Page 187 of I’m The Worst

She looks away again, out toward the gray water beyond the trees.

“There were nine of us in that house by the time he showed up. Foster kids. Jake and I were the oldest and had been there the longest. Then Dylan came at five years old, with huge green eyes and covered in bruises. He barely talked. Hardly looked at anyone. But he watched everything.”

The space behind my ribs constricts. “Why did you say house like that?”

Miranda lets out a humorless laugh. “Because it wasn’t one. It looked normal from the outside. Big farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania with a nice yard and a young married couple. But it was a fucking horror show.”

Her fingers curl tighter in her lap. “They liked collecting broken kids. That’s how Jake used to put it. The worse off you were, the more money they got from the state, the church, private donors—whoever wanted to feel good about saving children. They’d smile for social workers, take photos at Christmas, make donations, put us in clean clothes when someone came by.” Her voice goes flat. “Then the doors would shut.”

Like the terrible memories are flashing through her mind, her eyes stay on the ground. “There were cages in the basement. That’s where they kept us.”

Something inside me caves in.

“We had no food except bread and water, if we were lucky. Sometimes not even that. And upstairs…” She swallows. “Upstairs was worse.”

My stomach churns, and I have to look away for a second. Wolff in a fucking cage? The image hits so fast and so wrong; I can’t even process it properly—him small enough that his feet probably didn’t touch the floor when he sat, trapped in a metal cage.

“What do you mean? That upstairs was worse?”

She’s quiet for so long I don’t think she’s going to answer.

Then she says, “Men came to the house. Friends. Donors. Church men. Men with money. They’d look us over, make their pick, and take whoever they wanted upstairs.” Her hand lifts to the scar on her neck, thumb dragging over it. “Dylan was their favorite.”

The park goes dead silent around me.

Favorite.

Bile rises in my throat. I know what that word means… I was Akim’s favorite. My hands curl inside my pockets, my nails biting into my palms. Miranda glances at me and immediately looks away again.

“What happened to you in Russia…what the Nightshades did to you. You and Dylan aren’t as different as you think. It went on for years.” Her voice breaks on the last word. “Years.”

I stop hearing her words. Stop feeling the cold.

He was a little boy.

I know how it feels to be taken to a room and come back out less human than you were before. I know the awful split between your mind and your body when you realize you’re about to be raped and there’s nothing you can do.

“How? Why didn’t anyone stop it?” The question burns as it leaves my mouth.

“We were foster children. We didn’t have anyone else. We all tried, in the ways kids can try when they’re terrified, starving, and getting hurt too.” Eyes shining with tears, she keeps going. “Dylan stopped talking almost completely after a while. He’d sit in corners and stare at walls and flinch if anyone touched him. But if one of the younger kids cried, he’d give them his food. He was…” She wipes at her eyes. “He was still kind then. Even after everything.”

A lump rises in my throat. “What happened? How did you get out?”

“Dylan was nine when he finally snapped. One of the men was drunk. Left the bedroom door unlocked upstairs. Dylan got out. I don’t know if he planned it or if he just reached the end of what he could survive. Maybe both. But he went into the kitchen, turned on every burner, found the lighter fluid in the mudroom, and set the house on fire.” Her hand brushes over the scar on her neck again. “He ran downstairs covered in blood and started unlocking the basement cages. He got me out. Jake too. Casey. Sarah. Jonas.” Her voice cracks. “But not everyone made it.”

Staring straight ahead, more tears build in her eyes. “The fire spread too fast. Part of the basement collapsed. One of the little girls was still chained to the pipe, and we couldn’t get the lock off in time.” She swallows hard. “Another was unconscious. Dylan tried to go back for them, but Jake tackled him to the ground because the ceiling was already coming down. Four of them burned alive in that house, while Jake held Dylan back screaming.”

My entire body goes rigid as my heart races.

“When the police came, Dylan wasn’t talking. He didn’t speak to anyone. Not to the doctors, not to social workers, not to us.”

Miranda rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I had distant relatives in Czechia,” she says after a moment. “An aunt on my mother’s side. She took me and…all of us who were left. We moved and tried to build something that looked like a normal life. But Dylan never really came with us.”

“What do you mean?” I ask shakily.

“He was physically there. That’s about it.” Her mouth trembles. “He didn’t speak for years. He slept with knives under his pillow. If anyone touched him without warning, he’d break fingers before he even knew what he was doing. I didn’t hear his voice again until he was almost fourteen.”

Eyes closing briefly, she takes another steadying breath. “He thought it was his fault. All of it. The abuse. The kids who died. He convinced himself he was rotten somehow, that there was something wrong with him that invited all of it. Jake used to tell him he was just a kid, that none of it was his fault, but Dylan…” She shakes her head. “He’d already decided what he was. He’d vanish for hours and come back covered in mud or blood, or both. Then he started disappearing for days at a time. Until one day he just…left.”