Spec (Defenders M.C, Book 6) (7 page)

Eleven

“He was my best friend since kindergarten.  The Archers became the family I wanted to have.  Mine was fucked up.  Dad worked too much to provide us with the lifestyle my mother insisted upon and Mother resented him for being away so much.  When he was home life was great.  He played with me and read to me.  When I was older we had these talks like he really wanted to know what I thought about the things he did at work.”

Spec smiled a sad smile.  “He was proud that I was so smart.  He didn’t care that I was skinny and that I didn’t care for sports too much.  He loved that I used my brain.”

“Mother pretended to be attentive when he was at home, but the moment he left her true colors shined through.  She would lock me in the broom closet if I came into the house instead of staying out with the other kids all day.”

His jaw hardened and he took a minute to gather his thoughts.

“Kids tend to pick on the nerd and that’s what I was.  We lived in an upscale neighborhood with all the kids playing the right sports and doing the right things.  I was an outcast.  Until Kindergarten.  I met Danny when the school decided to allow me to skip kindergarten.  The skip made me even more of an odd man out, but Danny didn’t care.  He was on some kind of scholarship because he couldn’t afford to pay tuition to the school we went to.  He was an outcast too and we hit it off, even though he was a year older than me.  I started going to his house after school.  His mom made cookies and always had something for us to eat after school.  She let me help with Danny’s chores and I eventually got my own.”

He looked up at Candy then and she wanted to weep for the pain she saw in his eyes.

“Taylor was born that year too and she was the cutest baby I had ever seen.  I loved her like she was my own sister.  I always treated her like she was.  That house was like my fantasy world.  It wasn’t as fancy as the one I shared with my parents, but it was my happy place.  I started sneaking out of my house around age eight and found a way to crawl into Taylor’s window.  I was afraid that if anyone discovered me that I would be sent home, so I usually just curled up in the nursery and slept until morning.  I sometimes found a blanket wrapped around me, but I didn’t think much about it.  I found a twin bed there at some point and knew that my secret was out, but no one ever mentioned it to me.  Eventually they moved Taylor to the room across the hall and I suddenly I had my own room in my dream house and for the first time in my life I had a place that was all my own.”

He closed his eyes and Candy let the silence hold them in its chilly embrace.  When his eyes opened again they were haunted.

“Danny joined the army out of High school.  I had decided to work with my father before going to school.  I’d had enough of being ridiculed for my age and wanted to begin at the same age as all the other students.  My father seemed to understand.  My mother was angry because it meant I would live in her house for another year, but I really didn’t.  I lived with the Archers.  I took the summer off to enjoy the last fragments of my childhood, knowing the rest of my life would be devoted to work as all adults devoted themselves to their work.  After Danny left I took it upon myself to care for Taylor.  I read to her and we had a grand time.  We spent the entire summer being completely frivolous.  She was only twelve so it was all a big adventure to her.  I had a few girls that I spent time with, but rarely did anything without Taylor.  When I had to go to work I stayed in the city in my father’s apartment.  It was after the first month that I noticed a change in Taylor.”

Candy felt her heart constrict.  She didn’t know what was coming, but she knew it wasn’t good.  She felt for the man that struggled with his memories as he sat on a cold stone bench beside her.  It was as if he were watching the memories in his mind as they flickered like an old television set.  She could see how the memories tugged at him.  There were a few wistful smiles, but now his face was pinched as if he couldn’t bear the images.  Candy reached out and grasped his hand.  He held it tightly as if drawing strength from her to continue his tale.

He inhaled the crisp air and turned to face her.  His eyes held hers as he continued.

“I didn’t know what was going on.  I climbed to my window because it was so late and found it locked so I climbed up to Taylor’s.  She looked so frail and her hair hung limp against her face.  She was terrified when I opened her window and stepped inside.  I thought she’d had a dream.  I pulled her favorite book out of the back of my pants where I had stashed it and she smiled.  I sat down with her as I had done a thousand times and read her book.  I couldn’t understand what was going on with her.  The floor creaked outside her door and she looked like someone was coming to steal her soul.  Danny burst through the door and started making accusations.  They were horrible and I couldn’t understand why he would accuse me of anything so terrible, but I saw hate in his eyes when he looked at me.  I punched him and told him to watch his mouth.  He pulled a knife and came at me.  He had grown so strong in the army and I was still just a lanky kid.  I shoved him away, but he came at me again and I knew he would kill me for a reason I couldn’t understand.  I screamed at him and tried to make him see that I could never hurt Taylor, but he was consumed with hatred.  He lunged at me again only this time Taylor flung herself between us and took the knife to the back of her neck.”

“When I saw what had happened something snapped inside of me and I took the bloody knife from the floor and killed my best friend.  I heard screaming as I dropped to my knees between the two people who meant everything to me and it was long seconds before I realized that horrible sound came from me.  I had lost everything in the span of a few minutes and I had no idea why.”

“Oh Adam.  I’m so sorry.”

He released a breath that shuttered out of him.

“Mrs. Archer pulled me away and talked to the police.  It was ruled self-defense and I didn’t have to serve time, but that night killed my soul.  Taylor still lives, but she sleeps.  She is trapped in an endless sleep and I don’t know how to deal with that.”  He braced his elbows on his knees and looked at the ground.  “I can’t even finish her story.  I can’t even give her the ending that she always loved.”

Candy didn’t know what to say.  She just sat beside him and let him gather himself.  He looked so young in the glow of the moon.  She could almost see that broken boy with the sandy hair and lanky body.  She grieved for the woman who had lost her children and for the boy that had taken them from her.

“I killed her father.”

“What?”

“Last night.  I found him and I killed him.  He had been visiting her room at night.  She wouldn’t tell anyone, but her mother found her diary after it all happened.  Danny must have suspected something and thought it had been me.  Who would ever think a father could do such a thing to his own daughter?”

Candy knew it happened all too often, but she didn’t say so.  She thought about her own childhood and knew one of her friends had suffered the same indignation Spec spoke of.  Candy had been lucky.  She had never met her father and her mother had never allowed her men in their tiny trailer.  Life had been hard, but she had been safe.

She rubbed her hand down Spec’s back and tried to soothe him.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you Adam.”

“After that I just threw myself into learning.  I knew I could have any job I wanted when I graduated and for a while I tried to be the person my father had raised me to be, but it didn’t fit.  I graduated in only two years and graduate school quickly followed, but I was restless.  I felt trapped in a life that no longer suited me so I threw it all away and just left.  I ended up working with some unsavory characters and when they thought they could back out on our agreement of payment I killed them.  Preach happened to be standing at the bar when I walked up and ordered a drink.”

Spec shrugged.  “Apparently I made an impression.”

“So you became a prospect?”

Spec leaned back and nodded.  “That was my title, but I knew I was different.  I didn’t run errands and serve beer like the others.  I was put to work with the computers and the books.  I earned my cut in six months after taking on five of the brothers and winning.  I earned their respect and maybe a little fear from a few.  Preach still doesn’t trust me all the way and I guess I get that too.  There’s more that I can’t even figure out yet.  I can’t read the diary and I can’t read the one Elise, Danny’s mom, gave to me and I can’t finish this damned story.”  He pulled Taylors worn story book out of the back of his pants and stared at it.

Candy watched as a tear dropped on the worn cover and she took it from his hands.

“Do you want me to read it to you?  We can finish it together and then maybe it will stop haunting you.”

He shook his head and took the book, tucking it back in his waistband.

“Not here.”  He turned back to her with his heart in his eyes.  “I need to take you to meet someone.  I was going to wait until tomorrow, but I want to do it tonight.”

Candy nodded and let him pull her to the bike and away from the ghosts that haunted this place, but she knew there were other ghosts waiting for him in other places and she feared she was about to come face to face with them.

Twelve

Candy’s breath caught as she looked at the fragile woman lying in the hospital bed.  She looked like an angel lying on white sheets, but Candy knew her to be more of a specter than an angel.  Spec leaned and kissed her pale brow and sat in a chair by her bed.  He pulled out a book, but it wasn’t the worn story book he had seen earlier, this was a pink diary like a young girl would have. It took him a few minutes to thumb through the delicate pink pages.  When he found what he was looking for he leaned over his knees and braced his elbows on each knee while holding the book with both hands.

September 20

Daddy is mad at me tonight.  He got mad when I talked about Adam at the dinner table and told me I couldn’t let Adam read to me anymore at night.  He said if I got scared I had to come tell him instead.  I don’t think I want to do that.

September 21

Daddy heard me crying and came in my room.  He didn’t want to read the books I like.  He said he wanted to hold me.  I didn’t like it.  It made my tummy feel sick.  I can’t cry at night ever again.

Spec’s voice cracked as he read and Candy felt like she was invading something private, but when she started to back out of the room he looked up and held out his hand to her.  She pulled another chair up beside him and offered her strength even though she wanted to run from the horrors of what was written in that little pink book. 

September 23

I didn’t cry tonight, but daddy still came to my room.  I pretended to be asleep, but he got into my bed anyway.  I’m afraid he is going to hurt me, but I don’t know how to make him stop.  I don’t know why I hate it so much.  I think he just wants me to feel safe, but I hate it.

September 24

Daddy watched me through dinner and I felt sick.  He wanted me to sit with him in the living room while he watched TV so I did.  Mommy washed the dishes and he asked me to sit with him in his big chair.  I didn’t want to because I’m too big to sit in laps, but he pulled me and I fell.  I didn’t like sitting on his lap and he kept wiggling against me.  Mommy got mad at me and told me I was too big for that and sent me to my room.

September 25

It’s after midnight so I guess that date is ok.  Daddy came to my room again.  I felt him press against my back as he held onto my hips.  He just rubbed against my bottom until he groaned.  I didn’t open my eyes even when he said I was a good girl.  I wish Danny would come home.

Spec handed Candy the book.  “I can’t read this anymore.  Please read it.  I have to hear it.”

“No you don’t.  You know what happened.  You don’t have to torture yourself with this.”  Candy felt the tears sliding down her face.  This poor girl had been innocent and afraid and had written those feelings out in her messy hand writing.  It was too heart breaking to read.

“Please Candy.  I need you to read it to me.”

Candy closed her eyes and tried to distance herself from the situation, but how could she?  The girl was lying in the bed only a few feet away.  This was a book of her most private thoughts as a girl.

“You don’t need to know this shit Adam.  It will only torture you.”

“I have to know.”  He looked up at her with red eyes and Candy wanted to scream out her outrage.  She wanted to destroy this book so he would never have to hear the words of a young girl he had loved like a sister.  She closed her eyes as they filled with tears.  He was a man that had to know the details of everything before he could put them away.  If he didn’t know it would haunt him forever.  He needed this pain to help his wounds heal.

November 16

I haven’t written in a while because Danny got to come home for a while.  He was so great.  He’s got all these big muscles now and I wasn’t scared a single time when he was here.  Adam came home too… :)

Candy looked up and saw Spec flinch at the sound of his name.

He brought me a t-shirt with his school name on it.  He’s so handsome, in a nerdy kind of way, but I love him.  Someday I will grow up and marry Adam Jeffords and be Mrs. Taylor Jeffords and we will have three kids.  One boy who will look like me, but be smart like Adam, a girl who will be a mix of both of us with his pretty blue eyes and my straight hair, and one little boy who is just like Adam so I can love on him all the time.  He’s the sweetest boy in the whole world.  He read me my favorite book tonight and he is asleep right across the hall.  Nothing can hurt me when Adam is in the house.  Not even daddy.

November 18

Adam and Danny left today and daddy came to my room while mommy was at the store.  He’s not my daddy anymore.  He’s a monster, but I can’t tell because he will hurt my mommy.

“Adam please….”

He cut her off.  “There isn’t much left Candy.  I need you to finish it.”

November 19

Daddy told me to be quiet tonight and if I woke mommy up she would be mad at me.  He made me take off my nightgown so he could look at me.  He said he wanted to make sure I was growing alright, but I think he just wanted to see my boobies.  They are growing and he has started touching them anytime he thinks mommy isn’t looking. He said I can’t tell her because she would get mad at me for being a tease.  Would my mommy think I was doing that?   I don’t mean to.  I wish I knew how to stop making him look at me. He got hard in his pants and made me touch him there.  I don’t like that.  He said he would teach me a different way to touch him tomorrow so I don’t get my hands sticky and I want to run away from home.  I don’t want to live in this house anymore.  I wish I could just die.”

November 20

I didn’t like it.  He tasted gross and made me sick.

“Oh my God Adam I can’t read this.”  Candy wanted to throw up.  She had never experienced anything so vile in all her life.  She was sobbing, heartbroken for the girl that had endured such cruelty at the hand of a man who was supposed to protect and love her.
  
How had her mother ever read these vile words?  How had she stood it?

Spec took the book from her shaking hands and read on in silence for a few minutes.

December 16

Danny is coming home for Christmas so daddy said he was giving my present early.  He gave me a gold locket and said I could put a picture inside.  It’s really pretty and I’m going to put a picture of Adam and Danny in it. 

He wanted me to give him a special present too, but I didn’t have anything.  He said I did. 

He hurt me when he pushed his man part between my legs, but that was what he said his present was and I wasn’t too selfish to share something that didn’t cost anything after he paid so much for my locket.  I know it’s wrong for him to do that and I wanted to scream, but he covered my mouth and said he would do it to mommy if I wasn’t quiet.  I can’t let him hurt my mommy like this.  He said it would be our secret and that I was daddy’s special girl now.  He said it was my fault he had to do it.  He said I had asked for it and if I tell that everyone will be mad at me.  He said they are jealous of the way he loves me and they wouldn’t understand.

I just feel dirty and it hurts so much.  He said he would make it hurt worse if I didn’t do what he said so I just laid really still, but it still hurt so much.  I wish Danny was home.  I wish Adam would come rescue me.  I wish my daddy was dead so he couldn’t hurt me anymore.”

S
pec’s voice broke on the last words the book fell to the floor.  He buried his face in his hands and wept brokenly.

“That’s all.  That’s the last one.  Fuck I’m going to be sick.  How could that bastard do that to his own daughter?  She was fucking twelve years old.”

Candy felt fear slither up her spine as Spec stood and paced like a caged animal.  It was late and they would be thrown out of the facility if he were heard.

“I know you’re mad.  You killed him.  You have to stay quiet or they will make us leave.  Don’t you want to read her story?”

His jaw looked as hard as granite and Candy was afraid he would turn his molars to dust, but he nodded.

“I need to read something else first, but I can do that in my head.  Do you mind staying with me for a little while longer?”

Candy smiled.  “I don’t mind.”

He leaned down and kissed her dark head.  “I don’t know how to do this without you.  I know it doesn’t make any sense, but you are the only thing I have wanted in ten years.  The only time I feel like I have a place in this fucked up world is when you are holding me.”

“You always have a place with me Adam.”  Something changed from one breath to the next.  They stopped being two people who drifted beside each other and became a unit.  Candy didn’t have delusions about forever.  She knew how these strong men were and they rarely picked one woman for long, but for right now they fit and she embraced that feeling with everything she had.

He sat back down in his chair and opened a leather bound book that looked like a journal.  He read for a long time and Candy found herself dozing in her chair.  She woke up when the sun shone through the blinds and found Spec holding the story book.  It was open and Candy saw blood stains on the yellowed pages.   He couldn’t finish the story.

Candy took the book and Spec looked up at her with heartbreak written all over his face.

“I can’t.”

“Let me help you.”

Candy looked at the book and read the page to herself.  The prince was named Adam and he was battling to save the tiny princess from a monster. She looked up at Spec.

“You were her prince.”

“I didn’t know she had a crush on me.  That makes it harder.  I didn’t save her, I didn’t even know she needed saving.”

“Oh Adam.  No, you didn’t save her from the abuse she suffered, but if you had found out that night, it was already done honey.  Nothing could take that back.  She decided to stop being the victim.  She was strong.  She saved you instead and delivered herself from her torment.”  Candy took a deep breath.  “You said he got her in the back of the neck.  That tells me she was facing you.  She wasn’t fighting back, she was sacrificing herself to save the man she loved and letting herself escape her own hell.  You have to let go.  Take that gift and live.”

Spec pulled Candy into his arms in a crushing embrace.  “Her mom was having an affair with my father.  They have been seeing each other for years now and I had no idea.  I’m such an idiot.  How could I miss something like that?”

“You weren’t looking for it.  Does it change anything?”

“I don’t know.  I want to blame them.  I want to say Elise should have paid more attention to her daughter.  If she had been home maybe…”

“Hush now.”  Candy pressed her fingers over his lips.  “Life is filled with maybes.  You can’t do that.  You have to move on.  Let’s finish that story and put it to bed.”

Spec nodded and Candy sat on his lap as he read the pages.  When he hesitated Candy turned the page and began reading.  He picked up and they read the last few pages of the book together.

Candy felt Spec relax against her and knew that something inside him had let go.

They sat there for what felt like hours and just breathed.  When the door opened they both looked up and found a woman standing in the doorway with her hand over her mouth and tears streaming from her face.  Her eyes seemed glued to the last page of the book where it lay opened at the foot of Taylor’s bed.

“Elise…”

“You finished it.”  She looked up as tears ran in rivers down her pale cheeks.”

“I finished them all.”  Spec said quietly and Candy knew he meant more than the books.

“Thank God.”  The woman closed her eyes as if she were praying.  “Do you hate me now Adam?”

Spec made an anguished sound deep in his throat as he walked to her and pulled her close.  “I could never hate you Elise.  You have been my mother all my life.”  He kissed her head.  “I’m so sorry you felt you had to hide this from me.”

“Your father doesn’t know all of it.  I couldn’t…”

“It’s over Elise.  We can let it all go now.  She’s safe.”

“You were always her prince Adam.  She always loved you.”

“I will always love her too Elise, all of you.  I just wish Danny had known the truth.”

Elise took Spec’s damp face in her hands and looked him in the eye.  “He knows now.  It’s all out in the open now.  Danny knows and you can let go of that betrayal too.  You made it all right again.  You did that.”

“I had help.”  He turned and offered his hand to Candy who stepped to him.  “Elise this is Candace Knight.  She has become my strength.  Candy, this is Elise Archer, the mother of my heart.”

Both women cried like babies at his beautiful words and embraced.

Elise pulled back and ran her thumb under Candy’s eyes.  “Oh you are so pretty.  Adam, you have done well for yourself and maybe, just maybe I can pretend to have a daughter again.”

“I think that would be really nice Mrs. Archer.”

“Elise and it will be my pleasure.”