Page 21 of Summer Ride

She closed her eyes for a moment then nodded slightly.

“Well, I’m not. So…” He motioned for her to go ahead. “I’m listening.”

She glanced around and then pointed to a bench swing.

He took her hand, and they walked over to sit down next to one another in silence.

“I was raised in a very strict religious family. My parents…” She shifted slightly as if uncomfortable in the seat. “Their philosophy was spare the rod, spoil the child.”

“You mentioned as much. Did they abuse you?” he asked with a frown.

Her eyes met his. “Not really. Yes, I was spanked. Often.” She rolled her eyes. “But I’d describe what they did physically to me as punishment, not abuse.”

He nodded. “Go on.”

“One night, shortly after my thirteenth birthday, I’d gotten in trouble yet again. After being spanked and sent to bed without dinner, I cried myself to sleep. I didn’t wake up when someone came into my room in the middle of the night. They lifted me up and carried me out of my bedroom window, away from my home. From the family that, even though they had treated me badly, at least had kept me safe.”

“You were kidnapped?” he asked, interrupting her.

Her eyes met his as she nodded slowly.

“I woke in a strange room, with a strange man removing my clothes.” She turned away from him.

His entire body tensed as he awaited her next words.

“That night, that first time…” She turned to him. “That was Axel. I vaguely remembered seeing him around the church a few times. He told me over and over again through the next three years that I belonged to him. How I was made for him. That I was sent by God to be his property. When we traveled, he hid me from sight. If anyone ever saw us, I was instructed to say that he was my brother since he was a few years older than I was. It was about a year after he kidnapped me that he sold me to someone else for the first time. Then, I guess, he got used to the extra money. And, well, there was a high demand for someone as young as I was.”

She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, and he reached over and took her hand. Wrapping his fingers around hers, he held back the urge to hunt down Axel and kill the man.

Since she suspected that it was him leaving her notes, he knew he may still get his chance to do just that.

“In the following years, my soul and will to live were ripped from me, along with everything else I believed. I did what I had to in order to survive. I learned how to behave. I had become indoctrinated for survival. I had become the evil my parents had expected me to be. I did things that I knew would keep me alive.”

“All of your scars are from him?” he asked, tracing one of the fine white lines that covered her arms and hands.

She nodded. “He liked to cut. Nothing too deep, just enough to make me cry or scream. I learned how to hold in my pain. When I did, he found other ways to punish and control me.”

“How did you escape?” he asked when she grew quiet.

“Almost three years after being kidnapped from my home, I was discovered in a dirty hotel room.”

He felt her shiver and wrapped his arm around her. The night had chilled some, but he figured it was her story that had her shivering.

“You’re safe now,” he said under his breath.

“It felt like it went on forever,” she said in a strained tone.

“It sounds like you took as much as you could. No child should ever have to go through something like you did. Ever. Let alone for years.”

She was silent. “A hotel guest heard screams and called the police.”

“What happened?”

Her eyes moved back to the darkness, the moonlight reflecting on the water. He too turned towards the scene as he held onto her.

“I told the police who I was. They… didn’t believe me at first. They didn’t take my word because of how young I was.”

“You were how old?”