My grip around her tightened, my entire body curling around her, sore and exhausted. I never wanted to let her go. I never wanted this world to rip her apart like it had me. I wanted to protect her from everything. I wanted to shatter Lillian for almost destroying this beautiful little girl.
I needed the world to burn for what had happened to us, and I wanted to pour the gasoline and light that match with my people by my side.
But how could I do that if I couldn’t even manage to fix myself?
28
Everett
October 28th, 2022
It was just after 10 when I finally walked into the house, a black box gripped in one hand.
Evelyn walked out of the kitchen when I stopped in the hall and glanced towards the living area. Emily had gone to her hotel to spend some time with Greyson who had just gotten back from Russia early this morning.
I had been trying to keep myself busy these last two weeks. Busy with Jack and Rae, watching camera footage, waiting for another morsal of the vehicle that man had been driving, only to come up empty on the vehicle and any pictures of the man himself. He was skilled at keeping his face off camera, even when his car was on them.
I had kept myself busy with Greyson too, studying what was left of the mess in the woods. I wanted to see if we could find anything left that might tell us who had come for her that day.But it was useless. Jack and Rae were our best bet now. And I prayed they would findsomething.
I had also kept myself busy at night, writing in my notebook, watching her sleep, struggle, listening to her scream, and easing her back to sleep before I finally allowed myself a couple of hours of shut eye before starting it again.
But no matter how busy I kept myself; I couldn’t stay away for more than a couple of hours.
She hadn’t seen me since that night, her blinders back on.
I talked to the psychologist about what he thought about it, and he said it was just part of her PTSD. Something about me was causing a reaction in her that her mind wasn’t ready to feel.
Fine, that was fine, but eventually, it had to stop, it had to. I could live with her nightmares. I could live with her screaming and fighting and going silent for spells if that’s what she needed, what I couldn’t survive was her not seeing me.
It was wearing on my soul.
Stella looked up from her chair, giving me a pressed smile, her eyes red, her lashes sticking together from all the tears she had shed watching my girl cling to hers as if Baily was the lifeline Olivia had been desperately searching for.
She was speaking to Emily, to Evelyn, to Lucy and Merlin. All of them. She had talked to all of them at least once.
Why not me?
What if this was one of her games? What if she was trying to catch my attention?
No, this wasn’t a game, it couldn’t be. She was suffering. She was suffering deeply, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
This wasn’t some ex beating her or her mom telling her she wasn’t good enough, that she fucked her “brother” and ruined her life. This wasn’t anything like that.
She had been raped. Over and over again, brutally. She had been killed almost a dozen times. She had been hung from ahook like a slaughtered pig and beat to shit, whipped, slapped. She had been drowned, starved, touched. She had been psychologicallyfucked, and almost sold into sex trafficking.
Phil had filled me in on more details of what had happened when she slaughtered those first three men that had raped her. He said it was so brutal that they filled that room with three feet of water just to spray all the blood off the walls, off the ceiling.
They had to hose her down each time too because she was so covered in their blood, there was nothing left of her to be seen. Nothing but her eyes. Even her mouth had been coated in it. She had held their cocks in her hand, had ripped them apart with her teeth. Phil had said that she hadn’t even looked human when he first came in, that she had looked more animal than anything else.
She had been savage and ruthless, and I had seen just a glimpse of it when she pressed that gun into Phil’s skull and pointed the other at me.
“Do it,”her eyes had screamed.“I fucking dare you.”
She had wanted the fight. She wanted the bloodshed. She needed to feel the life of someone in her hands before she ripped it away from them.
The anger she felt was real, and now, for some reason, she had locked it away. She shouldn’t have been locking something that…that volatile away. She would destroy herself doing that.
I think that’s how I could help her. She had always had a problem with swallowing it, maybe her mind had reverted back to that without realizing it, but she was still in there. The proof of it was right beside me.
