“I don’t need to kill, I want to. I wanted to kill your father more than anything for hurting you.”
“Is that any better?” Her face was wrought with confusion.
“Some people are born this way, unable to control the urge. I was created. I became this on purpose. And it all led to you. Don’t you see that? You’re the butterfly. You flapped your wings, and the entire universe set us into motion. It was an unstoppable force. I became this for you, before I ever knew you existed,” I pleaded with her to understand.
“The butterfly effect,” she mumbled under her breath. “You never have to be scared again. I’ll keep you safe,” I promised.
“My magic shield,” she whispered, and her eyes met mine. I walked toward her slowly, desperate to close the gap between us, to feel that electrical force that pulled us together before she knew what I really was. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to your father. He should have made sure it was done right, Ryder. No one should have let you carry that guilt for all of these years.”
“Bryce isn’t dead.” I swallowed back the rage that boiled inside me whenever I thought of him. “What happens to him is up to you.”
“What?”
“I’ll walk away for you, Ella. Just please don’t walk away from me.”
“After what he did to Katie? After what he did…” Her voice trailed off.
“After what? Tell me. You don’t have to carry around that pain by yourself.”
She walked around me, blowing out a long breath as she sat down in the old kitchen chair in the corner of the garage.
Deserve
Chapter 28—Ella
Deserve: to do something or have or show qualities worthy of reward or punishment
“I moved in with the Alexanders when I was fifteen. At first it was…amazing. They treated me like they loved me before they even knew me. It didn’t take long to figure out why.”
I smiled nervously as Ryder clenched his jaw, struggling to keep the emotions from showing on his face.
“I wore her clothes, slept in her bed. Her picture, like the picture in your wallet, hung in my room.”
“Christ.” Ryder shook his head as he began to pace the floor.
“Bryce didn’t live at home. Home.” The word sounded so wrong. Home was supposed to be a sanctuary, a place to feel safe in a dangerous world. “He started coming by several times a week. He was friendly.”
Ryder sneered as he put his palms down on the hood of the old car, struggling to keep his composure. The clapping sound of his hands against the metal startled me.
“Then he started coming by when my…when the adults would leave for work or to run errands. I tried to fight him off, but he was twice my size. Sometimes I think he would let me get away just so he could chase me. He got some sort of sick thrill from my fear.”
* *
“You wear that dress just for me?” Bryce’s eyes traveled up my legs as his hands ran over the growing bulge in his jeans.
“I hate these dresses. They were what she liked, not me.” I took a few steps backward to create some distance between us as I glanced down at the pale-yellow eyelet dress.
“Want to know what I like?” He cocked his head to the side, a sickening smirk on his lips as he ran his tongue over his top row of teeth. My heart was racing, and I wished I could lock Bryce away in my father’s closet. But the monsters didn’t always stay hidden away.
He lurched forward, grabbing my wrist painfully tight, laughing as I struggled against his grip.
“Fight me,” he goaded as I pounded the side of my fist against his chest. “Fight me!” He grabbed my shoulder and shoved me backward, hard. It felt like my tailbone broke when I hit the wooden floor. My agonizing screams only made him want me more. We’d been doing this for months. I struggled to not fight him because I knew it was what he liked, but it only caused him to get more creative with his abuse. The latest cuts from the razor hadn’t even healed as he hovered over me, digging his thumb into the wound.
I bit back my scream, my teeth digging into my lower lip until the taste of copper flooded my tongue. “Just kill me already and get it over with.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Katie.”
“My name is not Katie!” I untangled my hand from his shirt and slapped him as hard as I could across the face. His body stilled over me before his eyes met mine.
“You stupid fucking bitch!” His fist came down hard against my cheek, the back of my head slamming off the floor.
My eyes closed for what felt like a fraction of a second, and when I awoke, I was blinded by neon lighting, the low hum of the bulbs causing my head to ache.