Page 10 of Pucked Around and Found Out

To teach is to learn. To learn is to excel. To excel is to thrive. To thrive is to live.

I repeat the mantra silently, desperately, the words I used to cling to in Walter House when the world became too much. I’m hoping against hope that they'll bring me the peace they once did. That they'll create some distance between me and this nightmare.

But there is no peace.

No distance.

No escape.

My father makes a horrible gurgling sound, choking on blood or tears or his own broken pleas, but Xaden doesn't even pause.

His fists keep falling with mechanical precision, each blow calculated to cause maximum pain without granting the mercy of unconsciousness.

This is what he promised me.

What he warned me about again and again.

I'm not a good man, Tink. I'm the villain in everyone's story, including yours.

I didn't believe him. Didn't want to believe that someone could touch me the way he did, with such devastating tenderness and still be capable of this level of brutality.

But love and violence aren't opposites for men like Xaden Devlin.

They're two sides of the same coin.

And I'm watching both with tears streaming down my face, his child growing inside me, knowing that there's no version of this story where I walk away whole.

Masen's head lolls to the side, barely conscious, and still Xaden doesn't stop.

Won't stop.

Can't stop.

Because this isn't about justice anymore.

This is about the grief that's been eating him alive from the inside out.

This is two years of pain, rage and loss finally finding a target.

And that target is my brother.

The brother who killed his sister.

The brother who destroyed four lives and walked away without consequence.

The brother who deserves every second of this suffering.

But he's still my brother.

And watching him die is killing me just as surely as Xaden's fists are killing him.

To teach is to learn. To learn is to excel. To excel is to thrive. To thrive is to live.

The words mean nothing anymore.

They're just sounds. Empty syllables I'm using to keep myself from screaming.

Because if I start screaming, I'm afraid I'll never stop.