Conviction (20 page)

Chapter 25 - Kelly

Kelly didn’t move, too scared of the pain that she knew would come with the smallest of movements. Instead she lay in the cold, damp darkness of the dungeon listening to the various sounds of the shattered souls around her. Some were sleeping, others were crying softly to themselves trying not to disturb the others. She looked at the petite little redhead sleeping softly beside her, their hands still intertwined. How could she have not told her family that she was back? How could she not have told Anna?

She’d meant to protect them and all she’d managed to do was get Anna caught up in her place. If she’d stayed than Anna would never have been tricked by Devlin and her Abbey would still be alive.

Abbey.

Her sole reason for learning to fight.

Abbey.

Her innocence lost and her life nothing but pain and confusion.

“What are you thinking about? Your brain is so loud I can hear it ticking.” Anna said quietly as she squeezed Kelly’s hand. All without opening her eyes.

“Abbey.”

“Who?”

“She was my little girl, Anna, I
left
her here. I killed my own daughter!” Kelly sobbed.

Anna opened her eyes and sat up pulling Kelly with her and wrapping her arms around her. Letting her breath through the physical pain before she pulled away and held her by the shoulders.

“You don’t know, do you?” Anna said quietly as tears leaked from her eyes.

“Know what?”

“Abbey...Kelly...Abbey wasn’t yours.” Anna said the words so quietly that Kelly barely registered.

“Yes she was! She looked just like me! I…I gave birth to her! She grew inside me for nine months…you don’t know what you’re talking about, Anna!” Kelly pulled away from her cousin, desperately trying to ignore the look on Anna’s face. It was a mix of sympathy, pity and something Kelly couldn’t quite read.

“Did you see
your
baby when you gave birth? Did he let you hold your baby?”

“No…they...
he
took her away straight away. I didn’t get to see her for a while…”

“Did you see her at all? Her skin, her head, anything? Did you hear her cry?” Anna persisted.

“No! He blindfolded me, okay! He took that away from me so I couldn’t see anything that went on during my labour.” Kelly started to shake as the memories came flooding back from the day her baby had been born. As soon as she had gone into labour, Devlin had blindfolded her and put restraints on her wrists and ankles. It wasn’t unusual for her to be in restraints for days at a time, but Kelly had known that that day was going to be different.

As her labour progressed, Devlin strapped her onto a metal t-shaped bar and raised her off the ground. Her arms were spread and her legs were open. She could feel amniotic fluid and blood dripping down her legs. She’d begged and pleaded to be let down until the baby was born. But Devlin had simply laughed at her and ignored every plea. Taking to using a bull-whip on her arms and legs if she asked to be let down. He also used an electronic cow prod on various parts of her body, including her labia, ass and tender breasts.

She’d felt the baby’s head crown and she had pushed with all her might with every contraction. She has exhausted and had had trouble continuing during the last hour of her labour. As the contractions had grown in intensity and frequency her energy had waned. Her arms and legs burned from holding herself upright and every muscle had cramped along with her contractions.

When she had finally managed the final push and felt her baby leave her body Kelly had fallen against her binds utterly spent. Devlin had laughed when she had asked to see her baby after he had roughly cut the cord connecting them and as she heard his footsteps retreat from the room. Darkness had filled her soul. From her sheer exhaustion, humiliation, continual pain and the anguish of not being able to see her baby had taken over. When she had woken hours later she was strapped to a bed, an intravenous drip in her arm pumping fluids into her. Her head was foggy and she knew that she had been given some kind of medication that was making her drowsy. There was a young girl in the room who refused to answer any of her questions and had eventually injected something into her that forced her back into darkness.

“Kelly?” Anna gently rubbed her cousin’s arms, trying to bring her back from the memories that had claimed her present.

“I’m…I’m…sorry. I guess I phased out for a minute there.”

“It’s okay…I get it. I just need to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“Your baby…Abbey wasn’t yours…I’m sorry…”

“What do you mean she wasn’t mine? What do you think you’re doing?” Kelly pushed away from Anna, her distress evident on her face as tears fell. Even in this hell, were everything had been taken from her, her own cousin was betraying what little love she had left. How could she possibly say something so…wrong?

“Kelly, you have to believe me…your baby…he was so beautiful and perfect…but he was still born. He died before he was born. Abbey was...mine…but her name was Kelly-Anne.”

“You’re lying!” Kelly screamed at Anna who remained calm and quiet. Her voice never rising from barely a whisper.

“Why would I lie about this, Kelly? Why? I love you with everything in me. I…would never lie about this. Ever.” Anna scooted along the floor in an effort to get close to Kelly and enveloped their hands together. Kelly didn’t pull away as she watched Anna’s own grief pour from her eyes.

“I was here for some of the time that you were. A year and a half before you left. I fell pregnant almost straight away. When you gave birth, Kelly-Anne had been premature by eight weeks, she was only a month old.” Anna’s eyes glazed over as she was lost in her own memories. “When your little boy was born…Devlin used my baby to mess with your head. I heard him talking one night to someone on the phone, he knew he hadn’t broken you completely and he figured that you would never try and leave knowing that you had a child in the house. Because we look so similar he knew you’d never question it.”

“This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. My baby…was a boy?”

“With a head over red hair just like yours.”

“How…how do you know about him?”

“I’m not as strong as you, Kelly. I…I didn’t fight him like you did and he allowed me some freedom in the house. Nothing much…but he brought him to me and told me to
deal with it
…” A massive sob escaped her throat as she tried to continue. “He told me he was yours. I knew you were in the house but he made sure I was never around when you were…
with
him and the same for me.”

“What…what happened to him? My little boy?” Kelly whispered, picturing a blue eyed, red headed toddler smiling up at her.

“I dressed him, I…I put white pants and a top on him and I wrapped him in one of Kelly-Anne’s blankets. And I begged one of security to let me bury him.”

“What did that cost you?”

Anna flinched at the question and purposely avoided Kelly’s gaze and her question.

“He’s buried near the concrete water feature…towards the back of the house, just before the tree line. I’m…I’m so sorry, Kelly! I couldn’t do any more for him…or for you.”

Their grief overwhelmed them and they sobbed together until Kelly pushed Anna away quickly and ran to the corner of the room where she proceeded to vomit and heave for the next then minutes. Holding onto the wall for support she was eventually able to stand again, the pain in her ribs almost crippling her from the force of her heaves.

Kelly tried to keep her breathing shallow to keep her physical pain at bay. Emotionally she was exhausted and confused, but she knew one thing for certain.

Devlin fucking King was going to pay.

Chapter 26 – Kelly
“We need to get out of this room.” Kelly said as she turned to the small group of mismatched women and girls. “Has anyone
ever
gotten out of here?”

Collective gasps came from almost all of them, some even cried out in fear and turned their heads away from Kelly.

“What happened, Anna?”

“After you escaped…I heard some rumours…about certain games Devlin and his closest men would play. I heard one of them talking after they’d…” Anna gulped before shaking her head and continuing without finishing her sentence. “Anyway…they would let the girls in this cell out...or make them think they had managed to escape on their own. You know, the power would go out and the gate would unlock. There is always a back-up system in place but we are all desperate to get out…so they would take their chance and run. But when they got outside…they were hunted down like animals. Shot at with guns, arrows, paintballs, and knocked down with Tasers. They were punched, kicked and even had the dogs set on them. Devlin would almost completely empty the house of security, bar a couple that would herd their prey towards particular exits. Outside though, Devlin, the rest of the security team and any of his
special
guests for the night would be waiting.
If
the girls survived the initial attacks they were given to the men in the suits to do with as the pleased. I wasn’t sure if it was true. I’d never seen it happen, only heard about it. I was kept separate from the other girls until yesterday. This is my first time in the hell pit.”

Kelly sighed realising that escape for herself and the other girls would most likely end in their deaths. She sunk to the floor out of ideas and her hope diminishing with every breath she took.

“We can’t give up, Kelly. These girls have all heard about you. They know you have escaped once and they
believe
that you can do it again. That you can save us all.”

“But what if
I
don’t believe it, Anna? Where does that leave us?”

Anna’s eyes were just as lost as her own and Kelly sunk deeper into herself, shutting out the crying from the other girls and whatever Anna was trying to tell her. Locking herself away inside her head, Kelly protected what will sanity she had left.

“No, Kelly, please! Please don’t do this. Come back, we…
I
need you!” Anna brushed away the hair that had fallen across her cousin’s face and sobbed as she looked into Kelly’s face and knew she was far away from their reality.

Anna crawled behind Kelly and wrapped her arms around her, offering both her warmth and security whilst trying to maintain what little hold she had on her own emotions. She reached for Kelly’s hand and found it tightly fisted. Gently she eased open Kelly’s fingers and threaded their fingers.

“What is that?” Anna sat up and looked at what had been held so tightly within Kelly’s hand. It was a key card. Anna looked at the electronic door and back again at the broken women in the room. For the first time in years she felt hope and more than ever determination to be free. She could no longer save her little girl…her beautiful little Kelly-Anne, who would scream whenever Devlin came to take her from Anna. Anna fought him every time and paid more than once physically and emotionally for trying to interfere. Once, because she had managed to land a punch to Devlin’s nose, he had made her watch while he bound and gagged her daughter and let sadistic men use whips and floggers on her virgin skin. Devlin had stopped them from penetrating the child, but everything else had been fair came. At the time, Kelly-Anne had only been two years old and had screamed and cried and implored Anna with her eyes to help her. Anna had been chained and gagged and unable to offer her any help at all. The memories were burned into her soul and she knew that the freedom she craved would never allow her to be free of them.

Claudette walked towards the pair slowly, trying not to startle them. She could tell both were off in their own minds somewhere.

“Anna?” She gently placed her hand on Anna’s elbow, staying out of punching distance. Something that she had learned to do when she had first been out down in the cell with the other girls. Most of them would fight if they were startled or woken by touch and she’d copped more than a few punches and kicks by not being aware.

After a few minutes, Anna’s eyes became focused once again and she looked at the tiny girl standing above her. She looked at her like she was seeing her for the first time. She took in her filthy head of blonde locks, the bald patches where it had been ripped from her skull. She noticed the scars marring her beautiful body, her inner thighs, her stomach and her chest. She looked into her eyes and saw pain and suffering that simmered just under the surface. But there was something else there too, something she had never seen in the young girls eyes before. Hope.

“Are you okay, Anna?” Claudette asked as she cradled the hand with the broken and disfigured fingers.

“Yes. I’m…I’m okay, thank you.” Anna looked back down at Kelly whose breathing was soft and shallow. She almost seemed to be in a state of calm. But Anna knew that in her mind, in both their dreams and nightmares, their demons would still chase them.

“I saw the key card. Can we really get out of here?” Claudette whispered.

“I hope so. I just don’t want this to be another trap. I don’t want to rush up there not knowing what is waiting for us. There’s too many of us to do it all together, we will be too noisy, too much of a target. But splitting everyone up isn’t really an option either.”

“So what, we just wait and hope that Kelly comes back around before we do anything?” Claudette asked incredulously.

“No.” Kelly’s quiet voice startled both the girls who were hovering above her. “We need a solid plan and one that means some of you are going to have to wait here for us to come back.”

There was a collective gasp from all corners of the cell. Some of the girls started to whimper again, mostly it was the younger of the girls. Kelly knew that to save them she would have to leave them here.

“Are you okay?” Anna asked reaching for her hands to help Kelly off the floor.

“For now, I can’t stop myself from retreating like I used to be able to. But I’m trying. I’m trying to stay present.” Kelly groaned as she was pulled to her feet, her arms automatically going to her ribs, protecting them and helping her to control the pain that shot through her body.

“You will stay present, Kelly, or I’ll spank your ass until it glows.”

The familiar voice threw off her senses and she squinted into the darkest corner of the room. She knew there was a window there, but it had been blacked out. Heavy footsteps came towards her until she could see James, standing only a metre in front of her, with Xander just behind him.

One of the girls started screaming, traumatised by the sight of two armed men in the cell with them. For them, all men represented fear and pain. No man had showed them compassion since they had been taken. Claudette rushed to the girl’s side, whispering in her ear until she calmed herself to small heart wrenching sobs.

Kelly stared at James, not sure whether she wanted to punch him or hug him.

“Come here, Kelly.” James’ voice was thick with emotion, but she still heard the distinctive command in the undertone.

The first step was the hardest, after that she threw herself into his open arms pushing into his strong chest until she couldn’t burrow any further. He held her to him with one hand on her back and the other softly around her head.

“You’re okay, Kelly. You’re okay. I told you I'll protect you, I told you...” Kelly’s resolved disappeared as James’ voice cracked and he openly cried onto her head. She joined him with her own tears that she let silently fall from her face. It was a few precious moments later that they were reminded that they weren’t alone.