Page 127 of Lessons in Cruelty

When the memories flood in, I don’t try to stop them.

This wasn’t the first time Haven bit me. It was one of her favorite things to do when we played. If I was the pirate who’d abducted her, she’d fight to get free before I could tie her to the tree as a sacrifice for the kraken.

And fuck, would she fight.

Sometimes I left the woods in a worse condition than when I got there.

I’ll never forget the first time I hurt her.

I’d gotten to the woods in a bad mood to begin with after Ezra had let off some steam by kicking me in the ribs for a while. Me and Haven were fighting our way through a tiger-infested jungle in the Amazon when a troop of cannibals attacked us. I saved her, only to have one of the cannibals stalk us and capture her.

First, I was the hero, then I became the villain.

Then she turned into a cannibal and bit my hand. I suppose it was because I ignored her when she said the ropes were too tight, when I just kept antagonizing her as she struggled and screamed.

It was hard to tell what was real and what was make-believe back then.

So she bit my hand. Drew blood. It hurt so much I backhanded her, leaving a streak of blood over her face that I thought was hers.

She started crying, and fuck was I panicking as I cut her loose with my dull kitchen knife. Thank God, when she ran, I caught her, because if I hadn’t been able to calm her down, I don’t know what would have happened if she had gone home in that state.

There were rope marks all over her wrists and ankles from how hard she’d fought.

Looking back, I was silly to think I’d have gotten into trouble. Her dad was stoned out of his mind on meth most of the time, anyway. And when he wasn’t, he simply didn’t give a shit about his daughter. At least, not that I could tell.

Why else would he let her run around in the woods behind our trailer until dark every day?

But even after I calmed her down, and she said there were no hard feelings, I wasn’t expecting her to come back.

I got to our meeting spot the next day, and there she was, sitting on the rock near the creek, braiding a daisy chain.

My relief was short-lived. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me, an impassive, calculating light in her blue eyes as she put that crown on her head and informed me in her most regal voice that today, she was a queen, and I was the bandit who would kidnap her.

That was the day we stopped playing games and began indulging in fantasies.

The darker, the better.

…I wasn’t fucking done…

I wasn’t either, Haven, but Christ, you scared the living shit out of me when your eyes rolled up like that and I thought you’d stopped breathing.

That I’d choked you out.

If I’d held on just a little longer, she would be dead right now.

If I’d held on just a little longer all those years ago, Ezra would be dead too.

But I’m not sure that’s what I really wanted, then or now.

Killing someone takes balls, but a lot of planning, too. It’s usually the guys who off someone in the heat of the moment that go to jail. If I’m going to kill someone, I won’t get caught.

If I’m going to suffer, it might as well be as a free man.

Chapter 33

Haven

A loud bang wrenches me from the deepest, most luxurious sleep I’ve ever slept. I sit up with a strangled gasp, swinging to the source of the sound. I’m still in Professor Rooke’s house. And if this was one of those ‘spot the difference’ puzzles, the only difference I can see is a dark smear on one of the bedroom windows that wasn’t there before.