by Leddy Harper
“Josh can’t know.” Her voice was so soft, yet filled with so much terror.
I no longer needed to ask the question.
She’d just given me the answer.
The wrong answer.
“What happened tonight? With the fight?” Her meek voice broke the stifling silence.
I ran my palm down my face, still not used to the smooth skin on my cheeks. “When you passed out, I walked away.”
“So no one won?”
I shook my head. “No…he won.” Everything.
My gaze trailed up her covered legs, thinking about all the places I’d touched her. All the ways I’d made her mine. I was her first, and for two years, I was her only. I had no right to be angry at her for moving on. I’d left her. But that didn’t stop the overwhelming jealousy from clogging my throat or stilling my heart. When my eyes moved to her stomach, I couldn’t seem to look away. Inside, a baby grew. Life. Not mine. It belonged to the man who’d taken my family. Taken my childhood. And there was no way in hell I’d let him take this baby.
The thought of raising his child sent a cold shiver through me.
I wasn’t sure I could love it the right way.
Not with his blood running through its veins.
“It was only supposed to be for a year. Not five,” I mumbled to myself.
“What was? What’re you talking about, Killian?”
I found complete desperation in her eyes and decided to answer. “When I left. I never meant to be away from you for so long. I thought I could find them within a year and be there for you by the time you graduated. Then we could resume our plan of being together. But it didn’t happen that way. I never expected them to be so hard to locate.”
She blew out a long exhale and blinked her eyes, as if warding off tears. “That was so stupid, Killian. I know you wanted to face Josh. Hurt him. But you shouldn’t have done that. He could’ve hurt you. It all could’ve backfired and he could’ve taken you away from me.”
When I saw Rylee fall to the ground by the ring, her skin as pale as sand, everything had vanished. I’d forgotten all about the fight. About Josh. About Rylee knowing the truth. I only cared about making sure she was safe, getting her help. I couldn’t lose her. I refused to lose her.
“How’d you find out? How’d you know it was him?”
“Your sketches. I found the articles, the yearbook. It wasn’t hard to figure it out after seeing it all together.” She paused to lick her dry lips. “Those newspaper clippings…the guys who were found dead…”
My heart sank. I hated the thought of her seeing that. My past. My present. My nightmares and demons. I wished I could’ve changed it, made her un-see it all. It was ugly and painful and fucked up. But she knew. There was nothing I could do about it now.
“Were they the guys from when you were younger? From your parents’ house?”
I could only nod, unsure of how much information I wanted to tell her.
“And now there’s only one left…Josh.”
I nodded again, but decided to speak. “He’s the one who killed my mom.”
Her gasp was sharp. “He’s the…the one who did…?” She pointed to my face. “Oh my God. I can’t believe he…can’t believe it was him. And I…”
“Don’t, Rylee. You didn’t know, so don’t even think about it.” I moved from the chair to sit on the edge of the bed with my hand on her thigh. “He won’t come after you. He won’t come after your baby. I promise you. I’ll make sure he never bothers you again.”
I’d kill the motherfucker.
Rylee was quiet the entire drive to her apartment. I wanted to take her to Cal’s, where I knew she’d be safe, but she wanted to be in her own space. Plus, I knew Cal wasn’t too happy with me. He’d sent a few texts while I was at the hospital, asking about the fight and what had happened. It was very obvious I wasn’t myself from the moment I’d stepped into the ring.
I didn’t feel like answering his questions.
He’d know everything eventually.
I sat her on the edge of the bed and turned to open a drawer for a clean T-shirt. Only the lamp in the corner lit the room, and it set a level of gloom over us. I was filled with sadness, anger, frustration, and…utter defeat. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but I couldn’t get a single word out past the lump in my throat.
She stood, putting weight only on one foot, and held onto my shoulders. I slipped her skirt off her hips until it pooled on the floor at her feet, then helped her to a seated position on the mattress. Her shirt slithered up her body, over her chest and head, and I nearly lost my breath. But then she reached behind her and unhooked her bra. And I started to choke. I couldn’t get the T-shirt over her head fast enough.
Not because I didn’t want to look.
Because I wanted nothing more than to look.
Stare.
Touch.
But I couldn’t. Everything seemed so different. Her. Me. Everything. And I hated it, hated me, hated Josh. Hated the entire situation. I knew this wasn’t something that could break us—nothing would ever be able to tear us apart. We’d get through it, figure it out, make it work. It’d take time and effort, but we’d do it. However, that didn’t mean things weren’t tense or strange or…off between us now.
Rylee leaned into the pillow and situated herself while I elevated her injured foot. I ran my fingertips along the smooth skin on her legs, slowly tracing invisible lines from her ankle to her thigh, where I paused to take it all in. The bumps forming on her flesh, the small gasps, the way her spine arched slightly off the bed while the tips of my fingers lingered along her underwear before making it to her soft stomach.
I flattened my hand and stared. Her belly rose and fell with each shallow breath she took, and I could only think of the life she harbored inside. The life that didn’t belong to me. The one I didn’t put there.
“What’s wrong? You look mad.” She stilled for a moment, her body turning rigid with fright. “Are you mad?”
“No,” I said to calm her worry. “I don’t know how I feel, but I can tell you I’m not angry.”
“But you’re not happy.”
I sighed and sat down on the bed next to her, my hand on her lower belly. “It’s kind of hard to be happy, Rylee. I won’t lie. I always thought I’d be the one to do this to you. To put a baby in you. To make a family with you. I never, not once, thought you’d do this without me.”
She pulled herself up onto her elbows, but I didn’t let her interrupt me.
“But I can’t be mad. Not at you. It’s not fair to you, because I was the one who left in the first place. I was stupid thinking I’d be able to hunt those fuckers down just because I knew who they were. I didn’t take into account it’d been ten years, and people don’t stay in one place. I thought I’d be able to find them, take care of shit, and move on. Find my voice and come back to you. Instead, I fucked everything up.”
Sitting all the way up now, Rylee took my hand—which had fallen to the side with her change in position—and placed it over her stomach once more. She didn’t move, didn’t speak until I looked right at her. Into her eyes.
“You did put this here, Killian. You.” She shook her head and giggled, her eyes falling closed. “Considering your obsession with coming in me, not pulling out, I don’t know why you’d even question it.” Then she cupped my face and gazed into my eyes. “It’s only ever been you, Killian. Only you. No one else.”
Her words echoed in my head. I tried to make sense of them, yet they jumbled up the more I replayed them. Only me. “You mean…? You and Josh? Never?” I needed clarity. This wasn’t something I could afford to misunderstand.
“No,” she answered while shaking her head. “There were…other things. But never sex. We’ve never been together like that. He tried—my God did he try—but I never could. It was like my heart knew you were coming back to me, and it wouldn’t let me give myself to anyone else.”
I crushed my lips to hers until she
was lying flat again. But I couldn’t let the kiss linger too long. Not only could I not allow us to get so worked up we wouldn’t be able to stop, considering she was in pain and had just gotten home from the hospital, but I had something else that needed my attention.
I lowered myself down her body until my mouth hovered over her lower stomach. My lips grazed her soft skin, the little bit between the bottom of the T-shirt and her underwear. This was mine.
Ours.
I did this.
The best thing I’d ever done in my entire life.
Twenty-Seven
Rylee
I woke to the sound of the front door. I couldn’t tell if Killian had left or had just come in from somewhere, so I laid in the silence of my room and listened. I figured out rather quickly that he hadn’t gone anywhere by the shuffles coming from the kitchen. Then the bangs.
Then the voices.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” It sounded like Josh, but I prayed to God it wasn’t, because nothing good could’ve come out of him being here. With Killian. In my apartment. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Then his words stopped. A loud, hollow thud resounded through the space, filtered through the bedroom door that was left ajar, and echoed around me. If death had a sound, that’s what I’d heard. I immediately pulled the blanket off my body and reached for the set of crutches leaning against the wall next to the nightstand. It took a lot of effort to steady myself, but I managed to get out of bed and make it to the door just in time to hear more.
“You’re a fucking monster, and you’re gonna get what’s coming to you.” That was Killian. I’d know his voice anywhere. But there was no reply, and that was what worried me. “The other two fuckers are dead. You’re the only one left. The only other person who broke into my house, went into my parents’ room, and murdered my family. And your time is up.”
I knew now, without a doubt, it was Josh in my house.
With hoarse, strangled words, he said, “We were fucked up.”
“No fucking shit.”
“No.” Josh cleared his throat, and I paused by the door with my foot throbbing in pain, waiting to hear what he had to say. “I mean, we were fucked up on PCP. We were high. It’s not an excuse—I’ll never try to excuse what we did. To you or your family. It was wrong, and I’ve spent the last fifteen years living with what I did.”
“If you felt so fucking guilty about it, why didn’t you ever turn yourself in?”
Josh didn’t answer. Instead, another hollow thud rang out.
“What did my parents ever do to you? Huh? What did I ever do to deserve what you did?”
“Your parents stole you from my mom!”
My heart stopped beating. Right then and there, the entire world stopped turning. My life stilled. Time meant nothing. His words pierced through me like tiny arrows, puncturing every viable organ on their way out.
Finding the courage I didn’t know I had, I exited the bedroom and stopped behind the two men. Killian had Josh up against the door facing him, away from me, with his hands around Josh’s neck. I couldn’t see his expression, but he stood straight with his spine rigid. Taut. Anger and vengeance rolled off him like the waves of an ocean.
“My mom carried you for nine months, went into the hospital to deliver you, and never brought you home. They kept you. She cried for you every night. It was like I stopped existing, because her new chance at having a child that was all hers was stolen from her. The only peace she ever found was through a bottle of pills and death. She killed herself because of your parents.”
“That’s a fucking lie!” Killian roared in his face.
Josh didn’t flinch. He didn’t try to move away or even blink, as if he’d expected it.
“Oh my God…” I covered my mouth with my hand, but they’d heard me anyway. Two sets of eyes turned to find me standing there, in shock, shaking like a leaf. No longer did I feel the throbbing pain in my foot. Sleep no longer weighed me down and fear didn’t knot my stomach.
I felt nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
“Baby, are you okay?” Josh tried to come to me, but Killian pushed him away. The force caused his head to reverberate against the door, the hollow thud echoing louder than before. “Get the fuck off me, man. She’s my girlfriend.”
Before I could say anything, Killian spoke up, his threatening tone loud and clear. “She was never yours. She’s always been mine. Always. Stay the fuck away from her, or I will end you right here and right now. You got lucky in the ring tonight. But don’t think that’ll happen again.”
Josh took one look at him, then me, questions dancing in his eyes. “Him? This is the boy? Your old neighbor?”
I nodded.
“I won’t repeat myself.” Killian moved to stand between Josh and me. “Get the fuck out and stay away. This is your only chance to not end up like your buddies. To not end up on the wrong side of life. This is a courtesy, considering you and your friends slit my mom’s throat open, stabbed my dad nineteen times, and then carved my face into a fucking smile. If I ever see you again, I can promise you there won’t be any mercy shown on your behalf.”
It was as if I’d just been punched in the chest. Stabbed in the back. Had my legs knocked out from beneath me. All at once. Stabbed my dad nineteen times. No matter how many times I tried to tell myself it was a coincidence, I couldn’t be convinced of it. Because every time I’d tell myself This can’t be true, I’d hear Killian say, “This is your only chance to not end up like your buddies.” Dead. Both of them. One found stabbed…nineteen times. Just like his dad.
Seconds after the door closed with Josh’s exit, the crutches fell to the ground with a loud clatter. Weight fell onto my foot in a desperate attempt to catch myself, but the pain was too much and sent me careening to the floor in sheer agony. It radiated up my leg until it blended with the ache in my chest. My head felt heavy, filled with uncertainties, denial, conviction. I refused to believe it—any of it—but when Killian came to help me up, to console me, the truth burned so hot I pushed him away for fear of being set on fire by his touch.
He called out my name, the desperation thick in his voice. The worry heavy in the air around me. But I ignored him and attempted to pull myself up and hobble to my bed. My weak stomach felt ready to empty itself with every movement I made. I swallowed it down and forged on, ignoring Killian’s presence behind me.
“Y–you killed them!” I held my hand out to ward him off and silence his arguments. I couldn’t bear to hear his excuses just yet. “The other two…the articles. You killed them. It was you. You didn’t find them dead. You left them that way.”
“Just let me explain,” he pleaded.
“No!” I curled into myself against the bed’s headboard and wrapped my arms around my legs, as if protecting me from the monster who stood in front of me. The monster who’d once been my savior. “There’s nothing you can say to make it right.”
His chin dipped and he ran his fingers through his hair, pulling on the strands until they fell down around his face. “They killed my parents, Rylee. They fucked me up for years. I’m still fucked up because of what they did. What I had to witness. What I had to live through.”
“An eye for an eye.”
“Exactly.” He looked at me, his eyes bright with triumph.
But they quickly dimmed with my next words. “Except that never works, Killian. Never. They hurt you and your family, so you go after them. But did you ever stop to think that maybe they’d have family whose lives would be ruined by your revenge? And then what? It’s okay for one of their family members to come after you or someone you love? What if one of them had a brother, now suffering the loss of a loved one, and comes after me to get back at you? Or worse…comes after our baby? When does it end? There’s always another eye, another person to make pay for the pain left behind.”
“They needed to pay for what they did. I needed to find my voice, reclaim my life. I needed to stop living with the torme
nt of that night. The night they caused. The night they walked away from. Meanwhile, I’ve been living with it every single fucking day of my life.”
“So you killed them to find yourself? Are you saying this person”—I pointed at him—“sitting in front of me right now is who you really are? This is the real you?” I waited for an answer, but he only nodded. “Then there’s no hope for us. Because I was under the impression the real you was the boy who used to draw flowers on the backs of my hands. The one who’d lay in the grass with me and stare at the moon and stars without saying a single word. The boy who’d sneak into my window at night and hold my hand while I talked about my day at school. Who had kissed my entire body, every inch of me, after taking my virginity, because he didn’t want me to be in pain.”
“That is me.”
“No, it’s not.” I cut him off, needing him to hear my words more than I needed my next breath. “The man in front of me right now just hurt me so deeply, there isn’t enough kissing to ever make that pain go away.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and dropped his head into his hands. He didn’t look at me while he spoke. His words sad, his voice gritty and raw. Emotional. “What if I don’t want to let you go? What if I want to fight?”
I remained silent for a moment before he turned his attention to me. “I’m tapping out.”
“No, Rylee. Please don’t. Let me make this right.”
“There’s nothing you can do to make any of this right. You can’t give them life again. They’re gone…because of you. You’re no different than they are, Killian. You’re a killer. A murderer. Just like them. You can’t fix that.”
“But…I love you.”
I wiped tears from my face and straightened my spine, pulled my shoulders back. “You’re killing me. Breaking me. I never thought in a million years, even after you walked away, that you’d be the one to smother the life out of me.” A hiccup got stuck in my chest. “You don’t love me, Killian. If you did, you never would’ve gone after them. You never would’ve believed you needed to get revenge in order to be whole. You’ve had your voice this entire time. They didn’t take it from you. You’re the one who silenced yourself.”
