Craving Redemption

  Cody wasn’t helping my peace of mind, either. He’d begun calling me a couple times a week, and though I couldn’t put my finger on it, something was wrong. He never told me what was going on, but he wasn’t the happy and teasing brother I’d known all my life. He was moody and acted like he didn’t want to talk even though he was the one who made the call. I felt like I was walking on eggshells every time we spoke because anything could set him off, and when it did, he’d hang up and I’d have to wait almost a week for another call while he ignored all my attempts to contact him.

  With both my remaining family members causing me to lose sleep at night, it took me a while before I noticed the change in Farrah. At first it was little things that could be easily overlooked—a day without makeup, or letting an extra week go by before she touched up the roots of her blonde hair. But soon, things were worse, and that’s when I began to worry. She was showing up at my house at all hours of the night, high as a kite, just to pass out on the couch. The bones in her chest were becoming more pronounced and her boobs became almost non-existent as she lost more and more weight. Even with fully fixed makeup, she couldn’t hide the dark sunken circles beneath her eyes.

  She was scaring me, and she wouldn’t let me help her.

  I was thinking of all those things, driving home, and trying to decide how I’d pack the house when Asa called me.

  “Hey, baby.”

  “Callie. How was your last day, sweetheart?” his voice never failed to cause a little dip in my belly.

  “It went good! Rhonda seems to fit right in. Damn, I’m glad to be finally out of there.”

  “You and me both, Sugar. I hated you working at that place.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I snickered, pulling into my apartment’s parking lot. “I’m not there anymore, so quit bitching.”

  Whatever he said next was completely lost when I looked toward my building and the noise of my heartbeat started thrumming in my ears.

  “Asa, I have to go,” I interrupted, slamming the car in park and fighting to get out of my seatbelt.

  “The fuck is wrong, Callie?” he snapped frantically, his end of the line rustling with movement.

  “Farrah,” I choked out before stuffing my phone into my pocket and jumping out of the car.

  She was sitting awkwardly, halfway up the stairs to my apartment, cradling one arm and staring at me through two swollen black eyes. Her clothes were clean, but her shirt was hanging haphazardly across her chest, with one arm through the sleeve and the other sitting on her shoulder, and yoga pants that she’d sworn she’d never wear out of the house sagging at her skinny waist.

  I stumbled toward her, willing myself not to cry as she tried to stand.

  “I have my key but I couldn’t get up the stairs,” she lisped brokenly, her split lips tilting a little in a grimacing smile.

  “Oh my God, Farrah! Don’t move!’ I snapped, racing to her spot on the stairs as she swayed drunkenly.

  When I reached her, I wasn’t sure where to touch her to stabilize her. I threw my arms out around her, grabbing the railing to brace myself in case she started falling toward me.

  “Can you make it down if I help you?” I asked her gently, searching her face for the truth. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

  “No hospital.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I screeched, causing her to startle and wince.

  “Just get me inside, okay? I need to sit down,” she mumbled back, turning gently until she was facing up the stairs. When she turned, I noticed bruises all over her back and her messy hair caked with dried blood.

  Oh God.

  I swallowed against the rising need to scream in horror and followed her as she slowly made her way up the stairs, only swaying back against me once before she took another step. She shuffled to my front door slowly, using one arm to brace against the wall as I watched in silence.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  When we got inside and I’d situated her on the couch, I rushed to the bedroom and called the one person I knew could fix anything.

  “Asa?” I gasped, rifling through my toiletries to find first-aid supplies.

  “What’s going on, Calliope? Talk to me, Sugar.”

  His soothing voice broke a hole in the wall of my emotions and they all came pouring out.

  “Farrah,” I sobbed, trying to catch my breath. “She’s—God. Somebody beat the hell out of her!”

  “Who?” he thundered, his voice deepening in a way I’d only heard once before on the porch of my grandmother’s house.

  “I don’t know!” I sobbed back, still searching in vain for Band-Aids or gauze. “I just got her in the house and called you. She won’t go to the hospital and I don’t know that to do!”

  “Callie,” he snapped back, “you need to get your shit together right now. You hear me?”

  “Yes,” I gasped, nodding as I wiped my nose on the shoulder of my shirt.

  “You don’t need to do shit. Okay?” he told me gently. “You just be there; make sure she’s got anything she needs. Is she bleeding?”

  “Her hair has blood in it, but it looks like it’s all scabbed over.” Why the hell was I looking for Band-Aids?

  “Okay, that’s good, baby. That’s really good.” He paused for a moment and I heard his breathing stutter as I imagined him running his hand down his face. “I’ll make some calls. You make sure the door is locked and don’t open it for anyone but my boys.”

  “Okay. I’ll just—” I walked around my room with no destination, my mind running in a thousand different directions.

  “Callie! Go check on your friend and lock the goddamn door.”

  “Okay. Doing that now,” I told him calmly, squaring my shoulders before stepping out of the room.

  “I’ll call you back. I love you.” He hung up before I could say anything back.

  I checked the door first and then went to Farrah, who hadn’t moved an inch.

  “I’m not sure how I can help you,” I whispered, kneeling at her feet. “Should I get an icepack?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” she told me cockily, her lisp belying the words. “I just need to sleep it off. It’ll be like ten times better tomorrow.”

  “Farrah!” I snapped back, frustrated that even when she was sitting on my couch beaten bloody, she still refused to let me in. “I think your arm is fucking broken.”

  “Oh,” she seemed bewildered as she gazed down at her arm and then back to my face, her eyes filling with tears for the first time. “Yeah, it might be.”

  “Yeah, baby girl,” I told her gently, my own nose tingling with tears. “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Okay.” She looked around the living room as if searching for something, and then her swollen eyes found me again. “What am I gonna do?”

  I wasn’t sure if she was in shock or just completely overwhelmed, but in that instant, she was a child—a broken and scared child—and she was looking at me like I’d protect her. My chest filled with purpose, and for the first time since my parents’ death, I stepped into that role. It was an almost burning sensation—a fierce need that filled me.

  From that moment on, I would kill to protect her.

  I would die to protect her.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” I reassured her, pulling off her dirty flip flops. It seemed her feet were the only things that had escaped the trauma. “I called Grease and he’s going to send some boys over.”

  “No!” she screeched, her entire body tensing. “Nononononono.”

  “Why?” I asked firmly, my stomach sinking.

  “Not Echo,” she told me beseechingly. “Just not Echo, okay?”

  My heart started to race at the implications of her request. Holy hell.

  “Why not, baby girl?” I asked quietly, bracing for her answer.

  She sniffled quietly for a few minutes before answering.

  “I don’t want him to see me like this,” she whispered piteously, her eyes begging me to keep him
away.

  I wanted to sigh in relief that Echo wasn’t responsible, but I couldn’t. Someone had beaten her so badly that her arm was broken. There was no relief in that.

  “He only sees me when I’m pretty,” she whimpered, leaning toward me to get her point across. “He won’t want me anymore. I’ll have nowhere to go.”

  Her words were like a punch to the stomach. I wanted to argue, to tell her that he’d seen her getting skinnier and skinnier and it hadn’t seemed to matter. I wanted to tell her that at my birthday party she’d had lipstick on her teeth, and he’d still watched her like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Instead, I just shook my head.

  “You stay with me,” I told her, squeezing her feet in my hands.

  “You’re moving with Grease—”

  “You. Stay. With. Me,” I said again, my voice resolute.

  She nodded her head, but didn’t say anything as someone started pounding on the door.

  “Don’t let him see me!” she whispered frantically, like the men in the hallway could actually hear her over all the noise they were making.

  I nodded and stood up, wondering how I was going to keep Echo out of my house. I shouldn’t have assumed that I had any say in the matter.

  I looked through the peephole and opened the door to Michael and Echo on my welcome mat.

  “Where is she?” Echo asked frantically, crowding me as I refused to budge from the doorway.

  “She doesn’t want to see you,” I told him apologetically, wincing when his panicked eyes came to mine. “You need to go.”

  His face turned bright red in anger, looking at me in disbelief.

  “Callie, I know that you’re looking out for her. I respect the hell outta you for that,” he told me through gritted teeth, very obviously trying to hold his temper. “But that’s my woman in there, and if you don’t move, I don’t care who you are, I’ll knock your ass out.”

  I stood there for a moment weighing my options, but I must not have come to a decision fast enough, because soon he was literally picking me up and moving me to the side.

  I was happy he hadn’t decided to ‘knock my ass out’.

  I raced around the couch after him, anxious to be a barrier for Farrah if she needed it. But I would forever wish I hadn’t.

  Because I had a front row seat when he stopped in front of her, frozen.

  And I watched as he dropped to his knees and roared in pain and anger.

  I wanted to turn away, but the whole thing was like a beautiful train wreck. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

  “Don’t look at me!” Farrah cried, her breath coming in harsh sobs. “Don’t look at me! I’m ugly. Don’t look at me.” Her voice quieted into a whimper as she held her uninjured hand over her face.

  Echo made a choking sound and instantly scooted between her legs on the couch, whispering to her gently.

  “Baby. You’re always beautiful… I need you to look at me, Farrah.” His voice was rough with tears as he pulled gently at her hand and Farrah dropped it to her lap in defeat. “Aw, baby. Shhhh.”

  She was crying in earnest, and the overwhelming sadness on her face had tears rolling down mine.

  “I called you,” she choked, searching his eyes. “I called you. Where were you?”

  He made a sound like a wounded animal and dropped his head into her lap. Sobbing.

  Farrah raised her head and met my eyes, her message clear. I nodded, walked completely out of the house, and sat next to Michael at the top of the stairs.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I told him quietly.

  He threw his arm around my shoulders and kissed the side of my head. “She’s got her man and yours is on his way. Only thing you can do is wait.”

  Chapter 44

  Callie

  Echo convinced Farrah to go to the hospital, but she refused to let him take her.

  I ended up driving her with Michael crammed into the backseat of my car for protection. They didn’t want us going alone, but I didn’t understand why Michael rode with us because I watched Echo ride behind us on his motorcycle the entire way there.

  The doctors and nurses tried over and over to get answers from Farrah, but she wasn’t talking. She wouldn’t tell anyone. The scene with her and Echo stayed in my mind, though, and I wondered if he knew more than he was saying—not that I could ask him. I’d lost him in the emergency room parking lot and hadn’t seen him since.

  It took hours, but they eventually sent Farrah home with me because she refused to stay overnight at the hospital. She told me she couldn’t afford to stay there, but there was an underlying reason in her eyes that I couldn’t interpret.

  We held hands and cried as they took photos of her naked body. She wouldn’t let me go, and I was glad. I didn’t think I could let go, either. She had bruises covering her legs and torso, and there were crusted-over welts on her small breasts that looked like cigarette burns. The blood in her hair had come from a small cut on the back of her head that didn’t even need stitches, and both bones in her forearm were broken. The bruises on her back and bottom were even worse than those on her front, and to top it all off, she was emaciated to the point that I could count every single one of her ribs.

  More than once during the whole documentation process I had to swallow back my urge to vomit.

  They set her arm and bandaged her the best they could before we left, and I was thankful for the strong injection of pain medicine she was given. She’d fallen asleep in the wheelchair before we reached the outside door which was probably for the best because Echo was waiting for us. I watched him closely as he carried her like a baby to the car.

  The guilt he felt was like a fog hovering around him.

  By the time we got home, it was the middle of the night and Asa was due within a few hours. It drove me crazy that he was riding his bike through the night, but he would have laughed at me if I’d said anything. I trusted that he knew what he was doing and left it at that. I was selfish enough to need him with me, no matter how he had to get there.

  I made Echo put Farrah in our bed for the night even though he argued that she should go home with him. I knew she wouldn’t want that, even unconscious, and I found myself sneering at him that he had no way to move her. He’d done something. I didn’t know what, but I knew that he was guilty. He wasn’t taking her anywhere.

  A few hours later, Farrah woke up moaning, and I was sitting on the edge of the bed with her when Asa showed up. There was no emotion on his face as he walked forward, looking at both of us closely before leaning in for a kiss.

  “You okay, Sugar?” he asked softly into my mouth.

  “Better, now that you’re here.”

  “Good,” he answered gruffly before turning to Farrah.

  “Damn, girl. I hope the other guy looks worse,” he teased her softly.

  “Killed that bitch,” she replied with a small smile.

  “Yeah?” he questioned seriously, his voice still soft.

  “No,” she moaned back as her face crumpled and tears began running down her cheeks.

  “Well, I’ll take care of that for you,” he promised with a nod, causing Farrah to nod back.

  I gave Farrah her pain medicine and followed Asa out of the room, closing the door quietly. Before I could move down the hallway, he was in my face, pushing me against the wall and running his hands all over my body.

  “Fuck, Callie,” he whispered. “Fuck. Fuck.”

  “I know,” I whispered back, putting my hands on his cheeks. “She’s okay. I’m okay.”

  He kissed me long and deep, pressing my head into the wall until he was calm enough to pull back.

  “She said anything to you?” he asked, locking his arm around my shoulder as he guided us toward the living room.

  “No,” I hesitated for a moment, “but I think Echo knows something.”

  His eyes shot to me in disbelief before nodding that he understood. Things were not going to go well for Echo if he had anything to do wi
th what happened to Farrah.

  We swerved toward the kitchen when we saw the guys standing by the counter, and Asa leaned against the wall across from them, pulling my back against his chest so he could wrap both arms over my shoulders.

  “You got something to tell me, Echo?” he asked calmly, watching Echo with an unnerving intensity.

  “No,” Echo stuttered back, his brows furrowed in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “Seems you know something you aren’t saying.”

  Echo gulped and opened and closed his mouth a few times before dropping his eyes to the floor.

  “That stepdad of hers is a member,” Michael cut in, his eyes swinging back and forth between the other men in the kitchen. “Echo came to us about him a few months back and said something wasn’t right with the dude.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Farrah wasn’t talkin’, but shit, all of us saw the way she was fuckin’ wastin’ away. So we had a little talk with the man, tried to feel him out a bit without steppin’ on any toes.”

  I scoffed, but went silent when Asa squeezed me in warning.

  “So, everything’s fine for a while, but Farrah’s not coming around as often, and Echo here’s getting worried. Then one night, outta the blue, she shows up on his doorstep, soakin’ wet and wearin’ nothing but her pajamas.” He paused for a moment, glancing away from Asa’s stare, and when he looked back his eyes were pained. “She’d locked herself in the bathroom at home and had to turn on the shower to hide the noise of opening the window… The whole story came out that night. Seems Farrah’s mom was beating the shit outta her while her old man watched, and all the while, Gator’s been eying Farrah like a prime cut o’ meat.”