Echoes & Ink: Raven by Emily Rose
Chapter Twenty-Two
SLOAN
Falcon’s text has me moving faster than I ever have in my life. When it came through, I was just pulling into the underground garage of the condo building. Reading it, panic gripped me.
Falcon: Can you come to the apartment? Raven is really upset and I think she needs you.
I don’t even hesitate. I park in my spot, and type back a fast response.
Me: I just pulled in. I’ll be right up. Are you okay?
Falcon: I’m good. Just sad.
Then he stopped messaging. I don’t think I’ve cursed an elevator more than I have at this moment. It climbs the floors far too slow for my liking. When I finally reach their door, I don’t bother knocking. I turn the knob and let myself in. The sight before me makes my stomach plummet to my feet.
Raven stands there, sobbing, with Falcon hugging her tight. Neither knows I’m here, and I silently shut the door. I’ve never seen Raven cry. Never seen her in such pain. She’s so put together, so strong, and to know she is so distraught has every protective instinct in me surging to life.
When Falcon lets her go and sees me, I see the pain in his eyes, but also relief. To know I’m here, and I’m going to help. When he finally heads for his room, I silently make my way towards Raven. She still hasn’t heard or noticed me, instead, she’s staring at the papers on the island. Just as I reach her, she lets out a sob, one of such anguish and grief that I feel it through my body, and I grab her as she starts to fall to the floor.
Now, as I’m carrying her towards her room, I glance at Falcon’s shut bedroom door and think I’ll have to check in on him too, but I need to see to Raven first. I don’t know what was said, but I need to find out.
I kick the bedroom door shut, toe off my shoes, and climb into Raven’s bed, sitting her in my lap and cradling her tightly to me. “Shh,” I whisper to her. “I’ve got you, Wildcat. I have you. Let it out. I’ve got you.”
I don’t know how long her body shudders with each sob, but I don’t care. I’ve never been the consoling type, but with Raven, that goes right out the window. I’m content to be the shoulder she needs. Wasn’t she the one who said everyone left her? That no one was in her corner?
Never again, I silently vow. She’s not alone. I’m going to be here for her. Forever.
I’ll deliberate those thoughts later, but not now.
When her cries finally start to quiet, she curls her face into my neck and I can feel her warm breath on my skin.
“I’ve got you, Wildcat,” I tell her again. “Tell me what’s wrong.” She shakes her head, but I don’t back down. “Come on, Raven, I know whatever happened is eating you up inside. You need to tell me. Let it out, and let me take some of that weight off your shoulders. You’ve been holding it up all on your own for too long.”
Raven says nothing, and for a moment I wonder if she’s fallen asleep. Then she whispers, “I told Falcon some about my past. About how I grew up, and even though I tried to shield him, he still knew.”
“What did he know?” I ask softly, though deep down, I do too. And it infuriates me.
“I don’t want you to know and look at me differently,” she whispers, so sad and afraid that it breaks my heart. Never should a woman sound that way. Especially not one as strong as Raven Dixon.
“I won’t,” I promise her, kissing her forehead. “Tell me, Raven. Tell me what happened.”
“Falcon asked me why I never came home and why I never knew about him. I tried to find out what our parents told him. They basically said it was my fault and that I thought I was too good for them. That I deserved what happened to me and good riddance.”
How can parents say something like that to a child, about their other child? Anger burns through me, but I tamp it down. “They’re wrong,” I tell her firmly. “If you left, it was for a very good reason.”
“I left because they were assholes,” she suddenly snaps, pushing away from me. I let her, mostly because I know she needs the space. I blow out a breath when she gets off my lap and starts to pace the room. “They beat that little boy, just like they did me,” she rages. “All because neither of us moved fast enough, or did the things they thought we should. Do you know that they told him they treated him better because he is a boy?” she yells, fury and pain thick in her voice. “Like that makes it better. Like they didn’t starve us or beat us because they could. Nothing to do with the fact that they were always too fucking high or drunk to be parents. To care about the children they gave birth to, and are supposed to raise and protect.”
Her dark eyes are wild with pain and memories that I wish I could take away. “Why did CPS do nothing to help you?”
“Because they didn’t fucking care,” she roars, rounding on me. “There are so many kids in the same boat, so what’s one or two that don’t get help? The system is so broken and overrun we didn’t matter, I didn’t matter. Hell, even the cops and the doctors didn’t give a flying fuck. They saw the bruises, they knew that my parents are junkies. They just saw that we had a roof over our head, and dirty, ugly clothes on our back. They left me there. They left me there to be abused, to starve until I was digging for garbage out of fucking dumpsters. The doctors sent me home after I showed up at the hospital with broken ribs from the brutal beating my father gave me. They told me to be more careful next time and moved on. When I tried to talk to a nurse when my parents weren’t in the room, she shushed me and told me to stop lying. She didn’t believe me,” she says in a soft voice, broken. “She didn’t believe me, Sloan. She sent me home with them. That I had every classic sign of abuse.”
The fury rolling through me is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. How can someone do that to a child? To send them back to danger, instead of helping? I want to find her and that doctor and make them pay. Make them feel the hurt she did, and still does. Let them know no one cares about their cries for help or their pain.
“What about your teachers?” I ask tightly.
Raven’s smile is cold and sharp as she answers. “I was in a public school with little funding, and the teachers were so overworked and tired the majority of them didn’t even look at us. They did what they were paid to do and left. I showed up many days in a row with the same dirty clothes on, and the only thing they did was tell me I wouldn’t make any friends if I didn’t take better care of myself. On the days I showed up with nothing to eat, they would roll their eyes and tell me to go see the school lunch lady for something. That I was obviously lazy and couldn’t even make myself a sandwich. When I did go see the lunch lady, she wouldn’t help me either. She would tell me that I didn’t have the money to get lunch so I was out of luck.”
“When I went to school with my broken ribs and couldn’t do gym class, the teacher sent me to the principal’s office and I got detention for lying and trying to get out of class. For making trouble for them. No one cared, Sloan. Not one person when I was growing up cared enough to stand up for me. I had no friends, no one to talk to, and parents that hate me.”
I can’t wrap my head around how much failure Raven has faced. Not herself, but from the people in her life that were supposed to help her. To protect her. “I’m so sorry, Raven,” I say softly, knowing it’s not enough. Nothing will be enough to fix the wrongs she’s had to endure.
Raven says nothing for a moment, looking away from me and out towards the city skyline. Finally she turns back to me and says, “I was abused, Sloan. Physically, mentally, emotionally.” Then she takes a deep breath and I know what’s coming. Horror rushes through me. “Sexually,” she finally says, the word no more than a whisper.
“Baby,” I say, voice broken. How? How could this happen?
“I thought it was my fault,” she whispers, pain so suffocating I can’t help but climb off the bed and move towards her. She puts up her hand to stop me. “I thought I was bad,” she continues.
“No,” I growl furiously, ignoring her hand and pulling her tight against me. “No, Raven, you were not bad and you were not at fault,” I tell her fiercely. “Who?”
She doesn’t answer for a moment. When she finally answers, bile rises in my throat and the fury in my blood is suffocating. It’s all I can do not to find them and make them pay. Kill them with my bare hands. “My father, my uncle, and some of their friends,” she finally answers, no emotion in her voice. Like she’s not even aware of what she’s admitting to me.
“Motherfucker,” I hiss, holding her so tight I’m sure I’m hurting her, but I can’t stop. “Those motherfuckers.”
“I was six when it started,” she says, making me pull back enough to look down into her face. She’s staring off into space, face blank, but her eyes are so full of memories it breaks something deep inside me. “I knew it was wrong, knew it was bad. I screamed and screamed for my mom, and she just yelled back at me to stop crying, and to shut the fuck up. My father laughed, like he knew my mother didn’t care. That she wasn’t going to help. That no one would help. It happened almost nightly for years. I would try to hide and he would still find me.
“When I was ten, they were arrested for drug possession and both got a year in prison. CPS showed up and sent me to live with Uncle Nero. I thought I was finally safe, that it was over. But it was only the beginning. Uncle Nero is as bad as my parents, but instead of just using, he sells too. That meant that he had all kinds of people over at the apartment. I tried to hide, tried to make sure they never knew I was there, but then one night, one of the men who were there to buy some crack from my uncle saw me. I didn’t know anyone was there and had come out of my room for a drink. When he saw me, I knew what he wanted. I had seen that look on my father’s face before. When he told my uncle what he wanted, my uncle had looked at me, and I’ll never forget that look in his eyes. It was cold, and calculating.”
“I fought so hard,” she cries softly. “But it didn’t matter. Uncle Nero told me, after, that I was going to start earning my keep while I was there. That he was feeding me and clothing me, so I owed him. No matter how hard I fought, who I told, nothing stopped it.”
I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this kind of fury, this kind of helplessness. And I’m powerless to do anything to fix it, other than listen, and let her know she’s not alone.
I pull her tight into my arms, picking her up and holding her close. “I’m so sorry, baby,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
Raven doesn’t fight, she just sinks into me. “I ran away when I was fifteen, almost sixteen,” she tells me. “Shit happened and I knew I had to leave. If I didn’t, I was going to die. Either I’d kill myself or they would. So I left. I drifted for a few years, got into drugs and alcohol myself,” she adds with self-loathing clear in her tone. “Then an older guy saw me one night and told me he was a tattoo artist and would help me. I didn’t trust him, figuring he wanted something from me too, but he gave me a room in a small apartment above the tattoo shop he owned, and trained me how to tattoo and do piercings.”
I feel a small hint of relief drip through. “He helped you,” I murmur.
She nods, looking up at me, eyes wet. “He did. He was the first person to help me and not turn me away. He gave me everything he could and then made it so I could build something of my own. He was hoping I would be good at tattooing, but I don’t have the passion for it. But I enjoyed piercing, so he worked with me on that, and showed me how to run the business side of things. I found myself happy for the first time.”
“Because it’s you, Wildcat,” I say with a nod of my head. “You’re in control and you decide what you want to do. You had your power back, and fuck anyone who doesn’t like it.”
“Trust you to get it on the first try,” she says with a small smile. “He died when I was twenty-two and his son took over. He told me that I was welcome to stay, but I needed to make my own name. I saw an ad for a job at Fire & Ink, and I took the chance. And it was the best chance I ever took.”
“You’re where you’re supposed to be, Wildcat,” I murmur, kissing her mouth gently. “This is where you’re needed, and where you have people at your back that you never did before. Me, my family, your friends, the guys at the shop, and the MC. You have so many people who would drop everything to help you. And now that’s extended to Falcon.”
She nods slowly, shuddering out a small sigh. “I know you’re right, but it’s hard to remember that sometimes. I feel so fucking guilty I didn’t know about Falcon. That he suffered while I was living my life.”
“You did what you had to do, Raven,” I say firmly. “Falcon will understand. Now more than ever. Did he say if he—”
“No,” she butts in, relief clear in her expression. “He said that they beat him, made fun of him, things like that. But he never suffered that.”
Relief rushes through me, but guilt is right behind it. How can I feel relief when I know Raven suffered so much worse? It’s too much to analyze now though. My focus is Raven. “Then you’re already making steps in the right direction. I have no doubt you are going to make sure that he’s taken care of. That he will have the life you didn’t get to have.”
“What if he resents me?” she asks worriedly. “What if he thinks about it and he can’t forgive me for leaving him there?”
“He won’t resent you,” I promise her.
“You can’t know that,” she protests, pulling away. “You can’t. You didn’t have this happen to you,” she cries, her voice rising, face flushing with anger. “You weren’t the one who was out trying to make a life while your little brother was being beaten, living with a disability, and trying to survive parents that don’t give a shit. That beat him because he couldn’t hear. With an uncle who did the same.”
“No, you’re right, I can’t,” I agree. “But I know that boy out there texted me when you were crying and asked me to come help. He cares enough to know I would be here, no questions asked. That’s not a brother that resents you, Raven. That’s a brother that cares, even while he’s a scared kid himself. He’s lost everything he knew and is in a whole new city. A new life with people he doesn’t know.” Her shoulders sag under the weight of my words, and I push aside my worry and guilt. “You are the one who is showing him what it means to have someone he can trust, Raven. You’ve shown him that by taking classes so you can communicate with him. You moved into a new home so that he wouldn’t be taken away from you. You put him in a school that will give him the help he needs. He sees you trying, Raven. And don’t you think that will mean more to him than the fact that you both suffered abuse at the hands of the people you should have been able to trust?”