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Kellan sighs. “I’m so sorry, Thelia.”
“He’s dead now,” I say numbly, turning away. “That’s all that matters.”
“No.” Kellan grabs my arm and pulls me back to him. It’s dark enough that not all his features are distinguishable, but the worry is prominent enough that I couldn’t miss it if I wanted to.
“Kellan, I—”
“You’re allowed to be angry,ma belle.You’re allowed to hurt. It doesn’t make you weak. Nor does what he did to you.”
I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from snapping. The guys hurt me, too.Theymade me feel weak.
You’re in the process of remedying that,I remind myself.Don’t fuck it up by getting mad now.
“I get that,” I say after a moment of collecting myself. “I just don’t like thinking about it, you know? He tried to take everything away from me. I couldn’t even be myself—he did his best to change me into something I never wanted to be. I…”
When the tears fill my eyes, they’re real. Maybe Kellan is right—maybe I’m not letting myself feel enough. Problem is, I don’t want to. I don’t want to think about Professor Kammes at all.
“Athelia,” Kellan says softly. “He couldn’t have made you change. You are who you are, and you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. Kammes may have tried to alter your appearanceand control you, but on the other side, you’re still the Athelia I remember.”
“Am I?” I sob. I feel different. Bitter and used and angry. The determination I clung to when I first showed up to Pemberton is gone—stolen away by too many people who wanted to hurt me. All I want to do is give up.
“I think so,” he says. “I think people can change some, but fundamentally, they stay the same. You’ve grown and matured, but you’re still you,ma belle.”
“Are you the same person you’ve always been?”
He laughs mirthlessly. “To most people’s disappointment, yes.”
“Disappointment?”
Kellan shrugs. “Look at me. There’s no reason for why I turned out the way I did. Maybe I was always destined to have desires that are considered abnormal. Like, maybe it’s a part of my nature, not something I turned to because of something horrible in my past.”
I grab onto the chance to steer the conversation away from me. “What do you mean?”
“My parents may have faults, but they’re still good parents. They took care of me, and they made sure I felt loved as a kid. I was happy. So sometimes I wonder where the darkness in me came from, you know?
“Cal and Wes both had shitty childhoods. It feels like it makes more sense for them to have fucked-up relationships with power and pain, whereas I didn’t have something horrible happen to me as a kid. For the most part, I had a normal childhood.”
I frown, realizing I’ve never heard Cal mention his family or his childhood. It never occurred to me to ask, so I’ve never thought about it much.
“There was nothing that messed me up,” Kellan continues. “Nothing that shaped me into a person who enjoys causing people pain—who enjoys killing people.”
“Were you like that as a kid?”
“Somewhat,” he says. “I wasn’t one of those boys who went around torturing animals or shit like that, but I liked scaring people. Probably good I don’t have any siblings.”
“But you still care about people,” I say. “You care about me.”
He smiles. “That’s different, and also not the point. I know what you’re trying to do,me belle.”
“W-what?”
“I’m not stupid. You’re trying to direct the conversation away from yourself.”
“I—what? That’s—”
“Don’t try to deny it,” he says on a sigh. His arm comes around my shoulders, the scent of sandalwood and frankincense filling my lungs.
“I just don’t want to think about him,” I mumble as we head back down the path to his motorcycle.
