Bombshells ~ Complete

Chapter Fifty-One: In The First Place

I waited until I could hear my father speaking to someone, before allowing Lila to say anything. She hadn't been able to form words, but when she was, I hissed a Don't Even Think About It look in her direction. She shut her mouth after that.

"Are you telling me that I married a murder?" Lila whimpered, fear shaking her voice. I wanted to say something that would comfort her, but I didn't know what words to use. I mean, I had lived with the fact that my father was a monster for my entire life. Lila didn't have the faintest idea of what she was marrying into.

"Don't feel bad. Some people never find out." I told her with a shrug. There was a faint gasp from somewhere. They weren't expecting me to be so blunt. But with the situation we were in, I didn't have time to play nice.

"Ariel, I am so sorry. I can't believe what I said and what I did." Lila mumbled, shaking her head as she stared at the ground. I heard my father saying something that sounded way too much like a goodbye. I tensed, knowing what was to come.

"We can talk about that later. Right now, you are going to listen to me very closely. I can only keep him distracted for so long. How long until someone realizes you're missing?" I asked, my voice coming out frantic and worried. Lila instantly heard the terror coloring my voice and started thinking.

"I have a meeting with some CEO in Japan. I'm informing him that I'm going to be the owner by midnight so he needed to vacate. It's in four hours. I never just don't show up to work. I always call or text in some excuse." Lila whispered, panic etched into the very lines of her face.

I tried to move my tongue around in my mouth, moisten my lips so that I would have the ability to speak coherent sentences.

My father's joyful whistle was getting closer.

"Don't do anything until someone finds us. Don't speak, don't move. Just do whatever I say and you'll survive." I snapped, turning away from Lila and the boys I could see on that side, just in time for my father to enter the room. His whistling stopped, but he smiled at me with that all too happy smile he wore whenever he won.

"Ariel, informing them of my nastier hobby?" He asked. I shook my head, trying not to cause anymore pain than what would already happen. My father was intimidated by the boys, so even though he would feel the need to beat them, he was angry at me. The compulsion to beat me would be much stronger.

He hated screaming. And with that crowbar, it looked like he would be causing a lot of it. The boys wouldn't be able to handle the pain without screaming, which meant he would beat them and beat them and beat them. His arm would have to be numb for him to stop. Or the boys would have to be dead.

"Elli, let us go and it can go back to the way it was. Just you, me, the kids." Lila whispered hopefully. She really wanted to get herself smacked around, didn't she?

I winced at the sound of flesh hitting flesh. But it wasn't Lila he was hitting. It was Jaydon. Jaydon was leaning forward, using his shoulder to hold the cheek that had just been slapped harshly by my father. The other boys were yelling expletives and screaming words I couldn't even comprehend.

Who knew their vocabulary was so immense.

My father sighed and shook his head. He pointed the crowbar at me, signalling for me to get a handle on the situation or I would be next. I gulped. Nothing I would say would be able to stop the boy's fierce nature to protect their baby brother.

"Stop screaming! He'll hurt Jaydon more if you don't be quiet!" I yelled, none too gently. The whole room went silent enough to where you could hear a pin drop. I gulped once more, even though my mouth felt like it was filled with cotton balls. I had never been this afraid of my father's wrath.

"I know that it hurts the older ones more to see the younger ones suffer. Isn't that right, Ariel?" Father asked with a condescending smile. Memories flashed through my mind at the speed of light, one flickering right into the next one.

Mom screaming for him to stop when he smacked me around the face when I was four His belt striking my back when I five and mom's salty tears hitting the top of my head but her hands too far away to help. The knife trailing down my arm as mom stood there, numb to everything around her. The boiling water making the skin of my back bubble and burst and peel away only to reveal my bones when I was eight, as mom stood there and watched, doing nothing but rocking back and forth slowly.

I knew exactly how hurting the ones we loved could hurt the others worse than any physical pain. I knew that all too well. And father knew that. He was taunting me; begging me to give him a reason to beat me.

"Ariel, what's he talking about?" Lila muttered, looking at me with wide, fearful, pained eyes. It was as if she had felt her son's pain as her own. I didn't doubt that she had.

"Don't hurt them. They can't take the pain. Hurt me. I can take all the pain you dish out and more." I said persuasively. He didn't like screaming. It made him mad. He knew I could keep my mouth shut, knew I would take the pain without a complaint as long as the other's weren't being put in harms way.

I was telling him everything he wanted to hear.

"Sounds fair to me." He shrugged calmly, before swinging the crowbar at my knee. I buckled forward at the intense, blazing pain in my leg, but kept my mouth shut. There was a shocked silence from our little audience, but they knew better than to say anything this time around.

"And here I thought you didn't like toys?" I grunted, trying to shake off the pain as best as I could. I was lucky I had years of experience with taking pain and ignoring it, or else I would have been a screaming mess.

I didn't know why I taunted him. I didn't know why I opened my mouth.

Maybe it was because he was threatening my step-mom and brothers? Maybe it was because I'd had enough of dealing with pain for so long without ever opening my mouth?

Whatever the reason, from the look on his face, I knew I should've never said anything in the first place.