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Because the only thing worse than unrequited love was unfulfilled vengeance.
That cowardly bastard took the easy way out.
“You’ll see him in hell when it’s all said and done,” Scarlet whispered under her breath as she struggled to bring herself back into focus. “You’ll get your revenge then.”
Remember that in a way youdidkill him, Scarlet told herself fiercely as she pushed herself away from the wall and glanced at the time again. You destroyed his career, ruined his reputation, pushed him over the edge like you pulled the trigger yourself.
Of course, Scarlet had ruined her own reputation in the process. The news of the out-of-wedlock pregnancy crossed the oceans and arrived in New Delhi. Scarlet had been promptly disowned by her shocked and humiliated family, sworn off as a casualty of America’s loose morals, branded too tainted to return to the family home, to that conservative corner of traditional India which would label her a harlot, a whore, a walkingyonispread wide for all takers.
But her family was just collateral damage. Part of the plan which had come together once Scarlet turned her mind to vengeance. She’d have to pay that price for her revenge, for her freedom, for her own dark and deranged version of the American dream.
She’d considered quietly aborting the unborn, unwanted, undisclosed child. He’d told her to do it, immediately and without hesitation, that he wasn’t cut out to be a father and she sure as hell wasn’t fit to be a mother.
“You’re not capable of that kind of love,” he’d snorted with self-satisfied certainty. “Or ofanykind of love. Neither am I, and you fucking know it.”
She’d stared at him as he tore down everything she thought she’d believed back then. “How . . . how can you say that? I loveyou.And you love me too. You said so. A hundred times. I know you weren’t lying. I saw it in your eyes. Saw it in your heart! Me getting pregnant is proof that we’re meant for each other. It’s fate. Destiny. It’s . . . it’s—“
“It’s suicide,” he’d snapped. “Career suicide for me. And even worse for you. I’ll make sure your scholarship is withdrawn if it’s the last fucking thing I do before they fire me. You’ll have to drop out of law school, your visa will immediately be invalid, and you’ll have to blow the rest of your savings on a one-way ticket home.” He’d chuckled darkly, his eyes which she’d always thought were honest as the day, shone with what looked like wicked delight, like he was actuallyenjoyingthe power he had over her. “Sure, you can sue for child support. But not until the child is actually born and we do a paternity test. Which, by the way,canbe challenged in court. Especially if you can’t afford a lawyer to contest it. Which you won’t be able to when you’re back in your shithole third-world country. Will your parents even take you back? You said they’re sticklers about this sort of thing.” He’d snorted contemptuously. “Yeah, I can see how it would be awkward to get you married off with a baby bump or a bastard half-breed kid in tow. This kid fucks up your life way worse than mine. So grow the hell up and get the abortion.”
Scarlet’s heart had sunk so low she’d almost crumpled to the floor. She’d stared unblinkingly into his eyes as the dark humiliation sunk into her shrinking soul. In a withering, whimpering voice she’d tried to convince him to give the child a chance, to give himself a chance, to give them both a chance.
But her heart already knew that she’d lost him.
That she’d never really had him.
That for all her intelligence she’d been played like an instrument, spun like a top, dumped like a truck.
That devastating moment had wounded her in a way that would never heal. But there was something good that came out of it. The lying cheating asshole was right about one thing.
She would never again be capable of love.
Not that kind of love.
Not any kind of love.
And the moment she’d decided that, the wound in Scarlet’s heart began to scab over—not healing but simply festering beneath the scab, the dark emotion sparking thoughts that sent her tumbling down a different path, unwittingly at first but then intentional as that humiliation festered into something savage and primal, something born from that deeply sensual place which he’d first awakened in her with his touch, then twisted with his treachery.
The plan had swept into her mind fully-formed, like a gift from some dark power. She’d almost blacked out as the thoughts rushed through her shellshocked brain sharpened by law school.
And then she’d nodded dumbly to him, whispered something about how he was right, how an abortion was the right move, the best move, the only move.
She’d gone underground after that, losing herself in her work, studying the law, reading old cases, plotting her own story. She’d always been a petite woman, and she’d often dressed in traditional Indian loose-flowingsalwartunics that would hide her baby bump well enough for the first few months. She told him it was done, that the mistake had been erased, that they could go back to how it was.
A part of her still clung to that innocence, still wondered if maybe she could keep it from him long enough to give birth, that maybe seeing his child would spark some instinct that all humans must have.
Even though Scarlet was herself coming to the dark realization that maybe notallhumans harbored that instinct to create new life.
Because Scarlet’s thoughts seemed to be turning more and more towards creation’s polar opposite.
Destruction.
Like the sexual energy he’d awakened in her had twisted into its opposite, a dark transmutation that rippled through every cell in Scarlet’s body, giving expression to new combinations of genes, awakening new potentials, a new fate, a different destiny.
Turning creation into destruction.
Compassion into coldness.
Sex into violence.
