Her chin trembled as the emotions started bubbling to the surface finally. “Y-you have no idea what it w-was like,” she rasped. “After that he always took me at night, in my bed. I never knew when. Sometimes it was several times a week. There were weeks I never saw him. But every time it happened, I turned my head and focused on the moon through my window. Seeing it brought a certain calm over me.
“I learned everything I could about it so that even when I couldn’t see it, I’d close my eyes and think about where it was and why, and it helped me slip away from my ugly reality. Ever since then the moon has held a very spiritual meaning for me. Almost like she was my guardian, helping me through the darkness to find her light.”
“Did you tell anyone? Vanessa?”
“My first thought was to tell Nessie. I knew she’d make him sorry for ever laying a hand on me. He must have known that because he made sure to tell me that if Vanessa found out, she’d drop out of college and end up in the same dead-end life as our mother.”
“Bullshit,” he spit with contempt. “He was trying to scare you so you wouldn’t say anything.”
“I know that now, but at fourteen the last thing I wanted to do was ruin my sister’s life.”
“How long did it go on?”
“Oh, he got bored with me after a year.”
“A year?”
“Yeah,” she said flatly. “I think he became impotent, but I never knew for sure. But then he decided just because he wasn’t enjoying me didn’t mean others couldn’t. So for a price, he allowed his friends to visit me instead.”
Holy fuck. Horror washed over him, twisting his gut in knots for the young girl in his arms who’d been abused so viciously. How she could bear any man’s touch was a miracle. Aiden pulled her in tighter, though whether it was more for her comfort or his he couldn’t say. “Christ, baby, I’m so sorry.” His voice was barely a rasp due to the golf ball of grief now stuck in his throat.
“There’s no reason for you to be sorry; you didn’t do it.”
Her behavior since they’d gotten out of the shower had grown more detached. Like she was tucking herself away and leaving a robotic shell behind to continue the conversation. He didn’t like it. As much as he hated seeing her cry or get upset, he’d welcome that as opposed to this disturbing…nothing.
“Besides,” she added, “it’s over, so no big deal.”
“Kat, none of that has anything to do with who you are.”
“Yes, it does.” She sprang up from his lap, adjusting the towel under her arms and glaring at him as though he’d just insulted her. “I didn’t fight them! I let them have sex with me. Like a goddamn whore!”
Aiden grabbed the towel rack over his head and pulled himself to a standing position. Her hysteria was escalating as she revealed more of the self-deprecation she must have lived with most of her life. To think she’d been so violently mistreated made him absolutely murderous. He tried to go to her, to offer her what little comfort he could, but Kat slapped his hands away.
“Don’t you get it?” she cried. “Vanessa never would have allowed anything like that to happen to her. She would have slept with a knife, a gun, done something! If I’d been more like Nessie, none of that would’ve ever happened. But I was too weak and scared. I deserved what I got.”
“Fuck that,” he growled, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a quick shake. She’d gone too far. Aiden would sooner chew off his arms than listen to that bullshit. “You never deserved any of it. Not one second of what they did to you. You were just a kid, for chrissakes! I don’t care if you were walking around that house naked and shaking your ass. He had no right to touch you. None of them did. You understand me?”
Some of the tension leaked from her muscles as she nodded ever so slightly. She sniffed hard and choked back a sob with little success. She hugged herself around her middle and peered up at him with an almost dazed look. Her voice was flat with a sad acceptance. “He took everything from me, Irish. My innocence, my self-respect. All my firsts. I can never get any of those things back. They’re gone forever.”
Aiden cupped her face and willed her to believe him. “I know it’s hard not to live in the past. I struggle with that every fucking day. But you’re free now. Free from everyone who’s ever hurt you or held you back. You’re so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. I don’t know anybody who could’ve walked in your shoes and come out the other side half as amazing as you have.”
A glimmer of hope passed over her features. “You mean that?” she whispered.