Livia Lone

36-THEN

Malcolm dropped her off at the Lones’ house. Katy was throwing another party, like the year before. Livia wondered whether Sean would walk her home again after. Whether he might try to kiss her again. She’d been thinking about that a lot lately. She thought she wanted him to. She wanted to know what it was like to kiss someone. And she wanted it to be Sean. The way he’d touched her the year before… it had been so gentle, so tentative, it hadn’t bothered her. When she looked back on it now, she thought Sean touching her like that had actually been quite lovely. She wanted him to do it again. To look at her, and whisper her name the way he had. To lean in the way he had. Yes, she thought, smiling. Please, that.

She had just finished showering and dressing, and was combing her wet hair in front of the mirror in her bedroom, when the door opened. She turned and saw Mr. Lone. She hadn’t been expecting that-Mrs. Lone was home, and it was too early for one of his night visits.

No, she thought. Not now. Not tonight.

“Congratulations,” he said, one hand resting on the doorjamb, the other holding a drink. His tie was loosened, his suit jacket open.

He took a sip from the glass. “I would have said so at the tournament, but you seem not to like talking with me at your wrestling functions.”

She surprised herself by thinking, Yeah, no shit. Ordinarily, she just endured him. Even in her mind, she didn’t argue. She didn’t talk back.

“Why is that, Livia? Are you ashamed of me?”

She glanced down. “I’m going to a party,” she heard herself say. “I want you to leave me alone.”

If her thoughts were surprising, the words outright stunned her. Who had just said that?

He stepped into the room and closed the door. “What did you say?”

She felt the fear rising up, trying to assert itself. “Leave me alone.”

“I don’t even know what that means. Leave you alone? You’re in my house.”

Her heart began to pound. But not in fear. In anger. Her fear had always been stronger than her anger. But this time felt different. This time, the anger felt like something alive, dangerous, uncoiling inside her. A snake. A dragon.

“I saved your life, Livia,” he said, his voice rising. “Made you my daughter. And a daughter has obligations to her father. That’s the way God made the world. You’re lucky I haven’t demanded more of you. I could have. Until you’re married, your body is my right. Do you understand me?”

Some distant part of her realized this was the way he always went about it. Every time he did something worse to her, he worked himself into a tirade first. Maybe he needed to do that, to justify what he wanted from her. It seemed he was going to do it now.

“I’ve been patient with you,” he went on. “Respectful. I waited, until I thought you were old enough for different experiences. Until I thought you were ready. Well, maybe I’ve been overly solicitous. Maybe you were ready before I thought. Maybe you’re ready now.”

She could feel the dragon unfurling its wings, opening its claws. “Leave me alone,” she said again, still not looking at him.

He placed his drink on the bureau and came closer, stopping in front of her and leaning down until his face was just a few inches from hers. “You little ingrate. After everything I’ve done for you? I found your sister for you. Do you ever want to see her again? Do you ever want to see Nason?”

Nason’s name in his mouth was suddenly sickening. An atrocity. She looked up at him, her lips drawing back. “You’re a liar,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper.

His face darkened. “That’s enough. Take off your clothes. Get on the bed.”

Her breath felt hot now, like smoke coming from a fire burning in her lungs. “No.”

For a second, she saw complete shock in his eyes. Then he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “You will obey me!” he shouted.

Without thinking, she dropped back with one foot, forcing him to straighten his arms, and shot her hands up under his elbows, breaking his grip. Then she stepped in and shoved him in the ribs, harder than she had ever shoved anything in her life. He stumbled back and almost fell, but hit the wall and recovered his balance.

“Get out,” she said, her voice alien, low and dangerous and hot with rage. The dragon’s voice.

“Bitch!” he shouted, and charged her. She couldn’t get out of the way in time, and he slammed into her and knocked her back. Her head hit the edge of her desk and there was a huge flash of white light. Then everything went away.

She felt a throbbing in her head, and then the room came swimming back into focus. Her sweater was pushed up and her pants and panties were off. She was on the floor looking up at him, his knee digging into her bare stomach. He ripped loose his belt.

“Selfish little bitch,” he said, panting. “Tonight you pay me what I’m due. All of it. Every last bit.”

The throbbing in her head stopped. She felt no fear. It was gone, incinerated by molten rage. A red haze crept into her vision. The dragon that had merely been stirring was fully awake now. It had taken control of her. It was her.

She shoved his knee off her, twisted, and scooted her hips out to the left. Before he could react, she grabbed his lapels and reversed directions, shooting her right knee past his body, working her foot through, and wrapping her legs around his back. The guard. Her favorite.

For one second, he looked almost happy. And why not? He was between her naked legs. What he’d always wanted. He tried to get his pants open, but she pulled him forward so he couldn’t. Then his expression changed to anger as he realized he wasn’t in control. She was.

He straightened and tried to shake loose, but couldn’t. He straightened more, lifting her, then slammed her down against the floor. She saw stars. His height gave him leverage, and his anger was giving him strength. He slammed her again. This time, it knocked some of the wind out of her. He went to do it a third time.

She jerked open his right lapel with her left hand and slipped the fingers of her right hand inside it, high up, alongside his neck. He slammed her down, and as his head rocked forward with the impact, she reached behind his neck with her left hand and got her thumb inside the left side of his lapel, near the back of the collar. She whipped her left arm around his head, dropped her elbows close to her body, and squeezed, the bones at the outer edge of her forearms crushing the sides of his neck like the tongs of a giant walnut cracker. A cross-collar choke, one of the first moves Malcolm had taught her.

His face reddened and veins stood out under his scalp. He tried to break loose and she squeezed tighter with her legs. He tried to push himself up off the floor, and she uncrossed her ankles and kicked out one of his legs. He managed to get his hands on the floor and push himself up, and she hung on, squeezing harder, crying now, screaming, a lifetime of fear and grief and hatred and rage surging up through her arms and out her mouth. His eyes bulged more and his tongue stuck out and a sound came from his throat-a rattling, gurgling, breaking sound. She screamed louder and squeezed harder, looking into his dying, terrified eyes, imagining herself squeezing so hard her arms would go through his neck and cut his entire head off. Harder. Harder. She couldn’t have stopped if she’d wanted to. And she didn’t want to. Stopping was the last thing she wanted.

All at once, his struggles faded. His eyes rolled up, his tongue flopped loose, and his body went limp on top of her. She hung on, sobbing, squeezing.

She wasn’t sure how much time went by. A few seconds. A few minutes. Then the door opened. Livia looked up and saw Mrs. Lone, her mouth hanging open in shock. She must have heard the commotion, and become so concerned she couldn’t ignore it. Her face contorted. And then she screamed.

Livia squirmed loose from under Mr. Lone’s limp form and got to her feet, panting.

“What have you done?” Mrs. Lone screamed, her eyes wide and horrified. “You little whore, what have you done?”

The red haze was fading now, colors returning to normal. But Livia’s breath still felt as hot as smoke.

“You… you killed him! You filthy little slut, you whore, you killed him!”

Livia pulled down her sweater and glanced at him. He was lying facedown, his arms at his sides, not moving. Had she killed him? She hadn’t meant to. Or had she? She hadn’t been thinking. Something had just… switched on. Taken control.

“I’m calling the police,” Mrs. Lone said. “Right now.” She turned to go.

“Yes, call them. I want to tell them how your husband has been abusing me since I was thirteen. And how you knew all about it.”

Mrs. Lone stopped and turned back to her. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You filthy, lying whore,” she hissed.

“If you didn’t know, why do you keep calling me a whore?”

For a long moment, Mrs. Lone stood frozen. Then she made a hitching, choking sound, as though she was going to vomit, and began to cry.

“You killed him!” she sobbed.

A strange coldness came over Livia. The dragon was suddenly gone, replaced by a feeling of perfect clarity. She picked up her panties and pulled them on, then her pants.

“No one has to know,” she said. And it was true. She was amazed at how quickly and clearly she was able to see it, see all of it. Almost as though some part of her had realized tonight might happen, and had been prepared for it. “No one has to know anything.”

Mrs. Lone raised her hands to the sides of her head. “What are you talking about? My husband is dead! You killed him!”

“No. We think he had a heart attack. He came to my room to congratulate me for winning the tournament, and then he collapsed.”

Mrs. Lone stared at her mutely.

“If you tell anyone I killed him,” Livia said, “I’ll tell them why. It’s that simple.”

“No one’s going to believe you, you lying piece of refugee trash!”

“I don’t know. Why would I have killed my great benefactor? For the rest of your life, they’ll always look at you, and wonder whether I was telling the truth. And how it could be that you didn’t know.”

Mrs. Lone made the vomiting sound again, but otherwise said nothing.

“Call nine-one-one. Tell them you heard me yell. He was lying on the floor when you got to my room. I told you he collapsed. You tried to revive him. CPR. But you were panicked and you didn’t know how. You were hitting him, trying to wake him up. That’s why he has marks on his neck.”

“They’ll do an autopsy. They’ll know it’s a lie.”

Livia realized on some level that the woman was listening to her, her objections now only practical ones, as though she wanted to be persuaded and just needed to be presented with a way.

“You know the police. They’ll listen to you. They were all tied up with him, I could see that, his friend Chief Emmanuel especially. Chief Emmanuel won’t want a scandal any more than you do. I think he knew more about your husband than you’d like. I think a lot of people knew, like you did, and won’t want anyone to know they knew. If you tell the police the right story, they won’t investigate.”

Mrs. Lone shook her head. “I won’t be part of this. I’ll see you in jail first.”

“Maybe. But I’ll be out in two years, when I’m eighteen.” She looked into Mrs. Lone’s eyes, letting her feel the truth of it. “And I know where you live.”

Mrs. Lone shook her head. “I can’t live with this. I can’t.”

“You won’t have to. After you call nine-one-one, call your brother. Rick. You’re upset now over the loss of your husband. You don’t want me in your house. You never did. You want Rick to take me in, just for the rest of this year and for my senior year, while you deal privately with your loss. Do that, and you’ll never hear from me again. Don’t do it, and the whole town will know your husband was nothing but a sick, disgusting child molester.”

Mrs. Lone brushed away tears. “Don’t you talk about him that way, you tramp. He had his flaws, his demons. But he was a great man.”

“It’s not me talking about him you have to worry about. It’s the town. And when they learn what he really was, I think you’ll be hearing more about his flaws than his greatness.”

“How dare you, you-”

“But you can prevent that. Make the call. You think he had a heart attack. Get his belt back on him, unless you want people to ask why it was off. And then call Rick.”

“My brother will never take you in.”

“You better hope he does. Because if he doesn’t, someone else will. Someone in Llewellyn. I’m a brave little refugee girl who’s suffered such a terrible ordeal, remember? And if I stay in Llewellyn, you’ll never be rid of me. Ever.”