My gaze snapped down to her hand folded delicately over mine. “You didn’t know,” she said.
With her touch, a part of me settled. A part that hadn’t been calm for years.
“How’d you kill him?” I asked, needing to know.
“I found a rock. Smashed his head probably two dozen times.”
My fist relaxed, hand turning over to grip hers. My thumb ran over her skin, back and forth. The thought of feral rage bringing her to kill a man had pride coursing through me.
My little killer saved herself.
“But someone saw, and…that’s how I got stuck in this situation. Killing people for a living.”
“They blackmailed you,” I assumed.
She nodded, pulling her hand from mine. I missed the feel of her skin immediately.
“But you could have blackmailed them right back,” I told her.
She picked at the side of her black-painted fingernail. “It’s not as easy as it sounds. They have people everywhere. If I turned them in to the police, they’d somehow get away with it, and I’d end up dead no matter what. It’s easier to just oblige.”
Knowing this opened my eyes, made me see her in a different light. Like maybe she wasn’t thestubborn thorn in my side. This entire time, I’d seen it more as a personal vendetta and had been holding it against her. But she was in this against her will, and unfortunately, I knew all too well how that felt.
“I get what you mean,” I said, not knowing what the fuck I was thinking with what I was about to say. “My father forced me to dig my own grave when I was six.”
Her gaze snapped to me, eyes wide. “Hewhat?”
I inhaled deeply, numb to reliving the memory. It played on repeat often, knocking me down a few notches on the days I felt too good about myself. “He said I acted up too much and had pushed my luck a little too far one day. I’d wanted to take a bath with my new toy train, but I didn’t know that not all toys could go in water. When he found out, he dragged me outside, sopping wet. Told me to dig, and that if I ruined one more thing he bought, he’d bury me there.”
Sympathy etched into her features, her brows pulled tight and mouth pulled down a bit. “That’s way more than overreacting. That’s…” She shook her head. “Evil.”
“He was a materialist. Not only that, but without my mom around often, he was the sole parent. Sure, that’s a lot of stress, but it probably wouldn’t have been as bad for him if he hadn’t been out drinking all the time, barely scraping by.”
The side of her head leaned against the wall, bringing my attention back to the fact that we were sitting on the floor of a rather disgusting bathroom.
“Where was your mom?” she asked, her focus still entirely on me, like nothing else mattered but my story.
It felt good, having that attention.
It’d been a long time since I’d felt that. Not even Aubree knew these parts of me.
“She left my dad shortly after I was born. Didn’t want the responsibility, I guess. She’d show up every now and then, but the visits were never anything special. When she died, it wasn’t much of a change.”
I didn’t mention how it was almost a relief when we got the news of her passing. All I’d had left was waiting for my shitty father to die of alcohol poisoning. Every night, I’d lie in bed and hope he wouldn’t return. One day, my wish finally came true.
That was when I turned to Austin and Booker. We leaned on each other like family, never apart from that day forward.
Her hand returned to mine, squeezing gently. “You’re not a reflection of them.”
My thumb ran over her skin, reveling in her touch. “I know. I made sure of it.” I looked up to find her staring at me, this look of awe in her gaze. I didn’t deserve a single second of it, but I wanted to earn it. To have the privilege of her eyes on me with something other than disgrace and hatred in them.
I stood, tugging her up with me. She swayed forward, one foot tripping over the other in those ridiculous fuzzy slippers before she bumped into my chest.
She smiled, and I melted.
“Drink too much, little killer?” I asked with a smirk.
She huffed. “No. My legs are asleep.”
