“I’m one man against a world I can’t destroy on my own, Raven.” I feel my throat tighten as I speak the fact I’ve known for so long. “This isn’t my calling. This kid... he’s not for me to save.”
I want to take it back. I want to take those words and swallow them before they can poison the fucking air between us, but I can’t. It’s the truth. A bitter truth that’s been haunting me for years. I’ve spent so much time trying to figure out how to take down this whole damn system, and it’s always been out of my reach. I’ve had to accept that, painful as it is. I need to stick to my plan and my plan only or I’d be doing this for the rest of my miserable life and the end result will still be this. Nothing will change.
I feel her confusion, her doubt, her frustration—everything that still has hope in her, clashing with the darkness in me.
“What about the police? Anything? Someone has to be able to stop this…”
“This…” I gesture toward the ritual, my whisper thick with everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve been a part of. “This is whatuntouchable looks like, kitten. No official will touch this. Not even the law.”
Her eyes widening as the realization hits her, like a cold slap to the face. Her whole body stiffens, and for a second, I can feel the raw anger vibrating off her, the urge to do something, anything. She spins around, her hands balling into fists at her sides, and I see the spark in her—she wants to be the hero. She wants to stop it all, to fight the system that keeps children like that little boy at the altar.
Before she can take a single step forward, I move quickly, my arm slipping around her waist, pulling her back against me and place my hand firmly over her mouth, shutting her down before she can do anything stupid.
Without waiting, I lift her effortlessly, feeling the fight in her as she struggles in my arms. I don’t pause. I don’t stop to explain. I just move.
I keep walking, each step taking us further from the clearing, from the screams and the ritual. The boy’s desperate cry fades into the distance, but it feels like a weight in my chest, like a venom seeping into my black soul.
She’s still struggling in my arms, but it’s more like a defeated twitch now, yet I don’t stop until we’re deep enough into the woods that we can’t hear the screams anymore, and I set her down. She spins to face me, her eyes wide, furious, terrified, and full of something else. Something I can’t read but something that cuts through me like a blade.
“You let them…” Her tone cracks as she takes a step forward. “You let them hurt him. You didn’t do anything!” Her chest rises and falls as she struggles for breath, the pain on her face so raw that it almost stops me in my tracks.
“Don’t, Raven,” I warn, my voice a growl and sharp, cutting through the tension. “Don’t fucking judge me for something you don’t understand.”
She steps closer, her face full of anger, her eyes searching mine as if she’s looking for a piece of me that’s still human. Still salvageable. “How can you stand there and do nothing, Ty?”
I can feel the edge in her tone, the disgust seeping through the cracks, and it fucking hurts more than I can put into words. But I don’t show it. I can’t. She still isn’t understanding why I bought her here. She’s thinking about why I didn’t act instead of why she’s here in the first place. She stares me straight in the eyes, straight into my soul before she scoffs and walks past me.
“I was that little boy once…” The words leave me like a disease that’s festered inside me for far too long. My eyes blur with tears as I stare at some spot on the leafy ground.
She stops dead in her tracks behind me, and I can’t hear her breath anymore, she’s holding it, thinking, calculating. So, I continue, “My fucking parents stood there and watched too.”
I hear her exhale, the sound piercing through silence. She steps closer, the crunch of leaves under her feet mild. When she stops in front of me, I avert my eyes, keeping my face turned away. I can’t meet her gaze—I already know what I’ll see.
Her hand lifts, and when her fingers touch my cheek, my body tenses instinctively. The softness of her touch makes me feel exposed, vulnerable in a way I’ve never allowed myself to be. She presses her palm gently against my face, urging me silently to look at her, to let her in.
Reluctantly, I let my eyes shift to hers. She searches me, trying to find the truth or the lie. When she finds whatever it is she’s looking for, she swallows hard, her throat bobbing, andslams her hand over her mouth. A small, muffled sob escapes, and I feel it slam into my soul.
She shakes her head once, squeezing her eyes shut, then lowers her head.
“I’m sorry…” she whispers after dropping her hand from her mouth.
Her apology confuses me and my brows pinch. She lifts her head, her wet, red, puffy eyes meeting mine.
“Can you take us back to my car? I can’t be here… Not now.”
I give a small nod before reaching out, taking her shaky hand in mine and I take her back to her car.
…
Driving back to the motel, Raven sat completely silent. I expected her to explode with questions, to demand answers I wasn’t ready to give, but instead, she just stared straight ahead. Her eyes were fixed on the road like she was trying to escape into the darkness beyond it. Tears rushed down her cheeks, glinting faintly in the passing streetlights, and every so often, she sniffled softly.
Her reaction wasn’t what I thought it would be, and it threw me. But somehow, it was better. The questions, the accusations, the desperate attempts to “fix” what’s fucking unfixable—none of it came. That endless, pointless noise I’ve heard from every therapist, every well-meaning social worker, every goddamn judge—it wasn’t there. Just silence.
And her silence said more than words ever could. She gets it now, at least a little. She knows there are no answers that can make this better. No way to wrap this up in a neat little bow of closure. There’s no cure for this sick world or me, no fix for the way people tear people apart and spit out the broken pieces.
It’s a bitter truth, and seeing her wrestle with it hurts more than I thought it would. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. Her face is pale, her lips trembling faintly as she fights to maintain her composure. She looks fragile, like glass ready to shatter.
…
