AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What?” Lo asked. “You saw him another time? When?”
I glanced up, fleeting, before I looked back down and continued. I told them a brief summary of what I’d said to Brett three years ago. That he hurt my mom. That he took my brother away with him one time. That my mom was doing the best she could.
This next part hurt to say because why had it been me? “I do think he loved me, loves me still. He could’ve come forward, said he was my father. My name’s been in the press so much, but he never has. My mom told me one time that he promised to stay away from me. She said it was the one thing he promised her. So far that’s been true.”
“Maybe he’s not alive?” Roger said.
I didn’t reply because I knew that wasn’t true.
Here was the hard part. I closed my eyes and took a moment.
Brett’s hand curled over my shoulder, giving me a squeeze before he reached down and took my hand in his. When he felt me trembling, he cursed under his breath and stood abruptly, but only to grab me, lift me, and he sat down underneath me, then pulled me onto his lap. His arms circled me, that hand finding mine again and lacing our fingers.
I settled back against him, a little of my tension easing. Just a little.
“Billie.” Vicky’s voice was so hoarse.
I looked up, seeing her leaning forward, her gaze shining with such strong emotion. “Whatever you have to tell us, we aren’t going anywhere. I mean it. Anything. You are my daughter. I don’t care that you don’t have my blood. I love you and nothing would tear you away from me. You got me?” Her eyes flashed with intensity. “Now you say what you need to say because I need my second daughter to be able to breathe without it hurting. When you told your brother that I was your mother and Howard was your father, that was one of the best days of my life.”
Two tears streaked down Howard’s face as he blinked, nodding vigorously. His hand was clasped in Vicky’s and I could see how tightly they were holding onto each other.
Maybe they already figured it out, or maybe they were preparing for the worst, but it helped me tell them the rest.
I didn’t think about the movement. I’d think about it later because Vicky and Lo’s eyes both got so big when I moved my hand and Brett’s to my stomach, both of our hands opening to spread over my for-now flat tummy.
“After I found out what happened to Ben, who he’d turned into, I realized what my mom meant by needing to take him with her. And now I really understand. She couldn’t choose between one child and the other. She didn’t want Ben to become who our father was, so she decided to go with him. She chose to set me free. Ben told me the night he was here that Mom chose me because I was a star. That wasn’t the truth. She let me go and she chose him. It just didn’t turn out how she intended and we both lost her in the end, but she tried to go with him.”
It hurt to keep going, to say the rest, and somehow I flashed back to that day.
I was hiding under Jojo’s bed. The screams cut off, and there was a pained moment of silence.
I was so scared, every part of me was shaking. Even my teeth were rattling against each other, and I bit down on my arm to keep quiet as much as possible.
A floorboard creaked.
Another.
His pants swished.
He was drawing near.
The door opened, and he stepped inside.
He opened the closet.
Then to the bed.
His boots stopped right in front of me, shifting as he kneeled down.
He lifted the bedspread, and a face came down to look at me.
A face that I knew.
“I never understood why she did what she did, or why my father did what he did, but I do now. Ben and I were both loved. I know that now. My mom loved Ben. That’s why she chose to die with him. And my dad loves me.”
A deep breath.
My last secret.
“That’s why my dad chose to let me live that day. After he had killed everyone in the house.”
