Chapter One Hundred and Four
"Say it on tape and I'll let you go," Charlie said.
"I'm not saying anything," Grant told her defiantly.
"Tell the truth about what you did to me."
She pushed him back in his chair again. Her eyes burned into his.
"You've completely lost it, do you know that?" Grant yelled.
She pushed him forcefully back. The chair toppled over and he hit his head on the floor. His head swum for a moment but his vision cleared enough to see Charlie standing over him.
"Yeah," she said. "I have lost it. Quite frankly, I don't care what happens to me if it means getting rid of you."
She lifted up her foot, ready to kick him either in the face or chest when two people screaming her name behind her, made Charlie turn back in surprise. She blanched to see Joey and Ruby standing there, looking frantic and horrified at the scene before them.
"Ruby!" Grant said from the ground. "Thank goodness. You need to untie me. She's gone crazy."
"Shut up!" Charlie snapped at him.
"Charlie, what the hell are you doing?" Joey asked.
"I'm getting a confession out of him," Charlie explained.
Joey searched her eyes. They were wild. She was almost unrecognisable. Looking down at Grant on the floor, she could only picture herself with Robbo standing over her. It made her feel sick.
"Charlie, you don't want to do this," Ruby said. "This isn't who you are."
"Who am I supposed to be?" Charlie asked, her voice tinged with sheer desperation. "How am I supposed to live without you? With him ruining my life over and over again?"
"Charlie, we can talk this through, okay?" Ruby said. "Come outside with me. We can talk. I'll listen to whatever you need to say."
Charlie looked at Grant and then back at Ruby and Joey. Mutely, she nodded and followed Ruby outside. Joey remained in the shack, anxious and afraid. She crossed the room and stared down at Grant, looking battered and helpless.
Outside in the fresh evening air, Ruby immediately began to plead with Charlie to let Grant go.
"I can't," the police officer said. "I can't let him go anywhere until he's told you what he did."
"I don't care, okay?" Ruby said desperately. "If you're so broken by this that you need to kidnap and torture someone, I believe you. I don't need a confession. I just believe you, Charlie. But you have to let him go. You could go to prison for this."
Charlie studied her face. Tears sprung from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
"You're just saying that," she said.
"I'm not," Ruby insisted.
"If I let him go, he's just going to lie to you again, turn you against me."
"No," Ruby said, holding onto Charlie's arms and surprised to find that she was trembling.
"Do you know what he said to me afterwards?" Charlie asked.
Ruby said nothing but listened carefully to whatever her mother had to say.
"I was crying and putting my clothes back on. I was shaking and I was in so much pain. He zipped himself back up and told me I wasn't worth the effort. He told that I was nothing but a pathetic little bitch for crying like that."
She swallowed and wiped her eyes as Ruby hugged her.
Joey had pulled Grant back into a sitting position. Touching him had made her skin crawl. She felt sick knowing what he had done to her beloved Charlie. He'd begged her several times to untie him and to rescue him but she'd refused. She hated to think of what Charlie had become, what she capable of, but she wasn't about to rescue him. She looked up when Charlie and Joey entered the room again. Charlie looked at her with lost, sorrowful eyes.
"Better pull up chairs," Charlie told them. "It's going to be a long night."
She sank onto the floor and glared at Grant. There was a distinct smell of urine in the air now. Joey walked over and realised that Grant had wet himself. Without saying anything she came to sit against the opposite wall, not feeling ready to be close to Charlie again. Ruby however, did sit beside her. She took Charlie's hand and pleaded with her to let Grant go.
"If all you care about is getting a confession for my benefit," she said, "then you don't need to. I already believe you, Charlie."
Charlie looked uncertain.
"Don't you think you've done enough now?" Joey asked quietly.
Charlie studied her, terrified of judgement and recrimination. She'd hoped that she would understand but it didn't look like she did.
"Please let me go," Grant whimpered.
"Funny," Charlie said. "That's pretty much exactly how I begged you sixteen years ago. You didn't listen though, did you?"
Joey closed her eyes. Her own words to Robbo, the way she'd begged him not to hurt her, raced through the mind and ripped at her soul. She felt so torn between completely understanding her girlfriend and being completely afraid of her. The latter definitely wasn't a feeling she was used to.
"Charlie, if you just let him go, we can move on from this," said Ruby.
Charlie wiped her eyes.
"How can we ever move on?" she asked desperately.
"What's the alternative, Charlie? Torture him to death?" Ruby asked.
Grant's eyes widened in horror at the suggestion.
"If we let him go now... he won't say anything."
She shot a look at her biological father.
"Will you?"
He shook his head and quickly promised to stay out of their lives from now on. Charlie studied his face and saw the fright there. She looked at Ruby, so eager to make things right. And she stared across at Joey whose expression was unreadable. In that moment, she became terribly afraid that she had lost her. Knowing that, if she had, the only chance she had of making things right, meant setting Grant free and proving that she was capable of doing the right thing. She just hoped that Ruby was being true to her, that she really did believe her once and for all. Scooting forward and getting to her feet, Charlie stood behind Grant and loosened his knots. He jumped out of the chair as soon as he could.
"You never were worth it," he said, glaring at her. "You pathetic little bitch."
Ruby leapt to her feet and rushed towards him. Charlie's words echoed in her mind and she realised once and for all that Charlie had been telling the truth from the beginning.
"Ruby..." he began.
She punched him hard in the face.
"You raped my Charlie," she accused. "I wish she'd killed you."
He looked surprised and Charlie and Joey both look stunned. Without hesitating, Grant turned and fled, leaving the three women to try and pick up their lives all over again.
