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I chew on the inside of my cheek, trying to work out what to tell him what not to. In the end, I trust that the twins decided not to tell their dad yet for a reason, so I shake my head. "No, nothing at all. None of this makes any sense to me."
"Okay, then I just have a few more questions." He pulls a file from his suitcase and slides it across the table to me. "This much I know already," he says. "But I'd like to know your point of view on all of it."
I open the file and suck in a sharp breath when I see a picture of myself inside.
Every police report, every incident, every hospital account from my entire life is inside. Including the worst of them.
My hands shake as I flick through the many pages and a tear slips down my face as I read the things written about me on the paper.
"I’m not sure what else there is to tell you," I say. "This pretty much sums up my entire shitty life."
He puts his hand on top of mine and pats it softly before squeezing and withdrawing his hand again. "I just need to know, sweetheart, if there's anything other than this. Anything you did, any sort of angry outbursts, hurting anybody, anything that could have repercussions with them dragging you in here today. Anything that might have given them cause to think that you are capable of this."
Another tear slips down my face and I swipe it away angrily. "The only thing I've ever done is defend myself," I tell him. "The only thing I've ever done is defend everybody important in my life. It's not my fault that my mother happened to bring monsters into my life on a regular basis."
"I’m not saying it’s your fault, but I need to know if there's anything that isn't in these files," he says softly.
I shake my head, my hands trembling beneath the table, so I clasp them together to try and make it stop. "No, this is everything, every dirty detail of everything that happened to me in my entire life. Do I even want to know where you got this?" I ask.
"Probably not," he says. "I work with people. You can get all kinds of information from all kinds of places, but I also happen to work with people who can punish those who have done the things to you that are detailed in there. If that's something you might want."
I hold my breath for a moment, thinking about the reality of what he's offering, but shake my head again. "Revenge won't get me anywhere. I already carry the scars of what's happened to me. Even if the monsters are finally gone from the world, that won't get them out of my head."
He nods solemnly at my response. "I understand. Now, let's get you out of here, shall we? I've had two boys blowing up my phone most of the afternoon begging me to get you out of here. I'm sorry it took me so long. I've been in meetings all day."
"It's fine," I tell him. "And honestly, I didn't expect anybody to come to my rescue. It's not like anybody ever has before."
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
BRIAR
Isit in the passenger seat of Thomas' car and stare out the window as he drives me home.
Everything that’s happened today hasn't quite sunk in properly yet.
I keep tripping over the fact that they seem to think that Crawford is my father, which can't be right.
Right?
Because if he's my dad, then my entire life has been a lie.
If he's my dad, I wonder if the man who I thought was my father knew that he wasn't my dad all along.
And if Crawford is my dad, that means I killed my father.
I'm not sure I can handle that.
I handled the fact that my professor could attack me for seemingly no reason, and that I defended myself, by putting it in a tiny box and shoving it away in the back of my mind, but that was when he was a nobody to me.
If hewasmy dad and he knew that he was, then I'll never know why he hated me so much. I’ll never know why he tried to attack me, because I killed him. And if he didn't know he was my father, then why attack me in the first place?
I can feel the box full of the trauma surrounding everything that happened with him spilling open rather than sitting safely on its little perch in the closet in the dark recesses of my mind, but I try to hold it together.
Especially since I'm in the car with Thomas, because I don't think he would really appreciate me having a full on meltdown in the passenger seat of his car right now.
Not only because he got me out of one of the worst days I've had since I got to Serenity Falls— admittedly not in the top five, but it's definitely at least in the top twenty of worst days I've had since I got off that plane from California—but because he barely knows me. He might know what’s in that file of his, but that doesn’t mean he knows me.
We pull up in front of the house and I move to open the door but realize that it's still locked.
