“I was a child,” I snap, then turn to Greg, shaking my head at the sight of him and the belt around his throat. It’s mortifying, yet the perfect form of justice. “I didn’t need to grow up.” I wanted my dead mother. I wanted my father, who didn’t want me. I wanted not just to be loved but to feel it too.
“Isa, get the fu—"
I slap the tape back over his mouth, silencing him. Sometimes when angels fall, the serpents devour them. Other times, they learn to live with them.
“I’d say rest in peace, but I hope you never find it.” It feels liberating to let it roll from my tongue.
The back of my neck prickles with awareness right before I hear Roman come down the stairs.
“He better not have said anything he shouldn’t have.” The rage in Roman’s voice is well hidden underneath his sinister veneer.
I don’t need to look at him to know he’s giving Marcus a smile that’s all teeth. Because my foster brother looks at me again, pleading with his eyes formyhelp. How the tables have turned.
Marcus never stopped when I asked him not to push or touch me. This household turned its back when I cried because his hand slipped beneath my shirt. There’s a certain peace in knowing that he will die realizing that no one will come to save him. That I will be part of his downfall.
Behind me, something drops to the floor, but I don’t want to risk looking at Roman to figure out what it is. I should be grateful that it sounds too heavy to be another body, so maybe it wasn’t a lie Millie is alive after all. Or perhaps she’s seconds away from joining her husband.
Roman’s shoulder brushes mine as he moves past me. I know he wouldn’t hurt me physically. But I’d rather have scars on my body than my soul.
He all but saunters to Marcus, twirling the switchblade between his fingers as if he were putting on a show. “You know where you went wrong?”
Marcus sobs, flicking his bloodshot eyes between me and the monster I helped create. I bite the inside of my cheek, feeling like I need to say something, but the words are nowhere to be found.
“You fucked with my girl.” Roman chuckles darkly, glancing at me before saying, “And you shouldneverfuck with my girl.”
The tip of the blade digs into the corner of Marcus’s jaw, blooming red as it follows the path to his chin. His thrashing only makes the cut deeper, more vicious, a thorned rose rather than a smooth lily.
I edge back, tripping over my feet as I stumble to a wall for support. I can’t look away, but the sight of the gore makes me tip over to gasp for air.
“You’re lucky she’s here. If not—you and me—we would have been having fun all night long.”
A boulder lodges in my throat, scraping along the walls of my neck.
Roman hums a made-up tune as he continues carving all sorts of shapes into Marcus’s already deformed skin. Stars, hearts, circles, his own initials—that he promptly slices through—undeterred by Marcus’s squeals of pain muffled by tape. Roman watches his handiwork with intent eyes following each motion, his body leaning forward as if in a trance, like a child doodling in class. Each glide of his hand is purposeful, going deeper in certain areas while barely grazing the flesh in others. As if he’s trying to stop Marcus from bleeding out.
As if he’s tortured someone like this before.
I wipe my trembling hands along my bare thigh and cover my mouth to silence my sobs. Marcus keeps looking at me to help him. Some sick, twisted part of me wishes Greg was still alive to be a bystander in his son’s demise.
I don't know what I feel. Guilt? Fear? Disgust? Anticipation? I feel all of it, yet none of it. Each swirl of emotion is so visceral but still so dull, as my mind refuses to comprehend the scene before me.
This is fucked up on every single level.
I know I should call for help. I need to stop Roman before he kills Marcus. Ishouldhavesaved him when I had the chance.
But I can’t do anything, paralyzed in my spot, focused on trying not to pass out.
Roman pauses, looking up at Marcus with an eerie innocence that makes my stomach clench. “Do you want me to let you go?”
I stiffen and everything goes silent. He wouldn’t… would he? The Roman I knew would burn the entire city down before letting someone who hurt me walk free. But three years will change someone.
My foster brother nods slowly, sending me a questioning look. I swallow. Would Roman really let Marcus go? This is the question in both our heads, but I know for a fact that Marcus won’t be asking if Roman will letmego. He’s selfish. There’s no planet where he’d give a shit about what happens to me.
“It doesn’t seem like you want to be let go,” Roman practically sings, swirling the knife around Marcus’s cheek without breaking the skin.
Marcus swings his head from side to side violently, shaking his whole body. He doesn’t seem to care about the pain he’s causing himself because he doesn’t stop.
Worse, I can’t seem to care either.
