Kiss of Crimson(66)

Tess‘s courage faltered, her head swimming with the remembered din of profanity and hysterical rantings, the clumsy racket of drunken stumbling, the splintering crash of breaking glass. And she could still hear the soft creak of her bedroom door that night her stepfather woke her from a fitful sleep, his breath stinking of liquor and cigarette smoke.

His meaty hand had been salty with sweat when he clamped it over her mouth to keep her from screaming.

―It was my birthday,‖ she whispered numbly.

―He came into my bedroom around midnight, telling me that he wanted to give me a birthday kiss.‖

―That disgusting son of a bitch.‖ Dante‘s voice was a vicious growl, but his fingers were gentle as he stroked her hair. ―Tess... Christ. The other night by the river, when I tried to do the same thing—‖

―No. It wasn‘t the same thing. It reminded me, yes, but it wasn‘t at all the same thing.‖

―I‘m so sorry. About everything. Especially what you‘ve been through.‖

―Don‘t,‖ she said, not willing to accept his sympathy when she hadn‘t gotten to the worst of it yet. ―After my stepfather came into my room, he got on the bed with me. I fought him, kicking him, slapping him, but he was much stronger than me and he pinned me down with his weight. Sometime during the struggle, I heard him draw in a sharp breath. He choked a little, like he was in pain. He stopped trying to hold me down, and I finally managed to roll him off me. He let go because his heart had seized up. He was turning deep red, then blue—dying right there on the floor of my bedroom.‖

Dante said nothing in the long silence that followed. Maybe he knew where her confession was heading. She couldn‘t stop now. Tess pushed out a long breath, approaching the point of no return. ―About this time, my mother came in. Drunk as usual. She saw him and she went hysterical. She was furious—with me, I mean. She screamed at me to help him, to not let him die.‖

―She knew what you could do with your touch?‖

Dante asked gently, easing her through it.

―She knew. She‘d seen it firsthand, when I would take away her bruises and heal the broken bones. She was so mad at me—she blamed me for my stepfather‘s heart attack. I think she blamed me for everything.‖

―Tess,‖ Dante murmured. ―She wasn‘t right to blame you for any of it. You do know that, right?‖

―Now, yes. I know. But in that moment, I was so afraid. I didn‘t want her to be unhappy. So I helped him, just like she ordered me to do. I started his heart and cleared the blockage in his artery. He didn‘t know what happened to him, and we didn‘t tell him. It wasn‘t until three days later that I discovered just how bad of a mistake I‘d made.‖

Tess closed her eyes and she was back in time, walking out to her stepfather‘s toolshed to look for a putty knife for one of her sculpture projects. She was taking out the stepladder, climbing up to search the top shelves of the old shed. She didn‘t see the small wooden box until her elbow knocked it to the floor.

Pictures fell out, dozens of them. Polaroids of children of various ages, in various states of undress, some being touched by the photographer as he snapped the picture. She would have known those terrible hands anywhere.

Tess shuddered in Dante‘s arms, chilled to her marrow.

―I wasn‘t the only one my stepfather victimized. I found out that he‘d been abusing kids in worse ways for what had to have been years, maybe decades. He was a monster, and I had given him a second chance to hurt someone else.‖

―Jesus,‖ Dante hissed, drawing her away from him now but holding her tenderly as he looked on her with a sickened, furious look. ―It wasn‘t your fault. You couldn‘t have known, Tess.‖

―But once I did,‖ she said, ―I had to make it right.‖ At Dante‘s frown, she let out a soft, wry laugh. ―I had to take back what I had given him.‖

―Take it back?‖

She nodded. ―That same night, I left my bedroom door open and I waited for him. I knew he‘d come, because I asked him to. When he crept in after my mother was asleep, I invited him onto my bed—God, that was the hardest part of all, pretending that the sight of him didn‘t make me want to vomit. He stretched out beside me, and I told him to close his eyes, that I wanted to repay him for the birthday kiss he‘d given me a few nights before. I told him not to peek, and he obeyed me, he was so damn eager.

―I straddled his waist and put my hands on his chest. All my anger rushed to my fingertips in a second, like an electrical current that ripped through me and directly into him. His eyes flew open, and he knew—the look of terror and confusion in his eyes told me that he knew exactly what I intended for him. But it was too late for him to react. His body spasmed violently, and his heart went into immediate arrest. I held on with every ounce of my resolve, feeling his life leak away. I didn‘t let go for twenty minutes, long after he was gone, but I had to be sure.‖