“Tell me what you’ve been keeping from me first,” he demands coldly.
My instinct is to tell him to fuck off, to hold everything close to mychest because that means I’m safer.
But I realize now, I’mnotsafer. At least, not from my father. There’s no doubt Lionel’s coming for me, but I didn’t realize Dread saw it for what Lionel wanted him to see it for.Reconnection. He doesn’t think Lionel will kill me, which means he’ll continue to use me as bait, dangling me like a worm on a hook, and Lionelwillbite.
If I confess, Dread will have yet another reason to hate me, and maybehe’llkill me instead. Truthfully, though, I think I’d rather die at the hands of a man who was tormented because of my family than die at the hands of a father who sees me as nothing more than a loose end.
“Fine,” I choke out, motioning for him to back off so I can get out of the bathroom. “Let me at least sit down. If I get to pick my death location, I’m not going out next to a fucking toilet.”
His brows jump, a mix of wariness and suspicion swirling in his gaze. However, he silently steps back and lets me pass before following me into the room.
My heart races as I sit on the edge of the bed, every part of my body revolting against this, but now that Lionel is free, I don’t have a choice. I glimpse the huge damp spot on Dread’s bedsheets and pointedly ignore that.
That already feels like ten years ago, and it sure as fuck will never happen again, that’s for sure.
Dread stops a few feet away, standing before me with his arms crossed and a blank, though expectant, expression. Clearing my throat, I wipe my sweaty palms down my thighs, racking my brain for the right words.
“My first memory is of my mom drowning me in a bathtub when I was four years old. I spilled apple juice on the floor, and she slipped. She was twenty-eight weeks pregnant with my little brother. She miscarried because of it. The doctor diagnosed her with major depressive disorder with peripartum onset and psychotic features. She wasn’t in her right mind and blamed me, so she decided she was going to kill me, then kill herself. My dad walked in on it and stopped her.” I relay the facts like I’m reading them from a scientific research paper.
Most days, it feels like the least terrible thing I’ve experienced.
Dread’s expression stays carefully blank, though his right eye twitches, and I think I hear a couple of his fingers crack.
“I refuse to demonize her for something she couldn’t control. Shegot help, and she recovered from all her postpartum symptoms by the time she came home from the psychiatric hospital,” I explain firmly. “However, my mom struggled heavily with mental health her entire life, and she wasn’t exactly a good person. I think she loved me—or maybe just a part of her did—but she also still blamed me and heavily resented me for it. In her weakest moments, she wished she succeeded or that I died instead of my brother.Butshe deeply regretted that moment and spent the rest of her years feeling extremely guilty. She never, ever felt like what she did to me was deserved or okay. So if you want to call her a monster for anything, don’t let it be because of that, okay?”
Dread nods stiffly, so I blow out a breath and continue.
“When I was six,” I say slowly, my voice cracking. I pause and take another deep breath, a poor attempt to calm my nerves. “I had a really bad nightmare about my mom. My dad was the only one who could calm me down, so I ran into their bedroom, looking for him, but he wasn’t there.”
My heart races as the memories from that night trickle in. I’ve worked so hard over the years to suppress them. My brain never allowed me to forget them, and it took years before I could go a day without thinking about it.
“I was panicking, and Mom said he left, so she tried to console me instead. I only panicked worse. My dad had a really large shed he converted into a man cave or whatever, and he was in there all the time, so that’s where I went looking.”
I inhale another deep breath, images flashing through my mind’s eye. My tangled blonde hair sticking to my sweaty nape. The pink nightgown I wore, princesses printed over the chest, as I ran outside into the muggy summer air. Tears streaked down my cheeks, and my lungs were tight, as if the bathwater still clogged them.
“Mom was at the back door, yelling for me to get back inside, but I kept running to the shed. I thought if I didn’t find my dad, didn’t hear his soothing voice telling me everything’s going to be okay, I would never breathe again.”
I look down at my fidgeting hands, shifting in discomfort from Dread’s scrutinizing stare. It feels like nails raking down my skin.
“He told me before to never go in there without him, to never go in without knocking. He said there were dangerous tools in there, and I could hurt myself, so it was a huge rule. But I was panicking and couldn’tbreathe, let alone think straight, so I just barged in.”
I glance at Dread, and if not for the subtle movement of his chest, I’d think he was cast in stone. He’s devoid of all emotion, eerily still as he listens to me.
I drop my gaze again as a new image sweeps me away. My voice turns almost robotic as I rehash the memory, yet I feel everything I felt when I was six. An indescribable horror, a terror unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
“He had just finished sawing through the woman’s head, wearing this white plastic suit, a clear mask covering his face. He was absolutely just…drenchedin blood. He’d already cut up the rest of her body. Her torso was in two pieces, each limb severed from it, then those cut at the elbows and knees. Even her ankles. And they were all just scattered, none of her body parts where they were supposed to be. I saw her face, but I couldn’t make sense of it because it was… it was frozen in this expression of absolute terror. She almost didn’t look real, but her insides were coming out of her and?—”
“Stop.” The sharp, hoarse command startles me out of the memory, and I look up to meet Dread’s haunted stare. The tears in my vision blur his face, but it does nothing to soften the torment carved into the lines around his eyes and mouth.
And then, it hits me: I'm also describing his mother. The guilt is a punch to the chest, and I lower my head and cover my eyes, both mortified and so angry with myself.
“Shit, Dread. I’m so fucking sorry,” I say quietly, dropping my hand from my face to look up at him, my brows pinched with regret. “I'm such an idiot. I wasn’t thinking, and I-I shouldn’t have told you any of that.”
The muscle in his jaw pulses, his eyes blackened with a darkness I understand all too well. But he doesn’t respond—doesn’t move—for several long moments.
“Just… just skip over that part,” he says finally, his voice hoarse.
I nod, rolling my lips as I stare down at my fidgeting fingers, taking a second to gather my thoughts.
