I wish I’d never told Mummy about our secret.

When my eyes get too heavy I fall asleep. My door creaking open wakes me, and I let out a tiny fearful little scream when someone sits down on my bed.

“Shh, baby it’s me,” Mummy says, and I pull back the covers and feel her tears as they splash onto my hands. “We have to be really quiet, okay? You and I are going to take a little trip.”

“Is Daddy coming too?” I whisper.

“No, sweet girl. Just you and me.” In a flash of lightning from outside the window, I see her face crinkle with pain, her eye is all puffy and closed. She pulls me from the bed and whispers, “Okay come on. Two brave girls off on an adventure—what do you say?”

I nod and she smiles, but then she starts to cry again. “Good girl. We’re gonna need to be real quiet so we don’t wake Daddy, okay?”

“Okay. But Mummy … why are we leaving Daddy behind? Won’t he be sad without us?”

“No. He doesn’t love us, baby. He wants to hurt us.” She sets me down and crouches in front of me, holding my hands in hers. “What he did to you wasn’t right. No one has the right to touch you like that, do you hear me?” I stare at her. My chest feels tight and my eyes start to leak just like hers. “Now, come on, let’s get your robe on and go.”

“But it’s raining,” I say, tugging on her hand and pointing to the window. “Shouldn’t we wait until it stops?”

“It’s just a little rain. Drizzle, baby. Nothing to worry about.”

It isn’t drizzle, though; it’s pouring down so loudly I can hear it pinging off the roof.

I let her carry me down the stairs, and I feel safe and warm in her arms. I don’t like that I upset her. I don’t like that Daddy has hurt her. I don’t like leaving in the middle of the night during a rainstorm, but I go anyway.

When we get in the car, I realise that I left Banjo behind. “Mummy, wait. Banjo.” I cry.

“We can’t go back, honey.”

“But it’s Banjo. Grandma gave him to me.”

“It’s not safe for us to go back in the house,” my mother snaps, and then she gives me another of those smiles that aren’t really happy. “I’ll buy you a new Banjo.”

I wail loudly. I don’t wanna leave my teddy behind. Mummy glances back at the house. She’s fretting the way Grandma does when I put my sticky hands on her white couches. Mummy turns and points at me. “You stay here. Do not move. Okay? I’m going to get Banjo and then we’re going to leave.”

“Okay,” I squeak through my tears.

Only she doesn’t come back to the car. And we don’t go on our secret big girl mission. I get scared of being all alone, and I think maybe Mummy needs help finding Banjo. He’s under my covers, right at the very end of my bed tucked between my sheets. I put him there because he doesn’t like thunder, and he doesn’t like it when my mummy and daddy fight, and I couldn’t cover his ears all night because I’d needed to sleep.

I wish I’d stayed asleep.

I jolt awake. I blink my eyes several times and lie quietly on the bed, wondering what woke me.

“Ivy. Babe, wake up.”

Tank.

“Oh my God, you’re alive.” I shoot up from the bed and walk as far as the rope will let me. It’s not far enough; in fact, we’re about a metre away from one another, maybe a little less if he could stretch out his legs.

Tank nods gravely. His eyes are glazed and unfocused, and he wrestles with his cuffed hand, testing the strength of the restraints.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so damn sorry,” I say, and I close my eyes against the fresh onslaught of tears.

“Babe, it’s okay. I’m gonna get us out of here.”

“How did he find you?” I ask. “How are you here?”

“Crazy and I were out on a job. I came back to the van, expecting to find that dumb motherfucker, but he was nowhere in sight. I was just about to get out and go find the little shit when your dad struck me in the neck with some kinda tranq.”

“I’m so sorry. I should have told you this would happen,” I say, and I sink to the floor and curl into a foetal position—or as much of a foetal position as I can muster with my leg tied to a bed. “I thought he’d given up. I thought if he found me he’d just take me, and be done with it. I didn’t … This is my fault, Tank. You’re here because of—”

“Ivy, look at me,” he says. I do. The corner of his lip is swelling where my father nicked it, and there’s a laceration over his cheekbone. He looks pallid and exhausted, but he still manages to smile and reassure me with his gaze. “If you’re here, I’m here.”

“You shouldn’t be. I don’t deserve you. I don’t—”

“Well,” he says, shrugging his huge shoulders. “You could stand to put out more.” He grins, and despite the fear and the pain, a choked laugh escapes me. “Now, where the hell is here?”

“Home. We’re home.”

He looks around, and his expression is one of disgust as he shakes his head. “This isn’t your home.”

“This is where I grew up,” I say.

“Doesn’t mean it’s your home, babe. This is a prison cell, and you’ve spent far too long in it.” For a moment the fierce determination in his eyes gives me hope. “How many men he got workin’ for him?”

I shake my head. “None.”

Tank frowns. “What do you mean, none? He doesn’t have thugs, an entourage?”

“He never needed one, Tank,” I say, and I close my eyes, letting out a deep breath. “Just a needle and the promise of another fix.”

“Motherfucker,” he says under his breath, and at first I think he’s referring to what I just said, and then I follow his gaze.

I’m completely naked, which is preferable to having fabric covering the welts on my arse right now, but I still feel over-exposed with Tank here, not because he hasn’t seen me naked already, but because he’s never seen me wear my father’s marks so blatantly. The scar above my abdomen had been there since I was seventeen, but I’d covered it with a tattoo the first chance I got, and though the skin was still raised with scar tissue, the artist who had done it had a skilful hand and a clever eye for cover-ups. This is the first time Tank is seeing what it really says. I stand, and walk back to the bed. I don’t want to be away from him, but I can’t bear for him to look at me just now.

“What the fuck did he do to you?” His gaze promises violence and revenge, and his voice tremors with it. I sit on the bed and I wince, because the welts on my arse remind me why that’s a bad idea.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he murmurs. “I’ll string him up by his fucking intestines for this. I’m gonna gut him like a goddamn fish and choke him with his insides.”

“I’m alright.” I stand and look at him across the room, feeling small. Feeling helpless. And while that’s not new for me, I find tears of frustration welling in my eyes. I bat them away with the back of my hand.

“Havin’ your pussy carved up and your arse spanked raw is alright?”

“I’ve been through a lot worse,” I whisper.

Tank’s jaw tightens I can practically hear his teeth grinding together. I wrap the sheet around me and his hard gaze softens with remorse. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, babe. I never should have left you alone. I wasn’t here to protect you when he did that.” He tilts his chin towards me. “I wasn’t … He didn’t bring me here first; not to this room, anyway. I think I was upstairs though. He’d tied me to a bed and hit me a couple times with some kinda fuckin’ tranquilizer. I think he was afraid I’d break it, because even after he shot me up, I’d thrashed like a motherfucker. And then he punched me in the face and gave that tranq a helpin’ hand. I don’t remember jack shit after that. Only that I woke up here.”

“We’re never going to get out of here, are we?”

“You got out before, didn’t ya?”

“Yeah, because he was high as a kite, and he got careless. He left his pocket knife on the nightstand and I buried it in his face.”