My throat is tight.
“I won’t have her thrown intotheirhands.” He gestures toward me with the gun, but not in a threatening way. “I see what they did to you.” He stares down at the wooden floorboards, back in place. “I will not let them do it to her. I am responsible for this, too. That ismy fatherwho marked you.” There is revulsion in his words. “She deserves to be untouched.” He looks up at me. “Leave her until they are all fucking dead.”
I want to argue. I want to say no. Kariachoseto be by my side. That should count for something. It should count foreverything.
But if I had to pick between a single hair on her fucking head—all mine—coming to harm, and taking away her choice?
I’m not as good as she thinks I am.
I know what I’d choose. What Iwillchoose.
Cosmo’s brows lift. He must see it, in my face. The conclusion I’ve come to. The ways I will smother her if it means she stays mine for eternity. I have fantasized about puttingherin a jar, too. There is nothing reformed about me. Nothing pure or good or altruistic.
All I want is her, with me, until we both die.
I will do whatever it takes to reach that end.
“Good boy,” he says as he rises.
I hit him with my gun before he can even imagine I would have it in me.
He staggers back, lifting a hand to his bleeding temple, his eyes wide with shock.
I step forward, crouching down to get in his face. “Do not think this makes us friends. Do not think this means you get her, too.” I grab the back of his neck, forcing him to stare up at me. “Do not think you are the hero here. When this is all said and done, you might be dead too, if I think you are a threat tous.”
Then I shove him backward, and turn to find the men who have haunted me my entire life.
Forgive me, Karia, for I will keep sinning.
Chapter 38
Karia
Ido not have time to gasp over what Cosmo has done. Not anymore.
In the darkness beneath the house, I reach one hand out and keep the other clenched tight around my gun. Thanks to Isadora’s relentless questioning, I know vaguely where each room is above my head. It is disorienting, being in utter darkness with only dirt beneath my feet and cement walls blocking me in, and the sound of creaks above me and what may be rats or snakes or both below me.
I do not care.
If Cosmo thought I would stay hidden and safe and small and out of the way, he no longer knows me, which I suppose is the truth after all.
The walls guide me, cold and foreboding beneath my palm. I can only hope my sense of direction is correct, and that I am heading toward the library. There are things I want to hear from Sanford myself that I do not trust Maude or Alivia to dictate correctly. Then,after,the gun in my hand will be useful.
I do not let myself think of Sullen, above my head and alone with his worst nightmares. Or maybe that is me.
I smile as I think it, because the alternative will stall me. If I imagine him with Klein and his father, I will break down.
I am useless to him then.
Tonight, I will not be. I vow to myself before morning they will be dead, and Sullen will be in my arms, never to be hurt again.
The promise burns through me. So does my father crying over the phone. He thinks I will die, doesn’t he? To an outsider, it might seem strange, that he would not come rescue me if that were the case. But I hold onto it, the gift of pride, because it is the highest he could give me.
Still, maybe some small part of me wishes he would come. Wishes he would put aside the brainwashing of pride and loyalty andgiftslike this one that Writhe has carved into his veins like Stein’s name on Mads Bentzen’s chest.
Thinking of it makes me want to vomit. At least Mads and Lora raised a better son.
My mind drifts to Isadora’s mother, Shella. The only one in all of Writhe who spared any kindness for Sullen. The one who let us escape.
