Page 212 of Speechless
Brooks cleared his throat. “Your pack has been emotionally, mentally, verbally, and sometimes physically abusing Trinity since she was eight years old.”
Liz sucked in a breath, her eyes going wide. “Is that true?” The question was directed at me.
It felt like it took every piece of strength I’d ever gathered to speak again. “Yes.”
“See?” Matt hissed. “Lies.”
“Cecil,” Aiden said. “Why don’t you follow us and see for yourself?” He strode out of the kitchen, and we followed. Logan scooped me up because my legs shook too much for me to move quickly. I didn’t bother to wonder how Aiden knew where he was going. Knowing him, he’d looked up the floor plans of the house as soon as I’d told them all the truth.
Val burst out of the kitchen as soon as she saw where Aiden was leading him. She held out her hands and blocked the stairs. “No. You agreed. That wing is ours.”
“I did. I never said I wouldn’t step foot in it. Move, Val.”
“I will not.”
Never in my life had I heard my father’s voice sound like this. Low and nearly feral. “I have no idea what the fuck is going on, Valerie, but this isn’t the way to convince me that it’snothing. Move.”
Aiden simply picked her up and set her back down a few feet away. She tried to hit him, but Aiden was a rock. “The eastern guest room.” Dad didn’t wait for an invitation. He was halfway up the stairs before the rest of us started moving.
My body tightened out of instinct and memory. It was okay. I wasn’t going into the closet. I’d never have to go into it again, or even come back to this house if I didn’t want to, and it gave me just enough space to breathe.
Ahead of us, Dad shoved the door to the guest room open and went in. He stood staring at the closet. It was closed and locked, but pretty clearly notnormal. Not with a lock that big and a door that looked like it belonged in a bank vault.
“What’s the code?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. Not that it would have helped me if I did. You couldn’t enter the code from the inside.
He pushed to the door and yelled past the rest of us. “One of the three of you better getthe fuckup here and tell me this code, I swear to god.”
“I’m sure I could find something to break it,” Aiden said mildly. “Or blow it open.”
I smiled at him in spite of everything. He never let a chance for mischief or destruction pass by without notice.
“There’s nothing you need to see in there. It’s private property.” Val stood in front of the closet and crossed her arms. “It’s not a crime to have a closet with a lock.”
“Yeah, but it is to lock someone inside,” Theo muttered.
Dad’s head snapped toward Theo and slid slowly back toward Val like a sniper taking aim. “Open the door, or I will rip it off the hinges with my bare hands.”
Paige slid behind Val and put in the code before Val grabbed her away. “What are you doing?”
“Do you really think this is goingwell, Val?” she sighed. “The best thing you can do is get it over with.”
Dad pushed her aside and hauled open the door to find my own personal hell. Small, dark, soundproof, locked. There was still a small blanket in the corner I’d stashed in there one time when it was open, so I could be a little more comfortable when it happened again.
“What have you done?” He asked.
Val rolled her eyes. “We didn’t do anything, Cecil. All we did was ask Trinity to be quiet and keep to herself when guests were over. She understood. It was voluntary.”
“Voluntary?” My voice creaked, but it was there. “You’re joking, right?”
The look she sent my way was filled with malice. “Yes. Voluntary. Tell him.”
Logan set me on my feet, feeling that I finally had the strength to do this. The secret was out, and I was free. “Was it voluntary when you locked me in my room during your parties? When you stole things from me?” I looked at Dad. “Like that boombox you bought me. I didn’t break it. Val took it because I was being ‘too loud.’
“Was it voluntary when you and Matt duct-taped my hands, feet, and mouth and shoved me inyourcloset for hours? Was it voluntary when you shoved me in that tiny space, even when I said I would leave so you could have your party in peace? Was it voluntary when you sealed the window in my bedroom so I couldn’t leave that way, and you locked me in there without food many, many times?
“You know, I write for a living. And there’s a lot of people, especially right now, who think I’m pretty damn good at my job, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say I know what the wordvoluntarymeans. None of it was.”
