AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pi releases a deep, shaky breath. I know this is hard for her, but I need to know. I run my fingers through her hair and massage her scalp gently.
“He’d get me lingerie. Like lacy dresses and he’d make me get dressed up for him after dinner. And he always wanted me on my knees waiting for him,” Pi whispers. “He’d come into my room at night and he’d jerk himself off in front of me, before coming on my chest. Sometimes he did it on my face. Sometimes he made me touch him. He used to force me to feel myself in front of him and if I didn’t he’d hit me with his belt, just like he used to do to you, Rhys.”
Pi is crying now and with all the anger in me, I feel sadness too. A deep, aching sadness that makes my heart feel quiet inside and my stomach upset.
“Rabbit,” I sit up, with Pi still against me and hold her body close to mine. “I’m so fucking sorry, Rabbit. I’m sorry for everything and that you had to go through that.”
She slides her arms around my neck and holds me tighter. “I just don’t want it to happen to me again, Rhys. Please protect me.”
“Oh, baby girl,” I whisper against her ear. “I would murder every fucking single soul in this town to protect you. Your pain is mine, Pi.”
“What about you?” Pi releases her arms from around my neck and sits back a little so that she’s straddling me and staring right into my eyes.
I trace the skin on her thighs with my fingers. “What about me?”
“I want to know about what happened to you too,” she says. “I know you went through shit as well, Ry.”
“I don’t want to talk about all of it,” he says. “You’re more important to me right now.”
“Then tell me some of it. I want to know, Rhys,” she whispers and I fall back against her pillows. “I want to help you too.”
I don’t want to talk about our Mum’s death right now because that makes me feel things that I can’t control and I hate feeling like that. Even though she was just as bad of a parent as Pike’s father, the suddenness of her suicide fucked me up. So I tell Pi about the other stuff instead.
“Mum’s addiction worsened when we got to Hemlock. She fell in with the wrong crowd and she was barely at home. We had nothing to eat most of the time. Things were shit.”
“So he fucking lied about that too,” Pi says so softly it’s as if she’s speaking to herself.
I drag my fingertips up the smooth skin of her abdomen. “What about?”
“He always told me that he was still taking care of you both. I was so upset after you left that I wouldn’t eat or sleep and I think he started telling me this just to make me start being normal again,” Pi explains.
“What would you expect from someone that abused their power over their children and continues to do so?”
Pi’s expression crumbles instantly and I take hold of her arms and stare deep into her eyes. “But I’m going to end it all, Rabbit. I will make him pay.”
And with those final words, I seal Daniel’s fate. He’s going to be fucking sorry that he ever touched my sister.
21
PIKE: CHAPTER XXI
Now
We’re in the secret library. Quinn, River and Atlas Slade sit together near the fireplace. Gray and Odessa Cotheran linger with each other in the shadows. I don’t really know much about the Cotheran siblings other than the fact that they’ve always been a little too quiet and odd. Rumour has it that there was a slave in their family back then. But there’s no way of telling anything because they’re both so closed up, with Gray’s hands always wrapped tightly around Odessa’s. They’re always like that. I suppose I understand the way they are because I get it. I get the fierce look of love and the adoring gaze of my brother. I get the beating of a heart when he whispers in your ear how badly he wants to corrupt you and you’ll let him, because you love him and you want to be corrupted with him, by him.
I’m sitting with Rhys on the settee in between his legs. I’m not sure how it happened, but the most fucked up group of people attending St. Charles has merged without even needing anyone to say anything. I guess we’re all drawn to each other in some twisted way, each of us connected by some form of trauma that haunts our past, that still haunts us.
“So whose demise are we currently plotting?” Quinn asks the words so nonchalantly.
“It’s a secret actually,” Rhys answers and kisses the lower lobe of my left ear. He sticks his tongue out and licks it before gently nibbling. “But Pi and I have it all under control,” Rhys says, wrapping his arms around me.
I’m not used to feeling someone being so protective of me, but it was Rhys’ role before he left and now that we’re together once again, it feels amazing. It feels right.
“Can’t you give us a little clue?” Quinn asks and I don’t even have to glance up at him to know that he’s shooting daggers right at her, but Quinn doesn’t waver. She just leans against River’s chest and takes a swig of the Vodka, before glancing down at me and smiling.She knows too.I don’t have to tell her in words, but I’m certain that almost everyone in this room can interpret the overprotective manner in which Rhys is displaying for me that our relationship runs deeper than just blood relations.
I take his hand in mine and circle my index finger around his silver ring. The fact that we’re bound to each other now forever makes me feel so powerful. When I’m with him, I feel powerful. He makes me feel like we can do anything when I’m with him.
“You still play with spiders, Rabbit?” Rhys asks in a whisper against my ear so that no one else can hear.
