I think back and wince, it’s been a while, alongwhile.
“See, maybe you don’t actually like Killian,” Sloane shrugs as she gets up off the mattress, “Maybe you’re just in a dry spell and he looks good enough to eat.”
“Oh my god,” I pinch the bridge of my nose and follow up behind her, both of us heading down to the front door as she gathers her things.
“Let me know how it goes,” She kisses my cheek and then she leaves, the house around me falling silent. A clock ticks somewhere inside one of the many unpacked boxes scattered throughout the house, the sound an echo that bounces off the walls.
I’m alone for the first time in a very long time so I head back up to what will be my bedroomand clean up the mess so I can get some sleep. I’m hardly excited for my date tomorrow, but maybe Sloane is right, and this is exactly what I need.
It’s not like I’m going to get married to the guy but someone else might be good to take my mind off Killian.
Because this isn’t healthy and at some point, I’ve got to move on.
Chapter Fourteen
Blood stains my hands, it’s running down my face and my clothes are covered in it. Dean is barely able to walk but he’s trying, desperately, his steps dragging through the puddles as rain continues to fall in torrents. The street is lined with lights but it’s quiet although that is to be expected at four a.m.. Even cities as busy as this one must sleep.
It feels as if we have been walking for hours.
I thought the rain would wash away the evidence of what I had done but it clings to me, showing the whole world I’d just killed my own father.
I’m not even sure I meant to, but he was beating Dean, worse than any other time and I couldn’t get tohim. I knew this was the last time; Dean wasn’t going to survive. My shoulder is still throbbing with how hard I was ramming myself into the door to try and break free of the closet.
All I could think about was saving my brother. I had to save him at any cost.
When I did finally break out, my father was lifting a baseball bat, his eyes crazed, teeth bared like a fucking animal.
“Get back in that closet boy!” He roared as he brought the bat down, but I was quicker, putting myself between it and my brother. A rib is broken, I know that much is true and after the hit had landed, there was no time to react to the blow. I had to save him.
My father always carried a switch blade. He used it to threaten me on a daily basis. There’s a scar under my jaw, on the left side where he pressed the very tip of it to me, slicing my skin as he told me how much me and Dean ruined his life. How it is our fault our mother left him. I don’t think he realized that she left us too.
I learned quite quickly that she wasn’t coming back for me or Dean.
He wanted to kill me that day and for whatever reason, he didn’t. It was after that when I no longer gave him the reaction he wanted. He was after our pain because it made him feel better about his own and when I no longer delivered it to him, he used the next best thing. My brother. The only person I cared about.
Pain was his only goal, no matter how he delivered it.
I reached for that very switch blade, hooked to his belt in a worn leather case, the handle rubbed down from the many years of being gripped.
It was lighter than I had anticipated, surprisingly easy to use as I hit the tiny button to flick the blade out.
My father didn’t have a chance to scream at me as I plunged the blade straight into his chest.
Blood had spilled over my hand, soaking the silver metal red and the whites of his eyes, bloodshot from the alcohol, grew big as the bat thudded to the ground beside Dean’s prone and still body. My brother’s breaths were wheezing from him, as if every intake of air was a struggle and my father’s began to match.
He stumbled back from us, forcing me to rip the blade from his chest. His hand immediately went to the wound, blood pouring through his fingers and down the front of his white shirt.
Violent anger washed through me, a hurricane of fury that had me lunging for him, lifting the blade once more but I went for the throat.
I didn’t want any chance of survival. I wanted himgone.
He was too weak to stop me, and his throat opened as if it were nothing more than butter under the blade. Blood splattered my face, my clothes. It dripped like a leaky faucet off my nose and chin.
A few long seconds passed, his eyes wide, staring atme as his mouth opened and closed and then he collapsed. His knees buckled and he toppled, landing on the light grey carpet, his blood spilling from him to create a puddle under his throat that pulsed in time with his slowing heart.
And then he went still, eyes remaining open. I’d never seen death until I watched him die, it’s like a light goes out behind the eyes, stolen in just a second.
Stolen by my hand.
