Hard as Stone(138)

“Honor, that’s okay. You needed to see, honey. Who was behind that curtain? Do you know who hurt you?”

“Only one,” she whispered. “But I didn’t know it until this afternoon. I mean, I know about the two that Ezekiel found because you told me about them… that they were gone and couldn’t hurt me anymore,” she choked, revulsion filling her pretty face. “But the others…If I’d known, I’d have told you. I swear I would have,” she said desperately, rolling in the bed to clutch Harmony’s arm.

“I believe you,” Harmony assured her steadily, holding Honor’s tearful gaze. “I do. One of those men… one was my ex-husband, wasn’t it, baby? Tanner was one of the men who raped you.”

“I don’t want you to hurt, Harmony. You’ve hurt enough,” Honor whispered painfully, her cloudy eyes filled with so much agony that it hurt to look at her.

“You didn’t hurt me, Honor. He did,” Harmony replied huskily, lifting a hand to cradle her sister’s face. “Now, tell me.”

“Yes.”

It was the one word that confirmed all her worst fears. Yes, she’d suspected from the moment she’d watched Tanner approach Honor that afternoon, but knowing it was a fact -- a cold, unchangeable certainty – that knowledge turned her blood to ice. “I’m so sorry,” Harmony apologized on a choked sob as Honor launched herself against Harmony’s chest, burying her face as shudders wracked her tiny body. “This is my fault. I brought him into our family,” Harmony whispered as she felt Patience wrap her arms around both of them. “I did this to us.”

“Nobody did this to us but those monsters that hurt our sister,” Faith gasped through her tears as she crawled up the bed to Honor’s other side. “It isn’t any of our faults except theirs.”

Harmony knew otherwise, and no amount of pretty words from her sisters was going to change it. The guilt was crippling, a weight on her heart she wasn’t sure she’d be able to withstand. Hearing scuffling noises in the hallway, she knew that they had to get the whole story from Honor. She drew in a deep breath and attempted to stop the tears that were refusing to abate. “How many men were there, Peanut?” she asked quietly.

“Five,” Honor answered, her voice small and scared. “There were five of them. Big. Scary. They wore masks over their faces and every one of them smelled like stale beer and cigarettes. The things they did to me…. Oh, my God!” she gasped, tightening her arms around Harmony as the memories became real once again. “Th-three of them put on c-condoms, but the other two didn’t. And one of them, he kept shying away from me – like he didn’t wanna be there. It was like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hurt me, but the others, they goaded him… called him names until finally he…. He hurt me, too, but he kept whispering in my ear. He kept saying, ‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’”

Honor shook in her arms and all Harmony could do was hold on to her. One by one, she told them about each assault. She closed her eyes when Honor started talking about the last one.”

“I knew the final one was Tanner because he whispered in my ear that I tasted like a peach. He liked that I was innocent. I knew his voice,” Honor said woodenly, her voice almost gone and barely a whisper. “But I was really sure it was him because he’s the only one I saw. I fought. I struggled against each one of them, but they all took turns holding me down.” Her sobs echoed throughout the otherwise quiet room once again. “One of them lost his grip on one of my arms while Tanner was on top of me. I hit him and my ring snagged on his mask and pulled it off his face. I made that scar when my nails got his face. I saw him, Harmony! I saw him and he was laughing,” she shrieked in a whisper, her thin voice ragged with unspeakable pain.

Every woman in the room was openly crying by the time of that admission. Rocking Honor in her arms just the way she did when Heaven was hurting, Harmony felt the hot tears rolling down her cheeks.

Honor clutched at Harmony’s shirt, her fingers clawed into the fabric as her knees drew up against her stomach. “A-after they were done, I heard Tanner say that they had to get rid of me. That I’d seen his face and couldn’t live. He tossed a knife toward one of them and told them to have fun. I remember one of them stomping toward me and that knife swinging down. I heard the one that had seemed not to want to hurt me yelling, but the other two held him back. I felt the knife go into me, then, nothing else…not until I heard Cain yelling my name as they lowered him down that sinkhole where they dumped me.” Her voice faltered, and she sighed hard as she pressed her nose against her sister. “Everything is foggy from there on out. I don’t wanna ‘member anything else, okay? I don’t wanna, please? I’m done now!”