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Chapter Three
I’d never believed in the divine forces Birdie preached about. In those quiet days, she seemed so confident in her beliefs, in herself. She’d waste nights assuring me that karma was the dictator of everything we had. Birdie was the first person to put the idea in my head. If I started being kind, I could change my entire destiny. I didn’t believe that anymore. I hadn’t believed that for a long time. The kindness thing I’d ever done was cutting myself from her life— the act that ruined everything. When I heard the awful squeal of tires, the crunch of metal in the darkness ahead, I still didn’t believe it.
If there was a divine force, it would have kept me away from her.
She deserved more than me, more than this.
The only reason I took the country road in the first place was because my car would be too easily spotted in the moonlight. Surface streets didn’t offer the security they used to, and when that disgusting hunger built inside me, I needed as much security as I could get. Her perfume wouldn’t be enough for me this time. Her gentle snores wouldn’t calm me like they used to. I was driving to her house to wait for her, to crawl through her window in the dark. I was driving to her house to push things too far. If I could just benearher, I’d be able to sleep. I needed to find the release I’d been chasing, needed to see the way the moonlight fell on her sleeping face.
I wanted to make it through another week.
I didn’t want any of this.
When the sound came, I wasn’t sure if I had imagined it. Twisted fantasies had become so at home in my head that the lines between disgusting reality and dark dreams were blurred completely. If I didn’t have Birdie to tie me down, I didn’t have anything at all, but part of me knew. The second that sound filled the forest, part of me knew it was her. Only she could bring that ache in my chest.
The wreckage would have been difficult to find if I’d been anyone else. The canopy above offered a darkness that hid all trace of her. I only stopped because I noticed the torn grass, the overturned dirt off the side of the turn. Birdie’s tiny coupe had gone nose-first into the steep ditch, its front end wrapped around the base of a tree. When the fog took me, when reality drifted a little further away, I wouldn’t hear the strangled cry. Terror stopped my breath as I jerked out of my car, and my heart had never beaten so loud as when I stumbled down the ditch. It was the screech of tires that pulled my head to the right; it was the sob of pain that pulled my attention to the left.
She was here.
She was still here and she needed my help.
Glass covered everything, but it wasn’t the glass that caught the moonlight the most. Thick crimson coated my hand as I rushed to tear her door open, another sound pulling my attention over my shoulder. Through the dark, I followed the only thing I had left, followed the string that tugged so violently on my heart. It wasn’t until I fell next to her that the fog cleared. It wasn’t until I saw the scrapes covering her that I felt anything at all. Sobs filled the night air, and on the ground, Birdie’s chest heaved painfully. Her name tumbled from my lips as I moved to cradle her head, but lifting the woman closer to me only brought on a new nightmare, an old terror.
She was covered in blood.
She was covered in handprints.
Six years later and her cry still haunted me. Josh Marrow’s party was the last time I ever saw Birdie, the last time she ever saw me. I could still remember her cries for help, the sound of his hands on her from behind a locked door. That night, I saw the same dark marks around her throat. That night, someone tried to take what was mine, tried to touch what was mine. Bloodied handprints had cupped her face, spread her thighs, tried to seal her lips. The nylon rope that bound her hands was soaked in her blood. Someone had torn her skirt, and when the sickness came, I didn’t think I’d ever come back from the fog.
Fear strangled my throat. As I brushed her soaked hair from her eyes, I knew she could feel my tremble, my shake. “Birdie, can you hear me?”
“Please don’t.”
The flashes came again, the disgusting sound of my fists raining down on Josh’s corpse.
She hated you then.
She’ll hate you now, too.
When pain filled my chest, I brushed her hair back again. “Tell me who did this to you.” The demand took a second to settle along her skin. Then, all it brought was panic. “Tell me who did this, Birdie.”
It wasn’t until her eyes opened that things shifted. Tears filled her vision, but as she looked up to me, I remembered what it used to be like. For just a moment, things were different. For just a moment, she was looking at me with the same golden eyes that watched me in the library, with the same needs she’s always known. Weak hands grabbed onto my shirt, and Birdie’s eyes squeezed shut again.
“It hurts.”
“I know,” I snarled. When she winced, I forced my voice low again. “I know it hurts. Birdie, I need you to tell me—”
“Please.” Her whimper froze every piece of me. “Michael, it hurts to bad.”
Shaking hands jerked for the cellphone in my pocket— even when I knew it was useless. Bloodied fingers dialled the number I knew so well, dialled for Omar, but when I couldn’t finish the call, everything froze. Calling the police had never led to answers. All of this would look like it was my fault, that I’d silenced the only woman who had ever known the truth, who had ever defended me. They’d tell me I was here to secure an alibi, that her neighbours had spotted my car driving past her house for the last six years. They’d tell me I did this, they’d tellBirdieI did this, and the fuck who had his hands all over her would forever walk free.
They’ll take her away from you.
He’ll find her again, and you won’t be able to stop it.
In my grip, Birdie let out another cry for help. “It hurts.”
“I know.” A single motion slid my phone back in my pocket, my arms cradling the woman into my chest. “I’ll fix this, Birdie. Just hold on.”
