“You may think you have nothing in common with Catherine, but oh, you do.”
My stomach drops when he mentions our names in the same sentence. “Shut the fuck up. You don’t know what you’re talkingabout!” I scream and it reverberates around the car, bouncing off the windows.
He laughs at me. This motherfuckerlaughsat me.
My eyes well up, but I won’t let the tears escape. I cried too many because of the woman he’s saying I’m so much alike.
“Two women were forced to play in a game they never wanted to be a part of. Two women so broken that it’s hard to piece them back together. You both are one and the same.”
I begin to feel like I’m going to hyperventilate. We’re nothing alike. I’m broken because of her. Because of her father. My heart pounds behind my rib cage like it also wants to escape from this car, from him. The smell of the car now makes me want to vomit; it’s too strong. It’s overwhelming my nostrils.
“A broken woman like yourself wants to keep being broken. You don’t want to be saved; you want to perish. Everyone around you thinks you’re healing, but Rowan, you’re not.”
I sit there shaking my head continually, like I’ll make his words vanish from my mind. But it’s not; they're sticking and forcing their way in through all the layers to get to my brain. Not stopping until they make purchase.
“Why are you saying these things to me?” I cry out, not able to hold my words in.
He’s quiet, but then the words he speaks are at a hundred percent volume even though his voice is not. “She never wanted to do any of the things she did. She was also a casualty of her own father, like you.”
His words make my head spin. She was a willing participant, just like Colt, J.C., and Grant. All willing, all in it for their own perverted reasonings.
Through hiccup sobs, I say, “She’s fooled you, like she fooled me.”
“Catherine couldn’t fool me if she were in a jester's costume. I’ve healed her. I’ve walked her through her own healing andrevelations. So many times, Catherine begged me to kill her; so many times, I wanted to, but I knew this woman wasn’t what everyone said she was. She wasn’t, and I saw through her, like I saw through you, Rowan.” He pauses. “Your fingers are like that because you think you should feel pain, because you need to be the one to bestow it upon yourself. If you do it, then no one else can; only you. And that there,” he points to them, “isn’t healing. That’s masking what you need, what your body craves. What will heal you.”
Confusion mars my brain because I’m not sure what he’s speaking about.
“I saw you watching us in the crematorium. We both did.”
My stomach sinks and sours at the same time. Is he saying I should fuck him?
“I’m not fucking you,” I spit out.
Niko laughs. “I’m not asking you to, plus you don’t do it for me. But I know how to help you if you want the help.” His last sentence sounds so sincere, it's scary.
“When Matteo asked me to come get you, I knew it was time to talk to you. It was my sign. What else do you do to yourself, Rowan?”
I know exactly what he’s asking. I stay quiet.
“Do you want to be helped? Do you want to heal? Because I can bet the way you’re living isn’t fulfilling what you truly crave.”
Flashbacks of him and Cathrine run through my head. When Luca was rough with me last night. How I want him to not treat me like I’m broken; it all runs through my head.
“I,” I feel like my tongue is heavy, not wanting to voice anything, “I make myself hurt.” I shrug, like it’s no big deal. “Please don’t look at me, though,” I plead to him. I see him nod his head. “Burning myself with hot water, scrubbing my skin raw.” I bring up my hands, looking at them. My nail beds are shredded and scared. “And making my fingers bleed. It stops thethoughts, but also lets me know I’m really still here. I’m the one who can cause my pain, and I can stop it whenever I want,” I whisper out, not knowing if he can hear me, hoping he couldn’t.
“You should talk to Catherine.”
My eyes widen, because how the fuck did I manage this with no need to sneak around to get to her?
“I can’t,” I lie.
“You can, and you should. I think she could help you.”
“She fed me to the fucking wolves,” I say angrily, while rubbing my cuticle, wanting to pick at it.
“You need to talk to her, Rowan.”
He says nothing else for the rest of the ride to the funeral home, but his words and voice are on a constant repeat in my head, taking up space.
