Page 134 of Juniper Unraveling

I don’t want to say anything to him, but Ivan’s presence has rattled me, and I suspect the longer he’s here, the worse it will get. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

I’m not ready for this yet. I’m not ready to tell him about Ivan and the baby, but not telling him feels too much like a lie. I’ve held these secrets for too long, and perhaps it’s time for me to face them head on. Maybe Ivan’s presence is more than just a simple act of fate. Maybe it’s my penance for ignoring the little girl who screams out for me sometimes, begging for me to take her out of the nightmares that surround her. To take her somewhere safe. Even if safety’s an illusion.

“Ivan ...” I continue, knowing there’s no going back now. I’ve spoken his name. Confessed that I know him. “I know him from my time in Calico.”

Beneath me, Rhys’s chest rises and falls a bit faster than before.

“He …” My mind scrambles for the words. The ones that make me feel less dirty, less worthless, less ruined than I feel now.

“He hurt you,” Rhys finishes my thought.

My fingers curl into a tight fist, and I nod, feeling his chest still beneath me with a held breath.

“How?” The tight clip of his tone tells me his teeth are clenched.

“It was always the basement. He’d have me meet him down there, where it was dark and terrifying, in some dingy room crawling with bugs and rats. I’d hear sounds down there that weren’t natural. He forced himself on me.” I’m surprised the words tumble from my mouth so quickly, or perhaps my mind hasn’t caught up to them yet. “Other times, he’d use objects. He liked to cut me. Beat me. Told me that, if I said a word, he’d have me sent to the experimental labs.” Everything inside of me tells me not to look up at Rhys, but when I do, it’s clear he’s angry.

No. Angry isn’t the word.

If I were the reason for the expression on his face right now, I’d think I was staring into the eyes of death himself.

Hot breath expels from his nose like a mad bull seeing red. His jaw tics with the grinding of his teeth. Fingers dig into my arm as he stares off, silently absorbing what I’ve said.

“I eventually became pregnant. Ivan tried to have me killed, and I lost the baby.”

He jolts to a sitting position and turns away from me.

Tears fill my eyes as I stare at his scarred back, completely lost as to what could possibly be going through his head right now, so I say the first thing that comes to mine. “I’ll understand if you don’t want me now.”

His head kicks to the side, brows pinched to a frown. “Is that what you think? I don’t want you now?”

Tears blur his form, until they spill onto my cheek and his face sharpens once more. “It’s because of me the baby’s dead. I killed it.” I wipe the tears from my cheeks, unable to look at him with my confession. “I’m ruined.”

“We’re all ruined, Wren. We’ve all got scars. Only difference between mine and yours is what you can see on the skin.” He reaches out for me, grabbing hold of my arm, and drags me across the bed. Once close enough, he lifts me onto his lap, and I wrap my arms around his neck. Fingers tangled within my hair, he crushes me to his lips, and I can’t breathe as he kisses me like he’s trying to suck the pain from my lungs and free me from this suffocating guilt. This hell I’ve been trapped inside for so long. He rests his forehead to mine, his fingers rubbing against my crown. “You’re mine, little bird. Nothing, and no one, will ever change that.”

I love him. I can’t bring myself to say those words aloud yet, for fear the pain will hear me, but I do.

I truly and irrevocably love him.

Chapter 38

A chill skates across my spine, and I shiver awake. The void inside my head is neither a dream, nor a nightmare. Eyes open, I pat the empty bed beside me and breathe in the heady scent of sex still clinging to the sheets. My mind tells me it’s morning, but the exhaustion lingering in my bones says I’ve only slept an hour, maybe two.

Yet, Rhys is gone.

Pushing up from the bed, I scan the room for him, shivering at the cool air that brushes across my bare breasts. Folding my arms to cover them, I slide from the bed and gather my shirt and jeans I’d discarded earlier, slipping them on as I make my way toward the door.

The hallway is dark and quiet. The main cavern is equally still, save for the embers that glow in the dying bonfire. Everyone is sleeping in mounds of blankets scattered across the floor.

A faint sound reaches my ear. One I know all too well, and not even the distance of it can hide its familiarity. Human suffering.

Ratchet lies slumped over himself beside the dark hallway that calls to me with its agonized moans. I tiptoe past him, letting the black tunnel draw me into its depths, as I make my way toward the end of it. Gravel cracks beneath my bare feet, and I flinch at the needling pain across my heel.

The further I go, the louder the screams. I continue on until they’re at their sharpest peak, and I pat the wall, kneeling down to the small beam of light that slices through the darkness.

Through the keyhole, I see a man lying on the floor, his arms and legs bound so tightly behind his back, its almost painful to look at him. The skin across his knuckles has been peeled away, leaving a glistening layer of flesh and the white of bone peeking through. Only the blond of his hair gives away his identity. Ivan.

From the right, a figure comes into view, and my eyes trail upward, to where Rhys stands over Ivan.