Creed said nothing.

“Creed.”

Creed rolled over me and by the time I turned in bed I heard what I suspected was the lamp from my nightstand crash against the wall.

Then I heard his roar, “Fuck me!” and I shot out of bed, pressed myself to his back and circled his middle with my arms.

I pressed my face into his skin, into my tat. “Sorry, baby, sorry, so, so, sorry. I should have shut up. I shouldn’t have kept talking.”

He twisted in my arms and his big hands cupped either side of my head, jerking it back with only a modicum of gentleness and his shadowed face was all I could see.

“You work that shit out, Sylvie, you work it out and you do it with me,” he growled.

“Okay.” I thought it best to agree immediately.

“You give me everything you got, I’ll deal.”

“Okay,” I agreed again, immediately.

“They took a month from me. They took six years from you. I’ll deal.”

“Okay.”

He used his hands on my head to yank me forward and I did a forced face plant in his chest before his arms wrapped around my head.

When I felt his chest expand with a huge breath then release I felt it safe to note, “They took a month from you, six years from me but they took sixteen years from us.”

“Yeah. And we’ll both deal with that shit by me makin’ love to you, planting my baby inside you and both of us, when we make more, all of us livin’ free, easy and happy for the rest of our lives, exactly how they did not want us to be.”

It was easy to agree to that one.

“Okay.”

Creed didn’t let me go and I let him hold me.

This went on awhile. So long I decided to move things on.

“Uh… Creed?”

“Right here, Sylvie.”

“This might not be the time but I’m thinking at least three kids, maybe four.”

His body turned to stone.

“Okay, three,” I said hurriedly.

Creed said nothing.

“Right, then, two. But, warning, I’m sticking on two.”

Creed still said nothing.

“Though, if it’s two boys, we have to go for a girl…” I paused, “and, uh, vice versa.”

Creed stayed silent but started walking me backwards to the bed. We weren’t too far so we went down in two steps, me on my back, Creed on top of me.

After we bounced twice and settled, Creed spoke.

“You want four kids, we best get to work, baby.”

I grinned.

There it was. Creed made it all better.

Unfortunately, he went on, “We stop at three, you get to an age where four isn’t healthy.”

Seriously?

“I’m not old, Creed.”

“Gotta have two years in between.”

“Is that a rule?”

“Yes.”

Seriously. Sometimes a bossy badass was annoying.