Underneath it all, I just missed him so badly. Having him away at college was nothing like knowing he was somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean. I had no way to even contact him.
My night was finally almost over, and I was thinking about the things I needed to pack as I carried some garbage out the back door of the pub. I tried to ignore the hair prickling on the back of my neck as I lifted the dumpster lid and threw out the bag of trash, but something had me reaching up to rub it.
Then everything went black.
***
I woke up tied to a chair in the middle of a living room I’d never seen before, facing a man sitting on a flowered sofa. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him, and I had a hard time focusing my eyes because my head was pounding with every beat of my heart.
“Yer finally awake,” he said calmly, sitting completely still except for the way his lips moved when he talked. I opened my mouth to answer, and that’s when I realized there was something wrapped around my head and pulled tightly between my teeth.
“It’s a belt in yer mout’,” he commented as my eyes grew huge in my face. “So ye won’t bite yer tongue.”
Why the fuck would I bite my tongue? Where was I? Oh, God, it was like every horror movie I’d ever seen. Don’t go out to the dumpster alone, you fool! Run the other way!
“Amy Gallagher. Wife of Patrick Gallagher, ‘De Butcher of Dublin’, de papers call him.” He finally leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I’ve been waitin’ to talk to ye.”
I tried to mumble back that I didn’t know who he was or what the hell he was talking about, but the words came out as a bunch of gibberish. I didn’t know why he wanted to talk, but I’d talk to him about whatever he wanted if that meant he would let me go.
I wasn’t thinking about escape—I knew I was trapped. But maybe if I gave him what he wanted he wouldn’t hurt me. Maybe he’d let me go. I clung to that hope as he lifted one finger as if I should wait, and walked out of the room.
When he returned, he was carrying a ball peen hammer, some scissors, and a pair of pliers.
“I can see why Trick wanted ye,” he said conversationally, setting a small table to the right of my chair and laying the tools on top of it. “Yer quite pretty. Nuttin’ like me fiancé, but dere are few woman as beautiful as her.”
My eyes followed his movements as I barely breathed, and at the mention of his fiancé, my eyes shot to the door.
“Oh, she won’t be here,” he commented, catching the movement of my eyes. “I’m not quite sure where she is at de moment.”
He pulled a chair in from the kitchen and sat down so close that our knees were touching. “I was hopin’ ye could help me wit’ dat. Nod if ye’d like to help me,” he ordered with a smile.
I nodded frantically, willing to do anything for him to let me go. He wanted me to help him find his fiancé? I’d search for her myself.
“Wonderful,” he said, reaching behind my hair to gently loosen the belt and pull it down until it was resting against my collar bone. “Would ye like a drink of water?” I nodded again, as I tried to moisten my mouth with saliva. My mouth was so dry that my tongue was sticking to the top of my mouth.
“Dere now, dat’s better,” he said, after he’d lifted a glass of water to my mouth. “I’m so glad dat yer willin’ to help me. Dat makes everyt’in’ so much easier.”
He set the water down on the table and then turned to face me again.
“Where is Moira?” he asked, reaching out to run his fingers through my hair.
His fingers caught in the tangles of my hair and I shivered in revulsion as panic hit me harder and more quickly than it ever had in my life. For a moment I was completely silent as I gaped at him. This was because of Moira?
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I wasn’t sure if they were still on the ocean, where they were on the ocean, or even if they’d made it to North Carolina.
He made a chastising noise with his mouth, and I realized then that I should have asked who Moira was. By answering the way I had, he knew that I knew something.
“Please, please, I don’t know,” I pleaded quickly as he stood and grabbed the scissors off the table.
“Every time ye lie, ye’ll be punished,” he replied, gripping my hair and pulling until my neck was arched over the back rung of the chair. I fought to bring my head forward, but all that did was make the position of my neck hurt worse.
He began to use the scissors on my hair, and though I was relieved that he wasn’t hurting me, I couldn’t stop the hysterical sobs that ripped out of my throat. I couldn’t see how much he cut off, but I could feel the cold edge of the scissors against my scalp over and over again, and by the time he was done, I could actually feel cool air against the crown of my head.
“Dat was not so bad,” he scolded, sitting down calmly in front of me again as he discarded the scissors. “Butcher paid a visit to Michael, did ye know? Left his callin’ card, so to speak, so I know he’s got her somewhere and yer his wife, so I’m sure ye know where he’s keepin’ her. Maybe even feelin’ a bit out of sorts with his bastard in her belly? So why don’t ye tell me, hmmm? Where is Moira?”
“I don’t know! I swear I don’t,” I told him, looking directly into his eyes. His pupils were like pinpricks, and I was suddenly afraid that he wasn’t only crazy and angry, but that he was on something, too.
He sighed deeply, and I watched in terror as he pulled the table so that it slid under my left hand, between the arm of the chair and my fingers. He moved his tools around, setting them just so. When he picked up the hammer, I felt my entire body freeze in terror.
I didn’t see it hit my index finger. As he raised the hammer, I’d instinctively shut my eyes against what I knew would happen.
It didn’t change a fucking thing, though. I still felt the cold metal crush the bone as I bit my tongue and then screamed, blood pouring out of my mouth and down my chin as I lost all control of my bladder.
I’d never felt such pain before. It was radiating up my arm in waves that I couldn’t control, and when I tried to curl my hand into a fist to protect the other digits, his large hand slammed down on top of mine, making me howl once again.
“Where is Moira?”
“I don’t know,” I whimpered, trying to pull away from him and making the chair wobble underneath me. I was frantic, pulling and twisting against my bonds, but they held fast.
I wasn’t even trying to protect her. At that moment, I would have given the man her and Patrick’s coordinates if I had known them—but that was the problem. I didn’t know where they were, and I was in so much pain that I couldn’t see past the literal interpretation of his words.
The hammer slammed down again on my middle finger, and I screamed in agony once more, but when he asked again where they were, I gave him the same answer.
The next finger was so short that when he took aim and hit it, I felt the bottom knuckle break.
His question never wavered, and neither did my answer. I felt him position my smallest and most delicate finger on the table, and I was so dazed from the pain that I didn’t even fight him. My head was rolling across the top of the chair as I prayed that I would lose consciousness.
I didn’t.
The hammer fell again.
When he loosened the rope around my wrist so he could position my thumb along the tabletop, he finally asked the right question.
“Where did he take her?” His voice was still calm, but I could hear the frustration behind it. I watched detachedly as he tightened the rope around my wrist back up.
“North Carolina,” I mumbled, finally seeing black spots dance around the edges of my vision.
I was losing focus on his face, but I noticed when he began to turn red and the veins in his neck began to bulge. I didn’t flinch when he flung the hammer across the room, or at the sound it made as it lodged in the wall.
I also didn’t move when I realized he was untying me from the chair. I barely flinched as he
laid me on the floor and tugged my wet jeans and underwear down my legs. And when he left me there, bare from the waist down and cradling my broken hand to my chest, I finally, blessedly, passed out.
I’m not sure how long I was on the floor, but I woke up to him murmuring. “Disgustin’,” he said, and something about an eye for an eye as he used a wet towel to clean me. My hand was still curled limply against my chest and I couldn’t focus on anything else except the pain. It was taking over my entire body, making my teeth chatter and my legs shake against the cold wood floor.
I barely noticed when he lifted me from the floor and laid me on the couch. I was drifting in some weird space where I’d come to briefly in order to see his livid face, and then fade away again as if I wasn’t even in my own body.
I’d like to think that I would have fought him if I hadn’t been so out of it, but I’m not sure that I would have. The memory of what he’d done to my hand was so sharp, the pain so intense, that even if I’d had my wits about me, I wasn’t sure I would’ve tried to stop him.
I probably would have lay there, exactly as I did, and whimpered as he pushed inside me. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to the agony in my hand.
I’m almost grateful for that—the pain and the disconnection—because it didn’t allow me to focus on the triumph in his face, the way he groaned as he pumped away, or the way he laid my unresisting leg over the back of the couch so he had more room to move as he changed my life forever.
I just hurt all over and I wanted Patrick.
I heard the front door open, but I was too out of it to pay any attention as the man finally pulled away and left me spread out on the couch.
He was buttoning his jeans leisurely as a familiar voice called through the house.
“Mum, are ye here?”
Footsteps grew closer, but I still didn’t move. I didn’t feel anything. I was completely numb, aside from the pain that had moved all the way up my arm and had settled like a weight pressing on my chest.
I met Kevie’s eyes with my dull ones as his mouth dropped in absolute horror.
“Malcolm, what in God’s name have ye done?”
Chapter 37
Amy
I don’t remember how I got home and I don’t remember Peg’s reaction. I assume that Doc bandaged my hand, but I have no memory of him doing that, either.
The first thing I recall was waking up in my bed, while Kevie sat watching me from a chair that had been dragged in from our kitchen.
“Yer awake?” he asked quietly as I tried to remember how I’d gotten there.
It came back to me in flashes, the memories becoming heavier and heavier as I curled onto my side and wrapped my body protectively around my hand. I could hear Doc and Peg speaking in the kitchen, which calmed me somewhat, but my face burned in shame as Kevie leaned forward to meet my eyes.
“I’m so sorry dis happened,” he said, his hands wrapped up in a rosary as if I’d interrupted his prayers when I’d woken up. “Me brudder—”
“That was your brother?” I asked in confusion, my throat sore from screaming.
“Yes.”
My body tensed again as I watched him try to martial his features into something that didn’t resemble complete devastation.
“I cannot apologize enough for what he’s done,” he whispered, his eyes brimming with tears. “I don’t know what demon has taken hold of him, but I fear dat he’s past de point of any help.”
“Did you kill him?” I asked curiously, feeling surprisingly sorry for the man.
“Of course not,” he replied, and all sense of sympathy left me.
“What did you do?”
“I dressed ye and brought ye home,” he answered, his cheeks growing red at the word ‘dressed’.
“Where is your brother?” I glanced at the window. Patrick had told me no one could fit through it, but at that moment I wasn’t sure if I believed him.
“I believe he’s still at our mum’s. She’s at her sister’s for de weekend.”
“That was your mother’s house?”
“Yes.”
“And you just left him there, to what? Watch some television? Make a little dinner? Have a beer?”
“I had to get ye home. Yer hand—”
My hand’s throbbing seemed to intensify as he pointed it out.
“Did you tell Peg where you found me?” I asked in suspicion. “Peg!” I yelled. “Peg!”
“Do not say a word!” he hissed quietly as we heard he steps moving toward us.
“Yer awake!” Peg cried as she came to the bed, pulling me up slowly and wrapping her arms around me as she burst into tears. “My poor baby.”
I met Kevie’s eyes over Peg’s shoulder, and barely held back the shudder at the glare on his face.
“What happened?” I asked Peg, never looking away from Kevie’s face.
“Ye don’t remember?” she asked in surprise, then hugged me even tighter. “Thank God. Thank God.”
“The priest here says he found ya in the alley behind the bar,” Doc said, coming into the doorway. “Says he thought you’d want him to bring you back here instead of the hospital.” His voice was laced with suspicion, and I couldn’t help the relief that ran through me. He didn’t believe it. He knew something was off.
“I’m just glad I was takin’ de short cut to Mum’s from de church,” Kevie said, his jaw clenching.
“I’m so glad yer home,” Peg whispered into my ear, “What would I have done? My poor girl.”
“I’m a little hungry,” I lied, leaning away from Peg’s arms. “And I’d really like a shower.”
“Of course!” she shot up from the bed, jostling my arm. “I’ll start some breakfast.”
She left the room and I turned to Doc, who hadn’t left his post. “Can I have a minute with Kevie?”
He stared at me for a long moment, and I honestly thought he was going to refuse, but then with a small nod of his head, he stepped out of the doorway.
“Why did you lie?” I asked, knowing from the shadow outside the door that Doc hadn’t gone far.
“If ye try to—” Kevie shook his head and stuffed his rosary beads into his pocket. “Do not go against me brudder,” he warned, “Ye’ll not come out of it unharmed.”
“I have nothing to lose.”
“Ye cannot honestly believe dat,” he argued.
“I could send him to prison.”
“Yer delusional,” he hissed leaning forward until I was forced to move back or our faces would be touching. “De police in Ballyshannon wouldn’t even arrest him, ye bloody idiot. No one would believe yer word over Malcolm’s. No one.”
“But they’d believe you. You’re a priest. They’d believe you.” I pointed out quietly, watching as his face moved from a pleading expression to completely void of emotion.
“I’ll not help ye put me brudder in prison,” he said resolutely, standing from his chair. “Keep yer accusations to yerself if ye know what’s good for ye.”
He left the room as I began to panic.
I had no recourse. There was absolutely nothing I could do. I couldn’t go to the police, Patrick wasn’t there, Charlie and Vera were gone… and I’d have to live knowing that at any time, Malcolm could come back to me.
Suddenly, I was overcome with a wave of disgust and I frantically pushed the blankets away from my body with my good hand. As I stood from the bed, the sore flesh between my thighs burned in protest, and I felt tears burn the backs of my eyes. I smelled like urine and sex.
“Need help?” Doc asked, looking at me kindly.
“I want to take a shower.” I lifted my right hand up to run it through my hair, and that’s when I finally remembered that it was gone. Tears dripped down my face as I looked at Doc. “I forgot,” I explained, running my fingers lightly over the patchy hair on my head. “It looks bad, doesn’t it?”
“You won’t be winning any beauty pageants,” he confirmed, “but it’ll grow back. Hair ain’t nothin’ worth worrying
about.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but what was the point? It was gone.
“I’ll shave the rest off, if you want. It’s gotta be better than having patches all over like that.”
I think I nodded, and I didn’t resist as he ushered me toward the bathroom.
I’ll never know what he said to Peg that day when he went to get me painkillers from the kitchen, but I do know that she never bothered us as he shaved my head with a cheap razor from beneath the bathroom sink. He was careful. His hands touched me as little as possible, and when they did, it was as if I’d break at any minute.
I’m not sure why I didn’t balk at Doc helping me shower. Maybe it was because he treated me like a child. Maybe it was the air of calm that he exuded. More than likely, I was still in shock. For whatever reason, I didn’t panic once as he turned on the shower and sat on the toilet seat to help me get undressed.
My hand was pretty much useless; any time I moved it, I had to force myself not to gasp in pain, so Doc had to do most of the work. After he removed my shirt and bra, he pulled my pants to my ankles and helped me step out of them.
“Christ!” he hissed as he tried to remove my underwear next.
I began to shake as he wrapped his big hands around my hips and dropped his head forward in sorrow.
“I thought maybe—but then you didn’t say nothin’ so I hoped—” His voice was strained as he shook his head slowly from side to side. “I should have stripped you down while you were out,” he said to himself. “I fuckin’ knew better.”
I was thankful he hadn’t stripped me while I was unconscious. Who knows how I would have reacted to that on top of everything else?
“Thank you,” I said in a small voice, laying my good hand on the top of his head. “Thank you for leaving my clothes on.”
“Don’t thank me!” his words were harsh, but his hands were still gentle on my hips. “Motherfuckingsonofabitch!”
He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as I stood awkwardly in front of him, and after a few moments, his calm façade was back.