“Isn’t it? When the gate to hellopenedand we moved into amore brutal,violent world,apart of me lovedit. I couldn’t wait to take my bat andgokillsome monsters. I’m a killer by nature.”
“Fighting against evil doesn’t make you akiller,Krystan.”
“Noone should enjoy it as much as I do, Travis. It’sin my blood to destroy.”
“What?”
Closing my eyes, I tried toget my ducks in a row, or rather,myraging demons in line.“I know what my grandmawas thinking as she plunged a knife into her own heart.She was thinking of my mom and dad. She couldn’t bear living through that memory again, and she killed herself rather than live in it one second longer.”
Someone tried to push the door open, I pushed back against it, probably sending whatever harpy on the other side stumbling back.
“You’ve never talked about your parents.”Coming closer a few steps, he said the words slowly.His eyes darkened.He’dprobably tried toguess what had happened, maybe he'd even gotten close to the truth.
“Why do you think?”I swallowed hard.Guess it. Please guess it so I won’t have to sayit outloud.
His brows were scrunched up in that way that made him look like cared about me more than anything. Like he would take care of all my problems if I just let him, but I would never put that burden on him.“I figured they both passed away.”
That’s what everyone assumed. That’s how I wanted it.
Slowly, I shook my head.“My dad is still alive.” My voice came out a croak.
The corners of his eyeswrinkled in confusion. “Then why do you live with...”
A tiny sobcaught inmy chest. He didn’t realize he’d phrased it in present tense.
Thelump in my throat had tripled in the last few seconds. I had to get the words out. “He’s in prison. For beating my mother to death.”My voice was low and gravelly like I’d swallowed down a bottle of burning whiskey.I said the next part slowly. “I watched my father beat my mom to death. She pushed me in a closet before he gotin the house,but I saw everything through the slats. I let her die."
Travis sucked in a sharp breath and winced. My delivery was blunt. The few times I’d ever told anyone, italways deliveredlike a sledgehammer. There was no way around it, no smoothing over the ugly parts. The cold, hard truth was brutal.
“You were just a kid,Krystan. There was nothing you could have done.” He started to take a step toward me but I bared my teeth at him through themirror,so he stopped.
“That’s not how it feels.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Travis asked. A look of betrayal warred with sympathy on his face, and I had to look away. I didn’t owe him anything, certainly not the darkest parts of myself.
“Because I don’t want to remember. As far as I’m concerned, it was only ever gran andme. But the truth is,my earliest memories involved my dad hitting my mom. He’d push her around, smack her, punch her, accuse her of making him angry. Accuse her of being a slut.”I sent a warning glare at Travis in case he wanted to ask.“She wasn’t. A slut that is. She was a nice mom. She just put up with too much bullshit and her tolerance for it eventually got her killed.”
My own mouth tasted rancid, and I wasn’t sure if it was from vomiting or the words I was saying. I went to the sink,turnedthe rusty faucet,washed my hands then cupped them todrink somecoldwater. Igargled, then spit it out. It wasn’t enough. I repeated it twice more.
“When my gran found out what her only son had done, she... she was always a little funny but something in her broke. Turns out my granddad was a bastard too and knocked her around. She did everything she could to protect my dad. To find out he turned into the same monster but worse...she lost a couple more of her marbles that day.Soshe took me in when I was five, and we never talkedabout what happenedafter that day.”
Closing my eyes, I flashed back again to thatseat where my feet couldn’t touch the ground. “I remember being in the police station. They’d put me in a seat and told me to wait. I didn’t know what would happen to me. Then my gran came inandshe screamedand criedwhen they told her.Someone quickly realized I was in earshot and moved me to a private room to wait, but not soon enough. I remember mygran crying out thatshe might as well shove a knife into her heartrightthere.”
Pain spikedlanced through my chest, an echo of the pain my younger self felt at hearing those words. My one living relative wanted to kill herself andifshedid,I would be left alone.No matter how I loved my gran, I knew in that moment I couldn’t rely on her.One of the worst fears I’d harbored since I wasfouryears oldhadfinallycome to pass. Though I thought I had made sure to insulate myselfagainst relying on her, it still devastated me.Life was a series of nightmares coming true.
I couldn’t look at Travis when he spoke. “That’s some seriously awful shit. But I still don’t see how this makes you a killer.”
My hands were wrapped against the cold ceramic as I braced myself against the sink. I looked up to meet his gaze in the dirty mirror. “Expertssay weallturn outjust like our parents andI'm not scared of becoming my mother.” My voice lowered. “I'm scared I’m exactly like my father.The more demons and monsters we kill, the more I realize I'm just like him. Violent,irrational, dangerous.”
“Krystan...”
Here it came. The pity. My empty stomach churned.
“You’reincredibly irrational.”
I whirled around. “What?”
“And dangerous, and very violent.”
