His gaze meets mine as he shuts the door and starts undoing his jeans. As soon as he’s down to his black boxers, he comes to the bed, pulls back the covers, and slides in next to me.
I don’t hesitate to quickly shuffle over to his side. This day started out so damn good. And went south so damn fast.
“What’s going on in the shed?” I ask him.
“We’re torturing Herrin’s right hand for information,” he answers flatly, no hesitation at all.
“Okay,” I state simply, hoping he doesn’t elaborate.
Blowing out a breath, I peer up at him, and he looks down at me, his hand resting on the curve of my waist.
“Go to sleep. I’ll stay in here with you until the others get here.”
I shake my head. “I’m scared to go to sleep right now. I’m afraid I’ll dream.”
He runs his other hand through my hair, turning to face me a little better. “You froze because you were back there…back to the day your parents were killed in the explosion,” he says softly.
My brow furrows. “How’d you know th—”
“I was in a hospital from ten to twelve while they worked on fixing my fucked up head. They kept me in a colorful room with the lights on all the time the first year, because when it was dark, I was back in my own hell. They spent a lot of time sedating me before the doctors made the suggestion.”
I swallow the lump in my throat as he talks about this so dispassionately, as though he’s not opening up his darkest secrets for me.
“So it stopped when you were ten?” I ask him quietly. Since he said he was in the hospital at that age, that’s all I can figure.
“No,” he says, sighing. “Only the pain stopped at ten. It took me a long damn time to get out of that place mentally.”
Even though I don’t want to push him, I still ask him, “What happened? Why were you in the hospital?”
“They realized I needed the psych ward when they were tending to my burns. I was begging them not to hurt me, screaming for the light to stay on. I never got much light in the hole.”
“The hole?” I ask shakily.
He goes on, his tone still flat, as though this is just any conversation. “The hole is what I called it. It was a cellar with no windows. The ground was dirt, and I had a small hole I slept in for three years. At least on unchained days.”
He heaves out a breath, his eyes moving away.
“Someone kidnapped you?” I ask, confused.
He slowly shakes his head. “No. My grandmother passed away from heart complications, and the state awarded my mother custody. She’d turned her rights over to her mother when she had me and ran away.”
“So you did have a name?” My question comes out soft as I tilt my head.
“I did,” he says tightly. “But the memory of that name has been gone for a long time. It was part of my punishment. When I tell you that name is gone, I mean it. I can’t remember what my grandmother called me. Even though they later found out my name, it still didn’t feel right to use it. Or even claim it.”
My hand slides over him, trying to be supportive. “So your grandmother didn’t do this?” I ask him, just to clarify.
He shakes his head. “I only have a few memories of a kind smile and a gentle voice. But I know my grandmother was loving, gentle, kind…everything my mother wasn’t.”
“Your mother did this?” I ask, anger and sickness mixing together in my stomach and souring it as I sit up, running my finger along the deepest scar on his face.
He catches my hand, his gaze meeting mine again.
“No. I did the ones on my face.”
Admittedly confused, I study him silently, waiting on him to elaborate. When he doesn’t, I ask, “Why would you do this to yourself?”
He shrugs. “I thought if I looked less like him, she’d be less inclined to punish me for what he did. So I took a piece of broken glass and cut until I couldn’t bear the pain anymore.”
The Demon’s Child…
After another long exhale, he says, “I’m the product of my mother’s rape.”
I swallow down the knot in my throat. That’s not what I expected. I expected him to tell me his father had done this to him because of radical religious reasons, given the name choice.
He goes on, his eyes averting mine again as he continues to clutch my hand, bringing it to his chest and resting it there with his over it.
“She was fourteen, and her family was strictly Catholic. The man who raped her was some thug who’d just gotten out of prison for the very same thing. He left her abandoned in the street, and when she found out she was pregnant, her mother refused to allow her to have an abortion, saying it wasn’t my fault this happened and God wouldn’t want an innocent child punished for a monster’s sins. Like I said, she signed her rights over after I was born and ran away, hating her mother for forcing her to have me. But my grandmother never blamed me for any of it.”