Damaged Souls

Chapter 7 Emotions

April 10th, 1975
As the weeks passed, I didn't become happy, but I wasn't any less depressed, if it was at all possible. Every week was sex or beatings, or both sometimes. My hair was beginning to grow back, but slowly, and because of its raggedness it was growing at different lengths. Jack eventually stopped chaining me up. I was still locked in the frigid basement, but it wasn't anymore comforting. I often tried to yell loud enough for someone to help me, but no one could hear me. The only part about living with Jack I didn't mind was the food. For a rapist, he wasn't bad in the kitchen. Every day he would bring me down breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He only ever let me out of my basement room to let me use the bathroom and have baths, but that was it. I hated my life here, I hated every bit of it.

As I sat on the small bed Jack had placed in the basement, I thought about my life and everything that had happened, my mother dying, my father becoming an abusive drunk, me and my brother running away only to be starving, Dustin taking drugs, and now this, being repeatedly forced into sex and held hostage in a psycho mans house. I slowly picked up the knife Jack had used to cut my hair, and made a slit on my left wrist. There wasn't much blood, and the pain was only momentarily there. I made a cut for every awful experience I thought of. Five cuts in total...

As I watched the blood trickle down my arm and drip to the concrete floor, I finally let myself cry again. I didn't sob, but quietly let my tears flow from my eyes and mix with my blood. You never realize how much time has passed until you let yourself. My mother had been dead for an entire decade, and for a whole decade was nonstop pain and torment. My childhood was spent running from shop owners and hiding away in broken down homes, sheds, or even sometimes just a large tree. I had no choice but to be robbed of a childhood. It wasn't fair.

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Later that evening, Jack came in, a lustful look on his face. He grabbed me by the arm and shoved me to the floor. "Take off your clothes doll face, because I got plans...~" he giggled. I only did as I was told because I knew if I didn't, he would hurt me far more than he could if I did. Upon unbuttoning the ugly black dress he gave me to wear, Jack immediately ripped it off. I felt even more fear crawl up my spine. "He's more violent tonight, that's not a good sign..." I thought in fear. Instead of doing what he normally did, Jack put himself somewhere else, much to my displeasure. It was really painful. "O-ow!! Stop!!" I yelled, but he laughed insanely and kept going.

I never enjoyed these sessions, never will either. Just as he was getting into it, there was a knock on the door. Jack immediately stopped, and he put his clothes back on. "Stay here.." he snapped, and quickly went upstairs. I went up the stairs and put my ear to the basement door, and listened closely. I breathed choked cries from the lingering pain. When Jack opened the door, standing there was Dustin. "Hello sir," Dustin rasped, his eyes were puffy and red, and his voice was shaky, likely from crying. "I've been looking for my sister, Caroline, Caroline Andrews, for weeks now, I've been asking around if anyone's seen her..." he said, stammering. I always wonder now even, how many times he went to people's doors throughout the weeks.

Jack had had enough of people coming to his door asking for me, but he put on his best sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry young lad, I haven't seen her anywhere," Jack lied, and Dustin looked at him oddly. "But, aren't you the one who gave her that money...?" He asked, remembering the way I had described Privet to him the day I had been kidnapped. Jack came up with another fib. "I mean, I haven't seen her anywhere SINCE giving it to her, poor girl must be so scared." I felt my face flush with shame and guilt. Dustin really did love me, he must have been searching for me for weeks, scared and wondering if I was even still alive. I wanted to run to him and hug him, and tell him that I was safe and would go back to living with him.

"Thank you sir, I want to find her, and finally clean up my act... I'm gonna stop doing drugs, and start working full time so I can give us the life we need..." Dustin said happily and with determination. I put a hand to my mouth. It took me running from him for him to see that he wasn't doing the right thing, and he wanted to find me so he could be the big brother he wanted me to have. My eyes heavily watered as I listened to Dustin walking away, and Jack shutting the door. "Oh Dustin... I wish I could tell you that I'm right here, and of how proud of you I am..." I thought. I made a wish in that moment. I wished that I would escape this wretched place, and find happiness again with Dustin. Maybe we could even find a family who would adopt us and love us.

As I heard Mr.Privet come towards the stairs, I quickly got away from the door and sat in the basement corner. The door unlocked, and slowly creaked open. "Oh Caroline...~" he said in his harmonic and lustful tone. Jack waltzed around the room, and smiled down at me. "Hello doll, get your pretty little self over here, I wasn't done with you...~" he spoke softly. I looked at him for a moment, before my anger stared to broil. "I don't know why you're like this, why you're so fucking messed up in the head, but you have SERIOUS issues..." I said sternly. "Do you even have an OUNCE of remorse...!?" I yelled, and he must've been pretty surprised I was standing up against him.

I stood up, crossing my arms and covering my chest. "What made you SO screwed up that you kidnap a girl, AND HOLD HER HOSTAGE IN YOUR HOME, AND REPEATEDLY FORCE HER INTO HAVING SEX WITH YOU!?!?" I roared, and Jack's cynical smile disappeared. He slowly sat on the bed, and looked at me. "Caroline, I presume you had a bad life, you still did even when I took you..." he sighed. "When I was young, my parents, did bad things to me, and witness bad things, my mother and my father forced my mind down a dark path, they basically taught me to use excuses, lies, and to just, hurt my problems... They hurt me..." Mr.Privet mumbled. "I, was their problem..."

As I looked into his eyes, my own, softened. This man was broken, and though not in the same way, he too was a victim of abuse. His abuse came in the way of an awful family who sent him on the wrong path. I felt, sorry for him... Now, I know that was a huge mistake, but I wouldn't know that for a long time... All my life, I'd never had someone to empathize with. I had never been able to find someone with the same problems. Standing there, I smiled a bit. I was blind in that moment, blind to his twisted torment.

"I'm, really sorry to hear that sir..." I said softly. Jack looked at me, smiling a little. "Just call me Jack, Caroline..."