Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 94704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
“I never even looked for you. God. I never even looked.”
His pain is palpable.
I pull out of his grasp, turn my gaze away. I don’t want to see it and I don’t want to feel what I’m feeling. I can’t do this.
“Stop,” I tell him.
“And then you were so close, in the same fucking house.” He’s angry at that last part, his emotions shifting so erratically, so violently.
“I said stop. I don’t want to hear any more.”
“But that bastard had already taken you and after the explosion,” he stops, looks away from me, shakes his head. “It took me five more years to find you, but I never stopped looking once I knew. I swear.” That last part is like a confession and a plea in one. I look up at him, at the agony on his face.
“I said I don’t want to hear it,” I say because I have to.
“You’re not going back to him, Mara. You don’t have to be afraid of him anymore.”
I close my eyes. “You have no idea what you’re saying. You don’t know how powerful he is.”
And I can’t do this. I can’t listen to this. I can’t start feeling again. It’s easier if I just don’t feel. I can manage it then. And the pain, sometimes the punishments help. It’s stupid, I know.
He’s still talking but I try to tune him out. I sing Flora’s song in my head. I close my eyes and sing. His thumb comes to my lips. I must be mouthing the words.
“Your grandmother—"
My eyelids fly open, and I slam both hands flat into his chest. “Stop it! My grandmother is dead! They’re all dead. And I don’t want to hear about how they died, and I lived all because somebody made a stupid mistake! I don’t want to hear any of it!”
I swing one arm up to his face, almost get my hand around the eyepatch but he catches me. He drags both arms over my head, holding them against the wall, leaning in so close I smell the scent that was on his pillow.
“I said not to do that,” he says, tone low, voice like gravel.
“Why not? Are you afraid I’ll see what I already know? You forget that I watched you kill that man at the penthouse. You liked it. I saw that, too.”
“He deserved to die. They all did.”
“Only monsters enjoy the feel of blood on their hands.”
He snorts, one side of his mouth curves momentarily upward. “I never said I wasn’t one. But I’m not your monster.”
That makes me pause. I need to think. “Why are you doing this? What do you want with me?”
“I want you safe. I want you home.”
“I already told you I have no home and I will never be safe.”
“You’re safe with me.”
I twist, tug at my arms but it’s useless. He just stands there like it’s costing him no effort at all to keep me in place.
“Just let me go.”
“I’ll let you go when I’m ready. When you’ve heard me.”
“What if I don’t want to hear you?”
“Well, that’s too bad, sweetheart.”
There it is again. Sweetheart. I blink, open my mouth to say something but I can’t remember what.
“You used to make me little hearts cut out of pink paper and leave them on my pillow. Always pink with you. My brothers would laugh so fucking hard.”
“I hate pink,” I lie. I don’t feel either way about pink. I shake my head. I need to stop this. For fifteen years I have been learning to store the few memories I had away. And I do remember. I remember the boy, Dante. I’ve always remembered him even when all the other faces faded, his somehow remained. Even over my own grandmother’s. But I learned to keep those memories locked up in a box until they were all but forgotten. Until there was no lost life to cry over. Until there was no one to miss so much it made it impossible to breathe.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I ask again, eyes warm with quiet, never-ending tears.
“Why am I making you remember?”
I don’t answer.
“It hurts. I know. It’s why you want me to stop but you have to face it now.”
“No, that’s not why. Let go.” I twist and turn but he doesn’t give, not an inch.
“You suffered the most out of everyone.”
“You don’t know me.” I realize then there’s only one way to make him stop. I have to wound him like I did moments ago but harder.
“You’re strong, Mara. A survivor.”
“I’m not that.” I know what I am. Weak. A coward. I don’t know what he reads in my expression or my body language, but he lets me slip my wrists from his grasp, keeping his hands on the wall. He leans into them to keep me caged as he looks down at me.