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Fuck!
White-hot anger consumes me as I walk toward my living room and pour myself a hard drink. I down the amber liquor in one full swig, letting it burn my throat as it goes down. Unfortunately, it does little to soothe away the guilt I feel. Disgust and hatred battle for first place in my long list of fucked-up feelings, but it’s shame that wins out in the end.
I fucking hate myself for letting Zoey get to me the way she did. She has no idea of the effect she has on me. None whatsoever. How could she? I’m nothing but a stranger to her, some guy her adoptive dad works with. That’s all I am to her. She has no recollection of me, and while there was a sliver of sorrow that I was so easily forgotten, there was also an overwhelming sense of relief that she completely erased all memories of that time in her life.
My gratitude for that small mercy was quickly overshadowed, however, by her overt advances. A girl her age should want nothing to do with the likes of me, yet she tested my boundaries tonight, seeing just how far she could push me. It’s safe to say that when it comes to Zoey, there is a fine line that should never be crossed.
But the look in her eyes, the one that told me that all I had to do was crook my finger and she would willingly step over that line and fling herself into my abyss, eyes wide open with a fucking smile on her face, was too fucking seductive for words.
Too fucking tempting to resist.
My cock instantly hardens at the image, not that it seems to be anything but when it comes to her.
I shake my head and do my best to push all thoughts of Zoey out of my mind, grabbing the whiskey bottle and taking it with me over to the couch. I sit down and pick up the remote to turn on the TV. I don’t really care that it lands on some vapid reality show, just needing the mindless chatter to drown out the loud noise in my head. Taking a large swig of alcohol straight out of the bottle, I wipe the remnants off my lips with my sleeve.
Some blonde appears on the screen, and my mind travels to memories of Zoey once again. She looked different tonight, nothing like the girl I first met. It’s not a stretch, really, since Zoey was only seven when she came into my life.
Innocent.
Pure.
Untouched and untainted.
I, on the other hand, was already broken by the time she came along, but I remember when I saw her, I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be something else, something opposite to whatthathouse made me.
Someone good. Someone worthy.
I can still remember every second of our first encounter, how fragile and scared she was as she sat on the cold bathroom floor all scrunched up as she tried to make herself even smaller than she already was. But then she looked up at me, and my heart stopped. Her gaze told me so much, reflecting the horrors my own soul knew. She had suffered terrors beyond anyone’s comprehension, and she was barely hanging in there, trying her best to be strong, but all it would take was one more brush with evil for her to lose herself for good.
Right there and then, I vowed I wouldn’t let that shit happen.
I would protect her.
I would keep her safe and whole, even if that meant I would take the brunt of the savagery that happened in that house.
I was already damaged goods anyway, and I’d make sure Zoey wouldn’t suffer the same fate.
That was then, though, and this is now. Zoey is no longer the lost little girl I protected back in foster care, and she sure as shit isn’t the same girl I met at Alaric’s party last year.
She changed, and I missed it.
How the fuck did I miss it?
Especially since I thought I was keeping good tabs on her all these years.
The minute I was freed from my hell and I enlisted in the Army, I made it my mission to track down the little girl I saved when I was just a kid myself. I needed to know that all my sacrifices hadn’t been made in vain and that I was able to do one good thing in my pathetic excuse of a life. That’s what she was to me, the only light in a dark, fucked-up life, and I wanted to keep her that way. Luckily, the Army had plenty of unsavory friends, and as I worked my way up the ladder, I met one of said friends who possessed the skills to track down anyone who didn’t want to be, which meant finding the whereabouts of a civilian was a piece of cake for him. I can still recall how Hale—the vain, cocky fuck—walked into my tent one afternoon, looking like a million bucks while everyone else had Afghani sand in their ass crack, and said the words I’d been dying to hear for years.
“I found your girl.”
After that, I paid whatever ransom Hale asked of me just so he could send me photographs of Zoey, each one a testimony of the good life she was leading. She was only twelve when I found her living with her sister and new husband in a big house and posh neighborhood. My girl was living the American dream, going to a private school and taking all the right steps to ensure an even brighter future.
She remained pure.
She remained untouched.
It was enough for me to go about my days knowing that somewhere out there, she was living her best life, and all the horrors of the past never consumed her as they did me. Amongst all the bloodshed of the war I was fighting in, my life finally had some meaning to it, knowing that I played a big part in Zoey’s happily ever after.
But then I did something stupid.
