“I’m surprised you want to know.”
“Cal.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and flopped down on the edge of his bed. “You’ve forced yourself into my life and have asked me to seriously consider a romantic relationship with you. Even afriendshipwith someone who makes their living doing what you do would be a difficult pill for me to swallow.”
He was staring at me with a strange look on his face as if he was working really hard to understand my position on this.
“You said we needed to discuss hard boundaries? Normally,homicidewould be one of mine. Unless you have a really good reason for why you need to kill people, Callum, I don’t really see how this is going to work.”
Cal grabbed the black and red gaming chair from where it was stationed at his desk and spun it around to face me.
He flung himself into it and gave me one of his usual cavalier smirks.
“Alright. Storytime. I feel like we need popcorn for this.”
Alexa, play: Skinny Love - Birdy
“So, let’s start from the beginning, shall we?” I mused, feeling a pulse of excitement in my chest that Ryan seemed interested in hearing about my past.
Outside of Vox, I hadn’t really told anyone this story before. I couldn’t even really tell my therapist since doctor-patient privilege didn’t cover things like planned homicide. She would need to report me to the authorities, and Damian would be all kinds of annoyed.
I wasn’t worried about Ryan reporting me. If he had any plans to do so, he would have done it by now. Plus, I had hisphone tapped, so if he ever called a number that could get him in trouble, I would know about it.
And yes, I meant gethimin trouble. Because, as annoying as it would be to have to deal with a police report, Damian had his fingers so deep in the system that it would really just turn into one big inconvenience for him. Ryan, on the other hand, would skyrocket to the top of Damian’s kill list, and I would suddenly have my hands very full trying to protect my lil ginger boy.
But I digress.
“So, I already told you how I basically grew up in a cage, right?”
Ryan pursed his lips, and his face paled slightly. My heart skipped a beat at the clear signs of distress he displayed when I talked about how I was abused.
He always tried to act like he didn’t like me, but just seeing how upset he was about the idea of me growing up in that shitty cage made me feel like, deep down, maybe he did care.
What a precious little bean.
“Anyway, one day, I broke out. I was able to find the keys to our cages, but there were only two on the ring. Of course, the third one was Naomi’s key, and my asshole mother kept it around her neck.
“When Cass and I went upstairs to try to get help, our mom found us and attacked us.”
Ryan’s eyes were as wide as saucers, and his hands were clasped so tightly in his lap that his knuckles were white.
There was a beat where I considered telling him the truth about what happened that day, but I pussied out at the last minute. The fact that Cass had really been the one to kill our mother is something I hadn’t even told Vox.
I was too afraid of what might happen to her if Damian found out that Cass was capable of murder. I had spent my entire life trying to keep Damian’s attention off of my sisters; I wasn’tabout to risk them getting caught in the crosshairs now… at least not more than they already were.
“Well, when she found us out of our cages, she was furious. She wentinsaneand tried to kill me.” Without meaning to, I found myself lightly stroking my throat, where I could sometimes still feel my mother’s fingers trying to choke the life out of me. Sometimes, I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like she was strangling me.
“She tried to choke me to death, and she almost managed it too. I don’t know how I got the knife, but I ended up killing her in self-defense,” I lied, and Ryan looked like he was in physical pain.
“Cal—”He croaked, and I waved him off with an easy smirk.
“Don’t look so stressed out. I’m fine, and I don’t feel bad about it. She had to die. If it was between her and Naomi, I would choose Naomi every time.”
He looked like he wanted to say something else but thought better of it, so I continued.
“After that, Cass freed Naomi, and the police came. They took us down to the precinct and separated us. They put me in this quiet room, and everyone was really nice. They gave me lots of sweets and junk food.” I could remember it like it was yesterday, the first time I ever tasted a fuzzy peach. The way the rough, sour exterior melted away into that chewy sweetness was like nothing I had ever experienced before.
“Were they upset with you?” Ryan croaked. “For… for killing you mom?”
I shrugged. “Not really. I think they were mostly just trying to get to the bottom of what happened. Or they were, at least, until Damian found me.”
