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A NAGGING SENSE OF LONELINESS stirred me from my dreams, and when I woke, I found that I was alone in Huck’s bed. The sheets were wrapped around my body in a tangled mess, evidence that the nightmares were real and not imagined.
It was still dark, but the nightlight Huck had plugged into my outlet shined beside me. The bedside clock display told me it was after midnight. I sat up, focusing on that light as my eyes adjusted. My chest was tight, and I felt like I was on the verge of panic as I looked around for Huck. Where was he?
Once I silenced my thoughts, the low murmurs of familiar voices drifted down the hall. Immediately, their presence ratcheted up my anxiety, as did the few broken words I could understand.
“Video… Evidence… Problem.”
I wanted to believe it was a lucid dream, but as I swung my legs over the bed and tiptoed down the hall, I knew it wasn’t. The light from the television cast an eerie glow over the living room as Huck, Lucian, and Gypsy all stared at the screen.
The grainy footage couldn’t be confused for anything else. That memory was as vivid in my mind as it was on TV. And though I’d never known that camera had existed, it was obvious from my rage-fueled expression I didn’t care.
Ricky’s favorite game was using my love for Gypsy against me. He did the same to her. The things we had sacrificed in order to protect each other were innumerable. That man was a living, breathing nightmare until he wasn’t anymore. Until I made him go away.
Conveniently, the footage left out the events leading up to my crime. There was no evidence of the things Ricky had done or tried to do. This story left out the part when he decided to come for my sister. The film started violently and without warning with a slow-motion play by play of me plunging a knife into Ricky’s back before he dropped to his knees in front of my sister.
On screen, Gypsy’s face was awash with the obvious horror she must have felt over what I’d done. Deep down, I’d always suspected it, but seeing it recorded, I couldn’t deny it. She was so horrified by the scene unfolding before her she couldn’t even move. It was clear now that the monster was no longer Ricky. It was me. The girl in the trance-like state who punctuated every vicious stab with a declaration.
“You. Won’t. Hurt. Us. Anymore.”
Ricky was far past dead at that point. But the rage I’d bottled up over the years was like a Molotov cocktail inside me. It had exploded, and it couldn’t be contained. An endless abyss of pain opened inside my chest as I cried for that girl on the screen. The fragile, broken teenager who had done something so unspeakable, she would never look at herself the same way again.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst was the blank expression on Huck’s face when he hung his head in his hands and shuddered. I didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what he was thinking. I wasn’t any better than the man who raised him. I was a killer just like him. And how could Ace ever love someone with such bloody hands?
Silence swallowed up the room, and my shame forbade me from revealing myself. I stepped back into the shadows, listening as the conversation continued. Lucian explained that someone had sent this to their house. Between the three of them, none of them could figure out who would want to blackmail us now, but I knew. It was the truth that had haunted me for months, and I knew exactly who had sent the video.
The same man who set me up at the Rio. The same man who had bled me dry of every cent I could earn for him in exchange for keeping this dark secret. But it was too late. Joe was out for blood now, and it was obvious all my efforts had been for nothing.
My worst fear had just come true. Ace had seen me for what I was, and there was no coming back from that.
Hours had passed before he finally came back to bed, and still, I could not fall back to sleep. We lay beside each other, seemingly lost in our own thoughts. I waited for him to reach out and touch me. To give me some silent signal that it was okay. I wanted to believe that no matter what he’d seen, everything would be okay.
That assurance never came.
In the early light of morning, he slipped from the bed and took a long shower. I didn’t know what the day would bring, but I was desperate to rewind time and make all the badness lingering between us go away. Would he touch me today? Or would he simply pretend it never happened? Or worse yet, would he just tell me to leave, finally understanding that I was beyond salvageable?
