Unwilling (Book One of the Compelled Trilogy 1) (3 page)

“I promise to return as soon as I can.” He said, scooping Rowan into a hug.

“But why must you go at all?” Rowan whined, hating herself for sounding like a child.

“I’ll bring you back something special.” Her father volunteered, smiling sweetly at her as he withdrew from their embrace.

“I don’t need another dress, or exotic chocolates!” Rowan exclaimed. She had an armoire full of fancy dresses she hardly ever wore from father’s previous trips, and she would live without chocolate for the rest of her life if father would just stay home. However, her father was a doctor instead of a butcher, and he was far too kind to say no to someone in need, so he would leave, and then he would return. Always with a present.

“Oh, but you do love chocolate! Remember when you were a girl and you ate so much you made yourself sick?” Her father asked, his tone laughing and Rowan couldn’t help but smile along with him.

“What’s so funny?” A hoarse voice asked behind her father and Rowan recoiled against the wall, hanging her head and trying to make herself as small as unnoticeable as invisible as possible.

“Talia, honey.” Rowan’s father said surprised, all the laughter slithering out of him as he turned, startled, his wife coming into the hall. She was slightly taller than he was and her blond hair hung tangled down her back. She was bone thin, her green dress hanging baggy on her frame. Rowan thought she might have been the kind of beautiful that men go to war for, once, but now she only looked tired, and angry. Always angry.

“Well?” She demanded, her voice intimidating as she looked back and forth between Rowan and her husband. “Is this some private joke? Would you like me to excuse myself so you can continue on?” She said, her voice deadly low. Rowan’s heart raced in her chest and she tried to stifle her breathing, not wanting to draw her mother’s eye to her. “Rowan? Anything you’d like to share?” Her mother asked, taking a step closer to her.

“N-no.” Rowan stammered, shaking her head.

“Not good enough for your joke am I?” Her mother asked, her eyes wide in rage. She raised her hand, ready to strike her daughter and Rowan cringed, squeezing her eyes shut.

“Talia.” Her father said, stepping between his wife and daughter. “There’s something I’ve meant to show you in private.” He said softly, as always only ever gentle and never raising his voice. Rowan raised her head to see her father lead her mother away, his hand pressed to the small of her back, urging her forward. He looked back at Rowan, and she thought she had never seen her father look as sad as he did right then, all the light leaving his normally jolly eyes making him look broken and dejected.

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Rowan woke groggily, rubbing at her eyes to clear the grit. The first morning light peeped through the window sending soft tendrils of light dancing about the floor. Elias was already dressed and sitting at the edge of his bed, lost in thought. Rowan sat up, and kicked the blankets from her, letting them slide to the floor where they lay in a heap. Rowan knew she should pick them up, but she did not have the energy, her body weighed down heavily by the dispirited mood she was in.

Rowan and Elias made their way down the stairs to the kitchen, where Elias made them some oatmeal.  He left his plain but poured a heap of brown sugar into Rowan’s, knowing she hated the taste of plain oats. Rowan ate silently, spooning the thick mush into her mouth, swallowing her food without tasting it and the food sat like a rock in the pit of her stomach. Rowan jumped as her father banged his way into the room, placing his large travelling bag on the floor.

“Good morning!” He said brightly, but upon seeing his children’s somber expressions his smile faded, replaced by a grim line. Rowan noticed that his eye was blackened, and one of his lips was split, though he mentioned neither as he sat down at the small table, pulling a chair out to sit between Rowan and Elias. “I’m sorry, I must go.” He said quietly. Elias pushed back from his chair, the legs squeaking loudly across the tiled floor as he stalked from the room. “Elias!” Her father called, but made no move to go after him. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.” He told Rowan; looking at her apologetically, desperately needing her reassurance that it was okay to go.

“Please don’t go.” Rowan whispered, staring at her nearly full bowl of oatmeal, steam rising from it.

“Rowan.” Her father breathed sadly, his face pinched at the impossible situation he once again found himself in. Rowan knew it was pointless to try to persuade him to stay, he always went. Rowan shook her head, tears pricking at her eyes. She pushed back from her chair and ran from the kitchen, going to sulk in the hidden room. Rowan was surprised to find Elias wasn’t there.

Rowan studied Elias’s paintings for hours, and by the time she emerged, exhausted, the sun had fallen and crickets were chirping in the moon light.

Rowan groped her way through the dark house, her eyes adjusting poorly to the dim light, to her room. She pushed open the door, wooden toy blocks clambering together as the door swung open. Rowan had first put the blocks by the door when she was younger, to wake her up when her mother came in the night, as she often did, and it was a habit her and Elias had continued, as they grew older. Rowan closed the door quietly, careful not to wake Elias, though Rowan sincerely doubted that he was sleeping. He would be laying there, waiting, breathing, heart thudding, thinking, agonizing thoughts and memories and hours spent in the darkness trying desperately, urgently to wish himself away gone disappeared.

She slid into the bed after replacing the blocks against the door, drawing the blankets to her chin, and snuggled deep into her bed as though her mother wouldn’t see her if she hid herself well beneath her blankets. Rowan knew her mother wouldn’t come that night. She never came that first night, but always the one after, and she quickly fell into sleep, knowing this would be the last peaceful night of sleep she would have until father returned.

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The day slipped quickly by. Rowan awoke in the morning her heart heavy, and went to bed that night, her heart heavier. Rowan could feel the foreboding night drawing closer and her heart beat with each hour each minute each second that ticked by. Rowan watched the sun ascend in the sky from her bedroom window and prayed to all the Gods that the sun wouldn’t set, that it would stay in the sky forever and keep their mother from coming, but with each heartbeat another hour minute second ticked by and the sun descended a little more behind the trees that surrounded her house until at last her mother’s conspirator, the moon, who had agreed to keep all her mother’s secrets, swung vibrantly into the dark gray sky as if it couldn’t care less about what transpired below it. 

Rowan and Elias were quiet as they crawled into their beds. Elias grabbed Rowans hand and squeezed once, as though that would give Rowan the bravery to endure that horrible first night.

Rowan jumped at a scraping sound in the hall, her heart skipping a beat.
This is it. This is her.
Rowan thought, her breath quickening.
99. 98. 97.
Rowan counted, trying to calm herself the way Elias had taught her when they were younger.

96. 95. 94.
The door slid open, the blocks tumbling onto the floor as if trying to also escape, rolling one over the other as the door pushed across the floor.
93. 92.
Rowan could see her mother’s silhouette in the doorframe, illuminated by the small light cast by the moon. Rowan swore her mother could see their rapid breaths puffing out in the air. Feel their terror as each step she took toward them boomed in their ears like a clap of thunder.

Elias stood, squeezing Rowan’s hand once more. An assurance that he would see her in the morning, to go to bed, to not stay awake and listen and cry and breath and worry, and agonize each second he didn’t come back. A squeeze with a million meanings and none of them mattered because Rowan would stay awake and listen and cry and try to breath and worry and agonize each second Elias didn’t come back.

Elias walked stiffly toward their mother and she pushed him out of the room, slamming the door closed on Rowan.
91. 90. 89.
Elias cried out and Rowan cringed, his voice carrying through the silent house. Rowan wanted to call out to him, to go to him, to free him but he wouldn’t want her to, a lesson she had learned the hard way, she carried the scars from it on her lower back, three paper-thin little scratches from razor-sharp fingernails.
Promises,
her mother called them, just three of many.

Let someone hear. Let someone hear and come murder her where she stands.
Rowan begged. She covered her ears, but that did little to drown out the sounds of her mother’s abuse.
Someone will hear and take us away to father, who will love us and care for us, and we will never have to see her again. Please.
Rowan prayed to any God that would listen. Of course no one ever heard, no one ever rescued them in the night, stealing them away under the cover of darkness and delivering them to father. If the God’s did hear her prayers, either they chose to ignore them or they did not care.

Rowan counted down from one hundred 12 times before Elias returned to the room. Rowan could see he walked with a slight limp and as he passed by, she grabbed his hand and squeezed. He sucked in air, twinging with pain, and Rowan recoiled. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, only meant to say she was here for him.

Hours later when Elias thought she was sleeping, she heard him whispering to himself, as he always did after their mother beat him. “I deserve this. I deserve this.” Over and over again, till the sun rose red in the sky. Rowan was never sure what they had done to deserve this, but if Elias thought they did then it must be true.

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It had been three weeks since father had left. Rowan sat slumped on her bed, her eyes red from crying as the moon poured through the window abnormally bright and lighting up Rowan’s face as she waited. Elias tossed behind her, feverish. Elias had a broken arm, and his whole body was blue purple green yellow from bruises, his lips were split, and he had a gash on his forehead that leaked a sickly yellow color whenever Elias prodded at it.

“I won’t let you Rowan.” He said to her in the dark, his voice firm, but every breath he took hitched in his throat, and Rowan hoped his lungs wouldn’t collapse.

“She will kill you Elias.” Rowan said, her eyes large with fright.
What kind of world could it be, without my brother in it?
Rowan thought, and the idea of that reality scared her more than facing her mother. “I can’t live without you.”

“You can’t Rowan. I won’t let you.” Elias said, ignoring her pleas, trying to stand, but crumpling in on himself, his bruised ribs sending a splintering pain through his chest.

“Elias, please. Let me go this once for you.” Rowan pleaded, and she could see the hesitation on his face, the struggle as he warred within himself. Rowan saw finality flick across his eyes, and he slumped to the bed with a sob. Rowan grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I’ll be okay,” she told him lightly, trying to smile. “I’m brave.”
I am brave, I can be brave, I can try to be brave. I might be…

The door pushed open behind Rowan and Elias grasped her hand as if to keep her there by force, but a moment later, he relented and let her hand swing to her side. He hung his head in shame in anger in disappointment in pain as Rowan turned to face her mother. Rowan tried to walk bravely into the hall, holding her head high, and she hoped Elias couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart, or see her body shake as the door closed.

I deserve this.
Rowan repeated in her head as her mother grabbed her hair, forcing her to her knees. Rowan stifled a yelp as her mother kicked her in the side. She doubled over, curling into herself.

“It’s your fault Darren leaves. If he didn’t have monsters living under his roof he would stay.” Her mother sneered, pulling Rowan up by her hair. She cracked Rowan’s head against the polished white marble wall. Rowan’s head spun in a million dizzying circles and red dots danced in her vision as her mother smacked her head over and over again.

Rowan could feel warm liquid sliding down the back of her neck and still her mother bashed her head against the wall. “Please.” Rowan croaked.
She’s going to kill me.
Rowan thought dizzily, her head pulsing in agony. “Please.” Rowan cried out again, feebly lifting her hand, but couldn’t raise it more than a few pathetic inches. Rowan’s mother grasped her face with both hands, gripping Rowan’s cheeks between her cold thin fingers and forced Rowans head into the wall as hard as she could. Rowan’s body jerked involuntarily, as if she was zapped by lightning.

Rowan had never felt such intense pain in all her life, and found herself welcoming her death, inviting it, but Gods please Gods let it come soon. Rowan closed her eyes, silent tears trekking their way down her face.

Her mother released her and Rowan slumped back against the wall, her hair matted together with blood, the back of her shirt and the carpet drenched in sticky ugly red. “
Shockel loviled ser Moval. Shockel loviled Tal.”
Her mother breathed hotly into her face and Rowan nodded in agreement, to do anything to get her mother to release her, her throat seizing as she sobbed.
I deserve this.

Rowans mother backed away, turning to face the door into her children’s room.