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If I could have spoken, I would have told him the only thing that mattered anymore.
I am the monster they created. I’m the whore they’re ashamed of.
They took my heaven away.
Now, I would bring them hell.
CHAPTER THREE
Present
It was another sleepless night beneath burning sheets. The large electrical fan rotating back and forth wasn’t doing shit to cool down the room. I restlessly toyed with the inverted cross I wore around my neck before finally giving up with a frustrated huff. Insomnia was such a clingy little cunt. While normal people slept soundly, my demons decided to strike up a conversation.
Kicking the sheet from my legs, I glanced over at Jinx, making sure I didn’t wake her. When she didn’t move or speak, I slowly slipped out of bed. Spotting my clothes bundled up on the floor, I scooped them up and tiptoed into the small bathroom.
After I had my shorts and tank back on, I went over to the basin attached to the wall and drank some cold water from the faucet, sighing as the cool liquid alleviated my throat’s dryness.
Twisting my lips around, I cocked my head and stared at my ghostly, pale reflection in the shattered mirror. Dull blue eyes surrounded by smudged black makeup stared back at me. White-blonde locks framed my face. I looked alive, my body breathed, and my heart still beat—but inside, I was dead. Most days it felt like I barely existed.
Placing my fingers on the glass, I began tracing over the lines. No matter which way I went, I always wound up right back where I had begun. My life was nothing but a hamster wheel spinning in place, making no progress, going nowhere.
I pressed my index finger down on a protruding shard, smiling when blood began to spill from the tip.
I watched it try to retrace my path in the twisted cracks, just for it to simply break free and make a crimson trail of its own.
Was it really so easy? I couldn’t seem to find my way out. No matter how hard I tried to break away and venture out on my own, I always ended up right back in a twisted maze, trapped.
I wanted to know where I went wrong. There was a black hole growing in my mind. I hated what I’d become, this empty shell of a girl who had spent so much time hiding who she was that she now had no idea who the fuck she was supposed to be.
I had no issue remembering the things I wanted to forget. The mental prison I was stuck in kept all the memories from my past trapped with me in a cold and lonely cell.
I fucking hated it.
No, that’s an understatement.
I was sick of being sick of it.
Sucking my bloody finger into my mouth, I turned away from the mirror and walked out of the bathroom.
Tiptoeing back through the room, I slipped out into the dimly lit hall and pulled the door shut behind me.
Expecting everyone else in the compound to be asleep at such a late hour, I immediately headed in the direction of whispering voices. The closer I got, the clearer they became. Rounding a corner, I came to a stop in the doorway of the lounge room.
Tito and Grady stood over a table with their heads bowed together. I watched them for a few minutes, wondering if they would notice me standing there, waiting to be acknowledged. There was a mass of papers between them that I couldn’t see clearly from my vantage point. It was glaringly obvious they were up to something, just like they had been every other night for the past few months. Their stealth level was shit.
“We have to do this on the low. No one else can know,” Tito whispered.
“No one else can know what?” I asked, strolling into the room.
They jumped apart, both spinning around to face me. Tito’s brown eyes met mine, and as always, I was reminded of Tilly, his twin. They had the same Polynesian features: shoulder-length curls and flawless brown skin. The only difference between them was that one was alive and the other was dead.
“How long have you been standing there?” Grady asked.
“Long enough.” Forcing myself to look away from Tito, I focused on the table they seemed a little too determined to block from me.
“What the hell are you two doing in here?”
They stood rigid and silent, prompting me to walk around them to see whatever they were trying to hide for myself. “What is this?”
