“But you didn’t believe that?”
His gaze hardens, something dark flickering in his eyes. “No. Unlike my brother, I wasn’t blind. I caught her looking at Olivia very… specifically.”
“Specifically? You mean she had hidden intentions?”
He flicks a hand toward me, irritation radiating from his every movement, and I can sense him teetering on the brink of snapping. “What is it with you and assuming what I thought? I knew it. I fuckingknew. Hours, days, weeks spent watching them. She hated that poor girl. She wanted her gone, just like Amelia, so she could have him all to herself.”
His hand runs shakily through his hair, tangling strands in the same chaos that grips his chest. “My brother was a fool. Searching everywhere to numb his pain. That led to all sorts of questionable decisions, including opening his arms to Iris. Do you know what she said the day we buried Olivia?” He leans forward, eyes burning into mine, voice almost a growl. “‘Let’s go. We can’t be late for our flight.’”
He bursts into manic laughter, his body convulsing with force, his face flushed crimson, eyes darting wildly. The dam inside him finally gives way, unleashing a torrent of years-long horror and rage that surges unchecked, relentless and uncontainable.
“That little cunt thought he’d just turn around, take her to the fucking Olympiad, and spend a nice time with her,” he chokes out. “She was fucking crazy!”
The sharp words linger in the air, reverberating like glass breaking in a silent room. I watch him, my composure hard and cold against the manic flare of his hands, the way his entire body twists with fury and grief. I remain still as he gestures, his arms cutting through the air, each motion striking like a punctuation of pain.
“Did he sleep with her?”
The question lands like a grenade. He freezes mid-rant, the sound dying in his throat. His jaw works, and his face drains. That bright, feverish gleam in his eyes fractures into something smaller and bleaker.
Fear.
Sothat’swhere it comes from.
Bennett knew. He knew something was wrong, and he looked away. He let himself feel anger at Iris, blaming her because confessing the truth would force him to face the ugly choices his brother had made.
A girl from a rotten home, desperate for warmth, finds an older man who offers comfort and attention. He becomes her anchor, and she trusts him. He uses that trust to dull his own pain. And when things go wrong, he takes the simplest escape.
My blood hisses hot under my skin. Containment slips with every second. The air thickens, pressing the world into a narrower space until my thoughts crowd around one single, furious point.
Iris endured a hundred small deaths. She was unloved at home, ignored at school, and only William reached out. But reaching is not the same as understanding. He mistook her need for something he could possess—a balm for his own wounds. He took from her what he needed and left behind the aftermath.
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Bennett croaks—a small, pathetic sound that reeks of self-protection. He looks away, shaking his head like a man trying to dislodge a worm of truth.
“Be honest with me,” I say, each word a wire stretched tight.
“I—” He clears his throat as if that will steady him. “I tried to interfere. I tried to reason with him.”
“Tried to?” I repeat, the words tearing from my throat in a low, harsh laugh. “You couldn’t do anything when your brother fucked a teenager?”
Bennett freezes, eyes wide, his jaw slack, as if I’ve hit him with a scene he’s tried his whole life to ignore. Shock, disbelief, and shame swirl in the stark lines of his face.
I tilt my head, letting the pieces fall into place, and the picture crystallizes in my mind. Her family, cruel and neglectful, left her seeking relief in the wrong place. William exploited her trust, and yes, she wanted him all to herself—driven by jealousy and longing, wanting to fill the void.
And then he killed himself, and Iris returned home, to the frostbitten hollow she had thought she could outrun.
Memories of the crime scene flare before my eyes, snapping into focus as if the universe is handing me her story piece by piece. There’s a reason she attacked her father in such a brutal, intimate way.
Bruises and split lips were not what she was truly fleeing. She stepped into the arms of another man who wanted to claim her entirely, and she responded with the only force she could summon.
It’s enough.
Enough to feel it, enough to briefly inhabit those moments through her eyes.
She was far too vivid, far too untamable for the world that tried to contain her. Too bright, too sharp, too alive to be dimmed. People reached for her wings, attempting to clip them, to wear her down, to drain her of every trace of color and fire, yet she surged through it all, burning stronger with every attempt.
I look at Bennett. The last traces of composure, of rational understanding, have dissolved from him, as if they were never real.
White-hot rage floods my vision, crashing through me like molten steel, scorching every nerve it touches. I cannot hold back the heat, cannot resist the surge that propels me upright from the couch, my body trembling with the intensity of it.
