A way to fuck with your nerves so everything becomes sensitive and you never know what the true temperature is because your blood vessels are being manipulated. Dilating to cool. Constricting to preserve heat. But the changes are too drastic so your body can’t regulate correctly and the guard can only scream out in pain, “Please! Have some mercy!”
The water slows, little drips clinging to the metal spout falling on the guard’s head as Rowan coos, “Dear nephew, do you have mercy?”
Kid was terrified when he was accepting of having to spend a night with me after witnessing me kill multiple people. So I straighten my spine as I answer, “No.”
No mercy for a child molester.
No mercy for a rapist.
“Very well.” Rowan claps. “I show my mercy by gifting you to my kin.” Then he walks out while Kid remains frozen in place. It’s then I realize he didn’t feel safer with Rowan, he was grateful for the punishment being given.
As the guard shivers in the middle of the room, I go to Kid and softly ask, “Tell me what he did to you. I’ll make him feel worse.”
He snatches my hand to pull me out the room then leans up on his toes to grab the circular handle in the middle of the door, creaking as he pulls it closed. He stares down the hallway as he whispers, “When he wins, he paints my face.”
“What do you mean he paints your face?” I lower to my haunches so we’re eye to eye.
The short sleeves of my t-shirt he’s wearing drop below his elbows, but he doesn’t let go of my hand as he drags it up with his thumb. “Sometimes he takes the paint from here.”
What in the fucking fuck is wrong with these people?
But it gets worse when he drops his chin to his chest, closing his eyes as he stretches his free arm behind him while twisting his hips. “Sometimes he takes it from here.”
“What would you like to happen to him?” I ask.
“I don’t want him to be able to look at me again,” he says, his hand quaking in mine. “Or laugh at me.”
“I promise he never will.”
It’s the most important promise I’ve ever given.
I raise to my full height, but he tugs on my hand, then he throws his arms around my neck before I can prepare. This boy who has only ever been hurthugsme. I’m too fearful of being lumped in with his abusers, so I leave my arms at my sides until he’s ready to move.
25
DELILAH
Helene has become a different person since Kane left. I’m more frightened of myself than her, because I can feel myself warming towards her. So much so, I actively seek her out while telling myself it’s all for our plan, but with each story she tells me, it humanizes her. Behind the sick bitch is a mother mourning her daughter.
Whether I like it or not, Helene and I are alike because I ran from the same emptiness. I’ve spent my child’s entire life trying to fill the hole they left. In my attempt to mask the loss, I forgot them. I was a child, so I didn’t have any thoughts of being a mother, but I would have made sure they had a good family.
Vanilla, sugar, and raspberries perfume the air when I enter the empty kitchen.
Another act a monster wouldn’t do—bake—but I smile at the cake in the middle of the table. Continuing my hunt for Helene, I go into the hallway as my parents and grandparents exit the lounge. They don’t even glance at me as Helene’s stick taps against the floor, shooing them forward to walk as a unit to thedoor. She wraps her arm around me, guiding me with her as she sees them out. They get into a car with a masked guard driving it.
“There, sweet girl,” Helene says softly. “This is your home now. You will be more comfortable without their presence.”
“Thank you.”
My gratitude is sincere. It feels like a physical weight has been lifted off me as I watch them be taken away. Helene strokes my back as she softly asks, “Would you like to go for another walk? Or we could have cake?”
“Cake sounds nice.” I turn, smiling all while telling myself it’s because she’ll open up, so I’ll eat her cake to find out what I need. It’s not because I’m curious or falling back into my previous habit of latching onto anyone who gives me attention.
We don’t sit in the lounge around her dead décor or the piano of torment; we go to the kitchen. A warm atmosphere normal people call the heart of a home where the death of Helene’s diet is hidden in the fridge.
She fills a black tea kettle with water as I collect two plates and a knife. I cut us each a slice then take my seat as she begins boiling the water on the stove. We sit closer this time, Helene at the head of the table and me two chairs down. Her eyes flick from the seat opposite her, then to the one I’ve chosen today as she lifts her pastry fork and delicately cuts into her slice.
I copy her as I ask, “Have you always lived here?”
