Good.
“Walter was so furious. I think he was more angry at the fact that I was brave enough to fight back for once than at the fact that his wife was probably dead. He dropped the knife, grabbed me by the shoulders, and started shaking me and screaming in my face. I remember his spit hitting my face. He asked what was wrong with me, and I told him that I have a pathetic bastard for a father.”
I’m so proud of her right now. Standing up for yourself isn’t easy, and even though she did it for Noah, she still did it. And she’s right. Any adult who hits a child is a pathetic bastard.
“His fist rammed into my gut, and I doubled over. He started kicking and wouldn’t stop. I just wanted him to stop. Even as I crawled away, he wouldn’t stop.” Raven’s voice cracks on the last word.
The unfiltered sorrow in her words kills me. She shouldn’t know what it’s like to be afraid like that. She shouldn’t know what it’s like to have the wind knocked out of her like that. She shouldn’t know what it’s like to be literally kicked when she’s down.
“I found the knife where he dropped it, so I grabbed it.” Raven’s tears don’t stop. She opened Pandora’s box, and she can’t close it. “It’s like my body took over, and everything I had been holding back came out. I just kept stabbing him over and over. Later, I found out that Walter had been stabbed nineteen times.”
I don’t blame her. A person can only be oppressed and controlled so much before they fight back. The oppressor is always shocked, like they didn’t have it coming, but that’s how it’s supposed to go. Oppressors are always overthrown.
“Somehow, I ended up downstairs, and I heard Georgia still breathing. So, I did the same thing. I stabbed her nineteen times, too.”
Again…good.
I can’t change the past, but I wish I could’ve been there. Raven’s hands shouldn’t know violence. I’ll be her fist, her knife, her shield. Every kill, every blow will be for her.
Raven’s voice turns factual. “Georgia missed brunch with some of her friends, so they called the police to check on her. When the police arrived, they found me on the stairs with Noah’s body. They said I was covered head to toe in blood. I remember having to be restrained when they tried to take Noah from me, but not much after that. The doctors said I was catatonic, and when I didn’t snap out of it, they deemed me unfit to stand trial.”
Dear God.
I shake my head and hold her closer. Knox rolls onto his side and brings Raven’s hands to his chest.
“And that’s how I ended up in Mystic River.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
KNOX
Griffin’s head pulls back as I frown at Raven’s confession. “What’re you talking about, Darlin’?”
Raven’s voice drops to a whisper. “The judge issued a court order that sent me to Mystic River Psychiatric Hospital.”
I knew Raven had secrets. We all do. But I didn’t expect this. She’s gone through more than anyone should ever have to, and she’s still fighting.
My mouth remains agape, unsure of what to say.
“So, that’s how you knew Seth and Alice,” Griffin deduces.
“Yeah,” Raven confirms. “We weren’t best friends or anything, but I knew them. They never would have done anything like this on their own.”
Raven’s eyes are distant. “I wasn’t there long, but it was long enough. Dr. Whitlock…he…he’s evil. After a couple of weeks, he brought me to his office, and he injected me with something. It made my whole body feel heavy. I couldn’t move.”
I don’t like where this is going…
“That was the first time he forced himself on me. I could feel everything, but I couldn’t push him away or even talk. It became a regular thing. He’d call me his ‘Blackbird.’ One time, he saw mefighting with an orderly, so the next time I was in his office, he didn’t drug me. He seemed to get off on my struggle.”
My jaw tenses, but I force myself to relax so I can speak. “Do you think it’s him that’s behind all of this? Does he know you’re in town?”
Griffin and I have hated Lewis for years. Then he became more of an inconvenience with the pills, but now…now, he’s a dead man. He’s living on borrowed time.
“I’ve run into him a few times. Once at the grocery store and once in the library, but I don’t think he recognized me.”
We all sit with that for a moment, debating if Lewis is out for revenge. He has a reason to hate each of us. Griffin and me for the death of Scarlett, and Raven for leaving, even though she was actually kidnapped. But there’s nothing to indicate he’s aware of that fact.
“What happened next?” I prompt her.
