Bleeding Heart

(I didn't do much editing in this chapter because i was tired. I'll most likely go back and fix that later though so just bear with me for now)


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(ten years earlier)

She shouldn’t have come outside.

On the night of her fifteenth birthday she shouldn’t have had to come outside.

It was the middle of the night and Eloise had to steel herself from flinching as another coyote howled somewhere in the distance.

She loved Nevada.

She loved coyotes.

She was afraid of the dark.

Which is why she shouldn’t have come outside.

But let’s face it, unless she met up with that bastard Richard like he’d told her to then chances were he’d spread it around that she gone down on him. She hadn’t of course, but the rumor was still a dangerous one. Once word got out that she had sucked off Richard Harris, then her father was bound to hear of it.

And ever since mama died her papa hadn’t exactly been the most…forgiving of men. As a priest, a god fearing man it was his duty, his right, to correct her when she strayed to far from the path of the righteous.
Penny still wasn’t convinced that dragging his daughter on her knees every Sunday night after dinner and making her do the disgusting things that he did was in anyway god like. But then she was only fifteen so what did she know.

Her gut twisted in fear and her heart gave a sickening lurch at the thought of what her papa would do to her if he caught her out of bed. The thought was almost enough to make her turn around, to leave the wide, flat Nevada plain where she now stood and run as far as she could back home.

But then she thought of what he would do to her if Richard’s lies reached his ears and her heart stopped. She clutched her stomach and groaned. But she stayed.

God she wished he would hurry up.

From behind her she heard a soft scuffing sound and Eloise tensed as she whirled around. The shape that hovered over her slight form was backlit by the light of the moon and for a split, deadly, second she thought it was her papa. She stumbled back and flinched her eyes widening.

“Hey, hold on now it’s just me. Jeez, if I knew you’d be so freaked out being out here I would’ve come sooner.”
Richard’s voice was a deep soothing rumble and almost instantly her nerves eased. She didn’t like it out here, no not one bit.

“Look, it doesn’t matter now.” Her voice was shaky and she struggled to strengthen it. She lifted her chin and crossed her arms over her chest.
Shit it was cold out. “Just tell me what this is all about so I can go home.”

She wasn’t sure, because his lean face was cast in shadow, but she thought his eyes narrowed on her face. The brown of his hair curled in soft waves around his face and as breeze had a habit of lifting locks of it and tugging on them.

Richard was a handsome man, she remembered his features clearly from all of the times she’d seen him in the congregation. He was older than her by a good five years and just being around him made her skin itch.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

Eloise’s mouth dropped open and she stared up at him, fury warming her like nothing else could.

“Wait a minute, you threaten to spread lies about me and make me sneak out of my house, all because you want to ask me a question?”

Her anger seemed to please him because he smiled, his teeth glinting in the darkness. Elly shivered.

“I did."

She spit at his feet and turned away, tossing her hair as an added insult.

“Whatever jackass. I don’t have time to play games with you. I’m going home.”

His next words however had her freezing in her tracks.

“Is it true?”

Her mouth went dry.

“Is what true?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. Is it true that the priest fucks his baby girl every chance he gets?”

Elly’s whole body went rigid and her stomach dipped. She almost screamed then, almost struck out at him, if only to make him shut up.

No one was supposed to know.

No one was supposed to find out. Just the thought of someone even suspecting it had her insides screaming and writhing like demons.

If she could have killed him just then she would have.

“No. No it isn’t true.”

“Try again pet.” He was close, a lot closer than she had originally thought. His breath fanned the outer shell of her ear through her curls and she flinched back, biting her lip so hard that the skin split. Cruel fingers dug into the flesh of her upper arm and he yanked her forward against him.

When she tried to twist away he his fingers slid along her arm to her wrist and he twisted it behind her back so that she screamed and arched against his chest. Her nipple brushed against the fabric of his shirt through the material of her nightgown and she shivered. The movement sent a bolt of pain through her straining arm and she whimpered as she looked up at him. For the first time that night the real possibility that she would be raped by someone other than her papa ran through her mind.

She was afraid yes, terrified, sick and oddly…eager. Any hand, even a cruel one, on her body was preferable to her father’s. Just the thought of her papa touching her again, his too soft hands sliding along her body and between her legs had her gorge rising.

She was going to hell. She knew it. It was the devil in a woman who would welcome the cruel touch of a stranger.
“Let me make something very clear to you my dear sweet Elly. I will never lie to you, and you…you will never lie to me. I’ll know. I’ll always know. There are whispers going through town already. Everyone sees the way he watches you, the way he touches your hair or your hand when he thinks no ones watching. Now I’m going to give you one last chance.“

He leaned into her and the material of her gown rubbing along her cold hardened nipples had her crying out softly. A foreign heat exploded between her legs and she jerked as if struck. The sudden move had her arm screaming in pain and on a sob she told the truth.

“Ye-yes.” Defiance, strong and fierce followed just as quickly on the heals of pain and self-disgust. “Are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear? That my daddy, my preacher, fucks me so hard sometimes I go numb down there. That sometimes I bleed from it. That I have to fight off the urge to slice my wrist open with a letter opener almost everyday. That I feel like a whore and the worst sort of filth to make my own father lust after me the way he does.“ She was crying now, crying and screaming into his shadow veiled face. And she couldn’t seem to be able to stop herself, even though the little Elly in her mind begged and pleaded for her to please be quiet. No one must know, little Elly says. No one must suspect.

Too late for that.

“I HATE HIM! I hate myself. And I hate God and my mother for leaving me all alone and letting this happen to me. IS THAT TRUTH ENOUGH FOR YOU? ARE YOU HAPPY NOW!?”

When his mouth crashed into hers it was a shock. A nasty one. But he didn’t give her time to think about it before he growled against her lips,

“Yes.”