Silence hangs between us, though our conversation is loud: my unspoken demand for her to spit it out while she silently begs for me not to make her.
The filtration system churns, and she sighs, relenting.
“He left me a note.” She pauses for a beat, and then delivers the final blow to my delusion. “In my dorm.”
Lionel isn’t just out of prison.
He’s actuallyhere—in Colorado.
I step toward her, uncaring of how menacing it is, uncaring of her leaning away, her fear shifting from another monster to the one standing before her.
“Do you know where he is now?” I hardly recognize my own voice. It's deeper, lined with gravel, so lifeless.
She shakes her head. “Only that he plans on seeing me soon.”
Once again, my upper lip curls, disgust coating my tongue.
“Already planning a family reunion,” I drawl. “Have you started calling Roxi your stepmommy yet?”
The last word has barely left my mouth before her face is contorting in rage. Quickly, she scrambles to her feet and stomps the few feet up to me before jabbing a finger into my chest.
“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about, Dread. You think you know everything, but you don’t!” she shouts.
I lean down, pushing myself deeper into her finger, and bare my teeth as I question, “What else is there to know, Reverie? Remind me, how many interviews did you and Regina do, accusing me of being a liar?”
She clenches her jaw, seething at me.
“Twenty-six. The fucking answer is twenty-six,” I snarl. “And that doesn’t include your special family reunion with Connor. Once the copycat started murdering people, you two couldn’t keep your mouths shut about how I put away the wrong man. Do you even believe there’s a copycat at all?”
“Of course I do,” she snaps.
I laugh. “‘Of course I do,’ she says,” I echo mockingly. “Yet you’ve never said otherwise, have you? I think the two of you made yourselves pretty fucking clear.”
She doesn’t back down, though. Instead, she scoffs and shakes her head, a derisive smile curling her lips. “Mymothermade herself clear.Iwas eight years old and had no choice.”
My brows shoot up on my forehead, giving her an ‘are you fucking kidding me?’ look. “What about now?”
She blinks at me, slow to understand, and I let out a mocking chuckle.
“Don’t act like your father isn’t still fucking relevant, Reverie. Don’t act like his victims’ families aren’t still seeking justice for what he did to them. You act like you hate the man, but it’s just performative bullshit because, for once, no one here believes your lies. Lies you’ve allowed the world to believe for over a goddamn decade while those families fucking suffer.”
Hurt twists her features. “I’ve suffered far more than you will ever know,” she says quietly, her voice trembling. “Those lies kept my mother alive. They keptmealive.”
I scoff, shaking my head. She has no fucking idea how much time I spent watching her, watching them be the perfect fucking family.
Regina stared at Lionel with a love so potent, I fucking choked on it.
It was exactly how my dad used to look at my mom before he died.
Regina didn’t just love and support Lionel.
She worshipped him.
“Did he hurt her?”
The previous emotion swirling in her gaze retreats, and in its place is an emptiness that is far more telling than her mouth.
“Just because he never hit her doesn’t mean she was safe,” she answers, her voice dropping. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”
