grabbing me by the hand and dragging me through the clearing. I stopped again but this time only because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
My camper was upright. Still twisted, but upright, but it was what was next to the camper that left me speechless.
It was the house from the junkyard, only it wasn’t split down the middle anymore. It was in one piece. Not only that but it was surrounded by a light yellow wooden deck that had been built around it.
“You’ve got a well now too,” Sterling said proudly, pointing to some white piping sticking out from the yard beside the house. “So, you have running water now. A drain-field too so you don’t have to worry about flushing the toilets. It’s all got somewhere to go now.”
“It’s mine?” I asked in a whisper slowly making my way to the steps leading up to the beautiful new deck. It smelled like fresh cut wood and stain.
“It’s all yours,” Sterling verified. “Here, catch,” he tossed me something from his pocket, I assume it was whatever he’d retrieved from his truck on the way here. I caught it. It was a single brass key and on the keychain, was my name.
“Who? How?” I asked, turning back to Sterling who I hadn’t realized had been standing right behind me. I crashed into his chest and he reached out, grabbing my shoulders to steady me.
“Easy there, killer,” he said with a smirk. “I could tell you who did this for you but that would be breaking the very exclusive secrecy agreement with a very private entrepreneur who has a tendency to do these kinds of things for the citizens of this town.”
“Is this the same person who helped out Josh’s parents?” I asked curiously, still not believing that I was holding keys to my very own house on my very own land.
“The very same one.”
“Do you know who it is?” I asked. “I need to know who to thank.”
Sterling put his hands in his pocket and rocked back on his heels. He made a ‘zipping up his lip and throwing away the key’ motion.
It hit me then. There were only two people who knew how much I loved that house. Sterling and Finn and since Sterling was the one who gave me the keys… “It was you.”
Sterling chuckled and placed his finger over his lips in a sssshhh motion. “I can’t say.” He winked again. “Now go take a look!” I turned and raced up the steps, the sound of Sterling’s footsteps close behind.
“How much is rent?” I asked, remembering that Josh said her family was able to rent it back from the investor who’d bought their home for a low cost.
“This isn’t a loaner. It’s not owned by someone else. It was purchased in your name. You own it. Free and clear.”
“I have a house,” I screeched. “I have a house!”
Sterling was suddenly right next to me lifting me in the air and twirling me around. “Now open the door,” he said in my ear. I shook myself from his grip and put my key in the lock.
“How was all of this done in just a few days?” I wondered.
“You’d be surprised how many underworked skilled construction workers are still living in Outskirts.”
When I turned the key and pushed opened the door, Sterling reached around me and switched on the light. The cabinets had been fixed and were now straight and not peeling. The bare wooden board floors were now a grey colored weathered hardwood. Everything had been cleaned and new looking white appliances had been installed including a washer and dryer in the laundry room.
A small yellow couch, a four-person round dinette set and a mattress and box spring were all in the house as well.
I was home.
“Do you like it?” Sterling asked from the kitchen where he was leaning against the counter with his legs crossed at the ankles.
“I love it. Tell whoever did this thank you. Thank you so, so much.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him,” Sterling said, “but trust me, he’ll just be happy knowing that you’re happy. And grateful.”
“Thanks,” I said, excited about my house but my throat started to run dry at Sterling’s sudden innuendo.
“I’ll leave you to enjoy your new place,” Sterling said, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “Enjoy, Sawyer. See you soon.”
“Sterling?” I asked.
He turned back around.
“Thank you,” I said again.
He smiled and took a deep bow before walking back out the door with a smile on his face.
When Sterling left, my shoulders fell. I’d been so stupid thinking that he was there for any other reason than to make sure I liked my gift. I instantly felt guilty for thinking anything bad about him or his intentions.
I brushed all that away and ran to my new room and leapt onto the mattress. I screamed into it to muffle the sound and pounded it with my excited fists. I sat up and gasped. “I have a house.”
I stood up and skipped around the kitchen. I looked out the kitchen window across the way to the shack. The curtains shifted, but I didn’t want to think about Finn and the confused way he made me feel. I wanted to enjoy the moment so I pushed those thoughts away and concentrated on the excitement bubbling up inside of me and enjoyed the moment.
I ran back to the bed and plopped down onto my back. Giggling to myself and feeling a kind of joy I’d never felt before. A kind of joy I never knew existed.
I was home.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sawyer
I was in a dead sleep when a knock came at the door. I hadn’t seen my brooding neighbor since he’d dropped me off after our swamp trip over a week ago, yet for some reason, I expected to find him on the other side of the door.
Only it wasn’t him.
It was Sterling.
He was standing on the deck, chugging a bottle of water.
Something was off.
His eyes weren’t focused. His usually neatly combed hair was mussed, and his shirt was untucked.
“Sterling, are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m great,” he slurred, pushing past me. Some of his water splashed on me in the process and I quickly realized it wasn’t water at all.
It was vodka.
And he wasn’t okay.
He was drunk.
Alarm bells started going off in my head. I glanced across the field to Finn’s house. I stayed by the door, leaving it open.
“You should go,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. My throat tightened. “You’re drunk. I was sleeping.”
“But I haven’t gotten the full tour,” Sterling slurred, leaning toward me. “Aren’t you going to thank me for the house?”
“Thank you for the house,” I said. “Now please go.”
“That’s not quite the thanks I’m looking for,” Sterling said with no emotion in his voice.
He crossed the room and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me from the door and slamming it shut.
My head spun. My heart raced. Memories of my father looking at me the way Sterling was invaded my mind.
He cornered me and I pushed against him, turning my head to the side when he leaned in toward me. He smelled like body odor masked with cheap cologne.
“Leave,” I said, again. “Leave now!”
Sterling only laughed. He pressed his thin cold lips against my cheek.
Bile rose in my throat.
His hand roamed over my t-shirt and he squeezed my breast painfully hard as I struggled to free myself from the prison of his body.
I screamed as loud as I could and kicked my leg upward with all the force I could muster. I connected with his groin and he groaned, the full force of his weight landing on top of my chest. He fell to the floor, dragging me along with him and landing directly on top of me. I was sure I was going to pass out from not being able to take anything more than a shallow breath.
“You’re going to pay for that,” Sterling groaned, covering my mouth with one hand and cocking back his fist. Sterling’s face morphed into something else.
Someone else.
Someone I couldn’t escape from no matter how hard I tried. Not in my dreams and not in my nightmares.
Only this wasn’t either.
This was real.
“What did I tell you, Father?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.
“What? What are you talking about you stupid girl?”
“I told you never again. You’ll be sorry,” I said. And then I began laughing. High and loud.
“Why the hell are you laughing. I’ll give you something to laugh about!”
The door crashed open, slamming against the wall.
His eyes widened as he turned to see Finn’s massive body standing in the doorway.
“That’s why,” I whispered as Finn launched himself at my father who’d morphed back into Sterling the second Finn laid hands on him.
“Get your hands off of me,” Sterling growled as Finn tossed him out the door and off the deck, landing on his side. He rolled over, grabbing his arm. “You’re fucking her aren’t you?” Sterling asked with a manic laugh. “It fucking figures.”
Finn’s eyes were as dark as I’d ever seen them. His fingers flexed and his chest heaved as he glared hatred down at Sterling who was on the ground, wiping blood from the corner of his lip.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Sterling said with laughter that had an edge to it.
“Is HE why you won’t fuck me?” Sterling asked me. Finn’s eyes followed to where I was standing in the doorway then back to Sterling who was attempting to stand.
“Glad I found out now before things went too far,” he snarled, stepping up to Finn. “The last thing I want is the famed Finn Hollis’s sloppy seconds…again.”
Finn’s fists clenched together. I stepped up to Finn, placing my hand on his. He turned to me and looked down to where my hand was on his arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”
Finn gave me a sharp nod, hopped down from the deck and grabbed Sterling by the shirt with one hand and began to pummel him with his closed fist. He roared like an animal, a sound I could feel deep within my gut. Blood sprayed from Sterling’s nose.
Bone cracked.
Finn lifted him up by his shirt into the air then shoved him back into the ground.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Finn seethed.
“She’s all yours,” Sterling said, stumbling and coughing, blood gushing from his nose and lip. “Little slut has too many of those goddamned ugly freckles anyway.”
Finn took a single step to Sterling and punched him across the jaw. Sterling fell onto his back on the ground with a groan and a gurgle.
“If you ever try and lay a hand on her again… If you ever talk to her again… You won’t come out breathing next time. I’ll tether you to a tree in the swamp where no one will be able to hear you scream.”
“You going to kill me the same way you killed Jackie?” Sterling rasped. “Did he tell you about her Sawyer? Did he tell you how he killed his fiancée?” Sterling snarled as he taunted Finn who looked like his eyes were bulging out of his head. His neck was corded. Sterling chuckled “At least I got a taste first.”
Finn sent one last punch to Sterling’s face and his entire body stilled. No more gurgling. No more groaning.
Finn stood, grabbed his phone from his back pocket and held it to his ear. I didn’t understand the words he was saying to the person on the other end. I only heard something that sounded like waves in the ocean loud in my ears. A wet kind of static.
I didn’t realize I’d been crouching down behind the side of the house until Finn approached, putting his phone away.
“Did…did you kill him?” I asked, my voice shaking. I stood and took a few steps back from Finn whose expression switched from murderous to confused.
Finn reached out his hand to me and I zoned in on the blood across his knuckles. When he realized what I was looking at he pulled it back but it was too late.
I was already running.
I ran from Finn. I ran from Sterling. I ran from the past.
I was in a full sprint by the time the full weight of a memory crashed into me like a wave, pulling me under and holding me deep beneath the surface.
Drowning me.
“Does it hurt when he hits you, Mommy? It sounds like it does.”
“No. It doesn’t hurt. I go to my safe place. He can’t hurt me there. No one can.”
“What’s it like in your safe place?”
“It’s warm and sunny. There are birds and alligators and all sorts of animals there.”
“What is your safe place called, Mommy?”
“It’s called Outskirts, but that’s our secret. You can’t tell a soul, not even your father.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Good.”
“Hey, Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Outskirts is a silly name.”
“Yes, it is, darling. Yes, it is.”
“Caroline!” Father called from downstairs.
Mother gave me a kiss on my forehead.
“Don’t go,” I begged.
“Don’t worry. It will be over soon. I told you. I’ll just go to my happy place.”
“Because he can’t hurt you there? In Outskirts?”
“Exactly,” Mother said, getting off my bed. “Your father can never hurt me when I’m in Outskirts.”
The storm rolled in. The thunder boomed. I held the blanket over my head, but no matter how loud the thunder boomed it couldn’t drown out the sound of shattering glass. Whimpers. Angry demands.
The crack of leather against skin.
Defeated cries, that I’d later realize, were my own.
“Sawyer! Sawyer! Say!” My body shook and I blinked rapidly to find a man lying on top of me, his chest heaving. His fingers digging into my skin. I glanced around at the heavily wooded area surrounding me then back to the man.
In my mind, I saw Sterling. My father.
I panicked.
I fought.
I screamed.
“Get off of me!” I kicked my legs and flailed my arms. “I won’t let you hurt me anymore. I won’t let anyone hurt me!”
My fists were caught in the air, bound together in one big strong hand.