Page 12 of Frost Bitten
“I don’t remember much, but I do remember coming home one Friday in ninth grade, and Jason had left. Mom said at the time he was leaving us, and he was just gone. He’d packed a small bag and disappeared. I was shocked, but I wasn’t entirely upset. I did feel bad for Mom, though. I was sad that she was without a partner. Everyone left her, so I vowed that day that I wouldn’t ever leave. The next day, she decided we needed a change of scenery, and we went and bought a travel trailer. We packed up and left the house that Sunday. We stayed local overnight, because she had to go to our schools to withdraw us, and she immediately enrolled us in homeschooling through the state of Georgia.”
“She told me she felt keeping us without a permanent address would keep us safe. We stayed on the road for about nine months while the lawyers prepared for the abuse charges. But it was that fall we returned to Georgia. Once the trial was over, and we knew Jason was in prison, she said she finally felt at peace. Mom decided that the road life was for us, considering Lily and I had adapted so well.”
I take a deep breath, before continuing my story. “After another year or so on the road, we finally settled in Vermont. My time in Killington was ok. Lots of things I liked. I made a few casual friends, but no one I ever felt close with like Ella,” I say, grabbing her hand. I turn to her, giving her a wan smile, and she reflects the same back to me. “Shortly after we settled down, Mom filed for divorce. I do remember the divorce clearly, because obviously Jason wasn’t there. He hired lawyers to represent him, but I wasn’t involved beyond the one day I was brought in to testify. That day at the courthouse was the only involvement I had in the divorce proceedings since I was still in school with advanced classes. I ended up getting ahead in credits and took community college courses during high school. By the time I graduated, I was one semester away from my Bachelor’s Degree.”
“In high school, Mom took me to the doctor to get birth control. The doctor said it was because my periods were off – severe symptoms and unpredictable, but I also think Mom was protecting me at the time. I didn’t question why then, but I was starting to get kind of promiscuous, and even though I always used condoms, I think Mom wanted a backup for me.”
“I never had a real boyfriend during the two years I was there. I met guys, flirted, and went on dates, but none of it lasted long. I guess I never felt connected with any of them. They never made an effort to stay with me, either. I mostly just had hookups. I did notice that my body was different when it came to sex. Well, I assumed based on what I’d heard from other people and their descriptions of sex. I just thought I was broken. I’ve had such lackluster sexual experiences, that is, until…” I glanced up under my lashes, meeting Corey’s eyes. The solemn look on his face told me he was listening intently, but when my eyes met his, that jade gaze sparkled with the heated memories of just a few weeks ago.
“Around this same time, I also started developing debilitating nightmares. Being chased and assaulted, I couldn’t remember specifics after a day or so. But it started affecting my personality on a daily basis, so Mom started taking me to see a Counselor. Dr. Bayird was a godsend, I actually just stopped seeing her virtually after I moved here. She helped me, so the nightmares stopped almost altogether by the time I graduated from high school.”
“Anyway, Mom packed us up in January just before my birthday, and once more we were on the road. We traveled the South this time, settling in Miami for the summer. She applied for her job at Lockheed shortly after we arrived in May, not thinking she would get it. After a lengthy interview process, though, she was hired. That’s why we had to pack up and move that first week of August. That day we ran into you, Corey,” I peer over at him again, then turn to find Cam. “That was our first full day in town.”
I take another deep breath, and then whisper to Ella, “Can you see if the wet bar has any bottles of water?” She nods, crossing the room on her mission, and I continue my story. “So now that I’ve caught you up on the backstory, let’s move forward. We settled in, enjoying our new life here in Golden. Mom was immediately welcomed into her new job, and we enrolled Lily in that independent school around the corner from our apartment. I enrolled in UC Golden’s School of Business to start working on my graduate courses. I met you all and started working at Lift, and everything was going wonderfully.” Ella crossed back to the love seat, passing me the cold water bottle. I open it, taking a long gulp, before moving on.
“That’s when I made the mistake of thinking my life was finally going to turn out good,” I sigh. “First, I get called into Dean Sanchez’s office, and he tells me I’m being removed from the School of Business starting next semester until I can make up ten different courses. For some reason, even though counselors and registrars all saw my transcripts, it was determined six weeks after the semester began that my credit hours for those courses would not be accepted. So, now I’m stuck. I paid for those courses with the credit hours available from my dad’s GI Bill that he left for me. I don't have the savings to retake those courses.
“Then, I started having strange feelings. Like I was being watched. It was crazy. It still happens, but now I know why… Anyway, somewhere around mid-October, I had to leave work early one day to rush to Lily’s school. The school couldn’t reach Mom, and they needed someone to come as soon as possible, so I went straight there. Turns out, a strange man showed up there, talking to children on the playground and asking about Lily. We found out later that it was Jason, my former stepdad and Lily’s biological father. He has no legal right to her based on the divorce and custody hearings and my assault case against him, and Mom explained this to me later that night. Mom explained alotto me that night.”
“It turns out that when Mom took me to Dr. Bayird for the nightmares, regular therapy didn’t help. I went daily to see her at one point, but nothing was working. The nightmares I was having were about when Jason abused me. They were so vivid…” I pause, needing a moment. I lean my head onto my hand propped up on the arm of the love seat. Ella reassuringly rubs my back, leaning in to hug me. I crack open my water bottle and take another sip before I breathe deeply and continue. “The dreams I had at the time were so vivid, they would cause panic attacks during the day. Dr. Bayird couldn’t work on the therapy to recover from the grooming, molestation, and sexual abuse at the hands of Jason until I couldstophaving panic attacks. So she suggested hypnotherapy. I don’t know the details, but basically, all of that was associated with a trigger of some sort, and as long as I wasn’t triggered, Dr. Bayird was able to work with me on emotional recovery. A lot of my memories from those years when Jason was with us, and after, have disappeared due to the therapy. I couldn’t handle those memories, and evidently, therapy helped me block them so I could move on. I have no idea if I’ll ever get them back, or if I even want to.”
“Mom had to explain this to me because once I told her Jason was in town, and he attempted to take Lily, she knew he wanted me. Lily was only a tool, a pawn to use to get to me.” I sigh, knowing this is about to become more difficult.
“The night we all went to Purgatory, I dropped my phone as we were getting into the car. I know that’s not a huge deal, but that’s why I was unreachable. I didn’t have a phone.”
“I didn’t think it took that long to get a replacement,” Cam gruffs from the corner of the room.
“Generally, it wouldn’t. What delayed my claim being submitted was that night. You four surrounded me and I ran, overwhelmed by all of you. You all are tall as shit and intimidating.”
“When Ella took me home that night, fuck… Mom told me that we’d had a break-in. She and Lily were out at Target that night when it happened. But when I got home, I saw everything. He’d brought photographs of me, from my childhood and from my time in Killington, and he’d completely covered my room in these photographs. He’d painted ‘I’ve found you, Little One’ in what looked like blood on a pile of the photos, and then he’d emptied my underwear drawer on my bed, and jerked himself off all over the pile of panties. I was so disgusted. It took us several days of packing up things in order to move to another apartment, and we hired someone to come clean out the crime scene.”
“But what I’m about to say will explain my delay. By the time I was able to get into the cell phone store, it was Sunday. My new phone arrived on Thursday, I think? This past week has been… a lot.” I close my eyes because the next few things have been haunting my nightmares as of late.
Taking a deep breath, I continue. “Does anyone have any questions? I’m able to take a break to answer any you may have before I get started on Halloween night.” I take in the room, and every single man has their eyes downcast. None of them say a word, and I think they are finally grasping what I’ve been through. “Ok, well, I obviously didn’t work at all after the break-in. I had too much to do, trying to help organize the move between apartments. Our management company worked with us, considering the security risk. They got us into the next open apartment, and let us have the keys to both for over a week. That’s why, when you stopped by to see me, Corey, I wasn’t there.” He looks up, tears in his eyes. I give him a sad smile and say, “Yeah, Ella told me you stopped by.”
“When we met up on Halloween night, I wanted to tell you about what had been happening, but I knew that it wasn’t the right time. I wanted us all to have fun. I needed to be happy and not think about the chaos in my life. I had been having fun that night, at least at first. Then I felt you all pulling away from me, little by little. Cam,” I call, looking up at him. “We’d never been really close, but you practically avoided me that night. The rest of you made attempts to talk to me, but you never got close. Corey, I knew something was wrong, because you said you wanted to hog my attention when I first got there, and once we made it through the second haunted house, you didn’t even hold my hand the rest of the night.” I sigh, again, knowing what’s about to come up in conversation. “Once Ella and Ashton left to get her patched up after her fall, and we went into that dollhouse-themed haunted house…” I shiver, pausing to collect my strength. “I was so freaked out. I don’t know exactly when you all left, but I remember that creepy doll-filled bedroom, and then there was a dark room at the end with the jack-in-the-box, and the song that has definitely become a new nightmare. That song caused me to run, and I ran through the exit, not looking where I was going because I was so scared. When I finally stopped, none of you were behind me. I kept waiting, thinking I had just gotten too far ahead. But after ten minutes or so, I began to make my way around the corner of the exit, but it was just shadowed enough that he was able to grab me and carry me off.”
“Who, Cait?” Dominic sits up in his seat on the couch, hyper-focused on my response.
“Jason,” I say, and curses fill the room. Cam begins to pace again, stalking like the alpha I perceived him to be when I first met him. Sebastien just places his head in his hands, waiting for the next part. Corey is sitting still, staring at the ground with tears openly flowing down his face. He’s not hiding any of it, but no one in the room rebukes him.
“Jason wrapped an arm around me, with another covering my mouth, and then dragged me almost to the fence line so we were too far for anyone else to hear. He pushed me down and gagged me. He restrained me by binding my wrists and ankles with duct tape. He proceeded to destroy my clothes and molest me. He put his mouth all over me, his hands all over me. He unzipped my jeans and used those fabric shears EMTs use to cut clothing off for medical purposes to cut my panties at the thinnest part, the leg area of my bikini line. He then proceeded to jerk himself off, spraying his release all over my body and clothes, and then he pulled my pants down and yanked the remainder of my panties out from between my legs. He looked at my body, his cum all over me, and he wiped some of it up using the scrap of panties, and then sniffed it.”
“Fuck!” Cam roars, and then storms out, causing everyone to startle and turn toward his retreating form.
I let my head fall back, trying to let the stress escape my body enough to let me finish this story. “He told me I need to find a way to leave Mom and Lily so they won’t suspect anything, and come to him. Or he’ll go after them next. He said he was watching me and would know when I leave. Then he left, and by the time I freed myself, I was only able to straighten my clothing before getting sick.”
“And that’s it. That’s what I’ve been experiencing these past couple of weeks.” I take a shaky breath and let Ella pull me down to lie in her lap.
Corey is the first to react, crawling on the floor to kneel at Ella’s feet. He grasps my hands, tears still flowing freely down his face. “Sunshine, you continue to amaze me. I can’t believe you’ve been through all of that. You are a goddess of strength, a warrior. I don’t know if anyone else in this room could have come through this with the poise and composure that you have. I’m truly sorry I didn’t try harder, that I left you, that I went along and chose to abandon you. You had no one, and yet you’ve survived. I’m so sorry, Sunshine. I’ve been miserable without speaking to you, without knowing if you were going to be ok. I mean, I knew you would be ok, but the road was going to be bumpy… but I’m going to stop rambling. Will you forgive me? I’ll take every precious moment with you to make it up to you.”
I begin to cry softly at his earnestness. He never meant for me to get hurt, and I can see that. I nod quietly, but I don’t move to embrace him. I’m not moving at this point, and he can wait. Bast stands from his seat on the sofa and crouches beside Corey, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Angel,” he begins, but then he too sheds a tear. He sniffles and continues, “You are too strong. I just… I don’t know. I had no idea it was that bad. I’m so sorry. I hope you’ll find the strength in your heart to forgive us. We never wanted for this to happen…”
Corey stands and walks over to the bar to pour a glass of bourbon for himself, downing it, and pouring another. Bast takes my hand in his, ignoring his friend’s breakdown, and brings it to his soft lips. A chill runs through me at this gorgeous man’s gentleness, and I’m thankful it was him who approached me. He ducks his head, bringing his forehead down to my hand, and sits there in reverence for a moment. Finally, he lifts his sapphire eyes to mine, and I can see the truth in the words he spoke. I nod to Bast too, letting him know we will be ok eventually, and he stands to go rein in his friend.
I get up and fold the blanket, and excuse myself to the restroom. After all evening, my bladder was about to burst. Once I clean up, and return, Dominic approaches me. “Cait,” he speaks low, almost whispering. “I apologize for what part I played in the actions that caused you harm. I hope you know that our intent was never to put you in danger. Actually, we, the guys mostly, since I haven’t had the pleasure to communicate with you outside of incidental meetups, only wanted to try to pull you out of your shell. I also hope you will forgive me – us,” he quickly adds, looking to the door where Cameron stormed off. “He didn’t mean it either. I think he’s feeling guilty right now since he suggested leaving you in the haunted house. I know he’ll need to make amends on his own, but I hope you’ll be patient. Cam has had a hard life, struggling to always be the good kid, to make the grades, to get the awards. His failure – his decision that put you in danger – is now fully on his back, and I have no doubt that it’s going to take him time to process his anger at himself before he can approach you for forgiveness. If he ever even believes he deserves it.” Dominic bows his head, sadness for the whole situation overshadowing his mood.
“Dom, I get it. I believe that you all didn’t want me hurt. I will accept your apology, and yeah, maybe we can chat sometime. As for Cam, I can understand his anger at himself. He’s a very emotional person, and I can see those emotions run high pretty much all the time. I will be patient. I can see that he was distraught at what happened, and I’m not going anywhere. He will need to prove to me that I now have his trust and loyalty, though. Luckily I’ve had counseling in the past, and this wasn’t as bad as I’ve experienced, so I feel like even though my world is in chaos, I’m going to make it.”
