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“I’m not leaving,” were the first words he said to me when I entered the kitchen. He was plating the lasagna that was still piping hot, the steam wafting up from the pan on the stove.
“Good,” I grunted back.
“She’s going to hate me. Fuck,” he slammed down the spatula. “Sometimes I hate myself.”
“She’s not going to hate you.” My words were hollow. Someone who had been through what she had might not understand the demons that raged inside of him. I did, and my family did. That was why my uncle allowed him to use his farm to dispose of the bodies. It was why my cousin provided him with syringes filled with a sedative. What Brent was having a hard time coming to terms with was that the people he killed weren’t the same, and he wasn’t the same as the serial killer that was after Casey.
“Why would I hate you?” The soft voice coming from the entrance to the kitchen had both of us freezing. She stepped forward, looking at both of us in turn, before her gaze settled back onto Brent. “Why would I hate you, Brent?”
He collapsed in the chair nearest him and just stared at her, unable to speak. I stepped toward her, holding my hand out, not knowing what I was going to say or do but knowing that this was about to go very, very bad. “Sugar…”
She fixed me with a look before turning back to where Brent was slumped in his chair, looking defeated. “Brent?”
He looked up at her, sadness and shame burning in his eyes. “I’m a killer, dollface. I kill people. I’m just like the man you are running from.” He snorted, a distorted grin tugging at his lips. “You have shit luck, baby.”
She shook her head and took a step back. “No. No, you’re…” She glanced around the kitchen helplessly and waved a hand. Then she looked at me, a pleading look in her eyes.
“Maybe it’s time that she hears your story, babe.” My words were for Brent, but my eyes stayed locked on Casey as she swallowed hard. Her eyes swung back to where Brent was still slumped in his chair, staring at the floor. He shook his head and chuckled but didn’t say a word.
Casey took a tentative step forward. Her voice was small, pleading when she begged. “Please. I need to know. I need to know you’re not…”
He raised his head and stared at her, all emotion wiped clean. “Not like the killer that kept you locked in a cage, intent on making you his next victim?”
The first tear rolled down her cheek, and his eyes zeroed in on it as it made its way to her chin. There was another flash of pain before he checked it. Her next plea came out as a choked sob, and she crossed her arms protectively in front of her.
I crossed the room and gathered her in my arms. She went stiff for a long moment before her strength seemed to give out, and she collapsed against my chest, letting me carry her weight. I walked us both over to the chairs and sat with her cradled in my lap. She hesitated, reaching out her hand, but then firmly grasped one of his and held it.
“Please help me understand.”
He looked up at our girl, his eyes red-rimmed.
Twenty-Six
BRENT
“I had a sister.Her name was Elizabeth. She was my twin.”
Casey let out a small gasp, not knowing what had happened yet but already feeling empathy for a girl she didn’t even know. It made me slip further in love with her. I gave her hand, clutching mine, a small squeeze to let her know I appreciated her reaction.
“My parents aren’t good people. They are pieces of shit, really. When they aren’t drunk as hell, they are high as kites. Meth, crack, you name it, they’ll snort it, smoke it, or inject it. They had been abusive since I could remember.” I took in a breath to calm my nerves at having to expose the horrors of my childhood to such a precious soul.
“They were more likely to backhand me than to say hello. I had to steal food from the nearby convenience store to feed my sister and myself since neither one of them could hold down a job. I always tried to get their attention on me so that she would be safe. They’d been abusing her, too, though. I was wrong.”
I gritted my teeth. The painful memories ate at me even on good days, and reliving them now was pure torture. Ethan’s low voice had me pulling myself back out of the pit the pain tried to drag me into.
“It’s okay, babe. Take your time. We are here with you.” I wanted to snort, to deny that they could help me in any way, but I knew that they were already. Just by being here. Ethan had stood by my side for years, never judging, always giving me what I needed. I looked up at Casey’s beautiful face. But would she?
“I found out that they had been touching her. Both of them. The sick bastards had been cornering her when I wasn’t around. I had no idea why, but she started wetting the bed when she was around eight years old. I tried to hide the evidence and clean up after her, hoping that if I did that, my parents wouldn’t find out and punish her. Then, when she was twelve, I walked in on my fucking father raping her while my mom sat watching, stoned out of her mind. That’s when I put it together. All those times I had stayed after school to play ball with my friends. Whenever I went down to the convenience store. At fucking night while I was sleeping.”
I stared at the floor, remembering that awful moment when my world jerked to a halt. “I beat the shit out of him that day. Just beat him until he was bloody and unconscious. I would have killed him if it weren’t for the police showing up. Someone had called them because of all the screaming my mom had been doing. I hadn’t even noticed. I was just so focused on caving his face in for doing that to my sister. They had me in cuffs before I could blink.”
“But… your parents!”
“Yeah, my parents.” I snorted. “It only took them a minute to look around our disgusting trailer to see all the drugs and alcohol. They had my mom in handcuffs next and my dad on a stretcher to head to the hospital with promises that he would be heading to jail as soon as the doctors made sure he didn’t die. The cops listened to what I had to say.” I looked over at Brent. “It was the first time I realized that cops weren’t all bad the way my parents used to say. When I told them about my sister, one of them got up to look for her, to make sure she was alright. But it was too late.”
A sob I hadn’t known was stuck there, tore from my chest. I pressed a fist to my mouth and squeezed Casey’s hand like it was a lifeline. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t say the words. Ethan knew, though. He finished the story the way I couldn’t.
“Elizabeth had gone into the bathroom and slit her wrists. By the time the officer found her, she had already bled out. Child Protective Services came and took Brent to a foster family, and his parents went to jail, where they have been ever since.”
