I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Really? Look, I’ve seen some of the girls who go to this school and I know I’m nothing special.”
He raised a brow.
“I’m not looking for compliments.”
Vadik smiled and stepped back.
“No, you explain this to me.”
“Why explain it to you when it will be a lot more fun to show you?” He winked at me and left the girls’ bathroom.
I kicked the base of the sink. “Fuck!”
Staring at my reflection, I didn’t look happy. Far from it. My lips were swollen from his kiss. My cheeks red. I didn’t even recognize myself.
Closing my eyes, I counted to three, then to six, then to ten.
Finally, when I’d gained my control again, I left the bathroom and went back to art. No one looked at me. Vadik was still drawing. I happened to notice the teacher didn’t get too close to him or his work. She nodded her head. “Wonderful.”
He shot her a glare and she scurried away.
She came right toward me.
“Emily, do you want to talk about what happened?” she asked.
I turned toward her. All I wanted to do was scream at her, tell her what a waste of space she was. How my father would never leave my mother, and she was spreading her legs for the wrong man.
Instead, I was the good girl.
Years upon years of practice brought a smile to my lips as if nothing mattered.
“You do have some talent, Emily.” She patted my shoulder and once again, I counted in my head.
I turned back to my tree. This wasn’t talent.
I hated drawing.
I hated school.
I hated my father.
My life.
All of it.
But what I didn’t hate was the way Vadik looked at me. The way Gael touched me, as if I belonged to him already. The kiss Caleb had taken, his ownership. Even River’s understanding.
All four of them had made me feel and I didn’t want that. My life was already over before it had begun, and each of these guys had woken me up. Now, I feared I was never going to be able to sleep again.
My heart beat in anticipation.
Hope bloomed within my chest.
Life no longer seemed unbearable. But now that I’d thought all of this, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to handle what might happen when all of this fell apart, which it would. There was no doubt about it.
This between us was a ticking time bomb, and one day soon, it was going to go off.
****
Caleb
This wasn’t the first murder I’d seen.
I stood watching as my father’s men threw the body into the water. It wouldn’t be long before the creatures of the ocean tore his body apart, feeding on the traitor’s flesh.
My father, Daniel, sat back, a glass of wine in his hand as he smiled. “Now that’s a job well done.”
I didn’t say anything.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been taken on one of his little expeditions. It was late on a Saturday night. This was where my father did his business with rats or traitors. First, they’d be taken to a warehouse where for many hours, one of our men would get every single word or secret past his lips. Death wouldn’t come easily.
Teeth, fingernails, and toenails would be removed. Then nipples and other pieces of flesh would come. Fingers were next.
Slowly, piece by piece, they’d be removed until all that remained was a carcass.
I’d seen the torture process many times. My first happened when I was twelve years old. Daniel believed no son of his would have a weak stomach. The first one, I vomited, and he made me clean up the vomit, blood, and shit afterward. The stench had stayed with me for weeks, even though I had scrubbed my body raw.
The second one, I didn’t throw up.
By the fourth, my dad wanted me to join in.
I knew we didn’t have the best of parents. None of us did. Our fathers all had their own methods of making us the men who would one day take over from them. You’d think with the constant example we made of men and women who tried to rat, there wouldn’t be so many. There was always someone who grew a conscience, and that meant we got to feed the fishes.
“How’s school?” my father asked.
I looked at him, brow raised. “You really want to know about school?”
He laughed.
“You know everything already. If you’ve got a question, ask.”
“Be careful how you speak to me, Caleb. You may be my son, but I have no problems putting you in your place.”
My dad had no trouble hurting me. He took great pride in how much shit I took from him.
I nodded, letting him know I was sorry. To say the words aloud showed weakness.
“So, the girl, Emily. Tell me about her.”
“What’s there to tell?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere. She’s become the Monsters’ shiny new toy. I take it her cherry hasn’t been popped.”