Page 7 of Broken Hearts

My heart began to beat faster. “What did he do to her?”

“You’d already run up the stairs by this point, so you didn’t see. But he was so calm as she screamed and shouted. He even laughed at her, like it was a joke how defensive she was of her little daughter. Then he picked up a pistol. His demeanor never changed. Calm, collected, and smooth.”

“He threatened to kill her?” I swallowed hard.

“Oh, no. Much worse.” Alex’s jaw tightened. “He held the gun to her head and told her she had two choices. One, she could keep her mouth shut and let him do what he wanted with you. Or two, she could decide to be against him, in which case he was going to call you downstairs and shoot you to death right then and there, just to punish her.”

When he was finished speaking, I keeled over on the bed, immediately feeling as if I’d been kicked in the guts. My mother’s choice had been to either let me die that day in front of her with a bullet lodged somewhere in my body, or to let me live despite knowing I would be given up for horrifying sexual, mental, and physical abuse.

Neither option was good, in fact both were horrendous… but she’d chosen the option that at least kept me alive longer than only a few more minutes. She knew I’d be subjected to all sorts of awful things, but the way she saw it, at least I was still alive.

“But what kind of life would that be?” I whispered, more to myself than Alex.

He seemed to know exactly what I’d been thinking, and he nodded. “She thought she made the right choice, but immediately afterwards, she realized neither was right. I think she thought perhaps things would be better if she let you die quickly and mercifully to a gun.”

“But then she didn’t have to.”

He narrowed his eyes. “No, because I killed that merciless, spineless piece of shit that called himself your father. But your mother… she suffered from that guilt forever. She had to sit there every day for the rest of her life and remember how she’d agreed to let him give you up to his sick cronies. Even though it was coerced at gunpoint, she could never escape that crushing guilt.”

Tears gathered in my eyes for what felt like the millionth time in the last day or so. I let them fall, not even bothering to wipe them away. “So you really did help her when she was sick. You didn’t want her dead.”

“No, I didn’t want her dead. I do wish she had been a better mother to you after John’s death, but the alcohol got in the way too much.”

“She was sorry for that,” I whispered.

“I know. She was a troubled woman, angel. She tried. I could see that much. But after what your father did to her, the way he broke her down that day, things were just never the same. It was like he leeched the life out of her.”

I sat up again and grabbed a pillow to lean on, digging my fingernails into the soft fabric. “Why didn’t the Circle kill her right away? Surely they knew that my father had told her what was going to happen.”

“Yes, I’m sure they did. But I think they told her they’d hurt you if she ever tried to say anything.”

I nodded. “Oh. That’s right. You said that yesterday.” I let out a long sigh. “So what now? What are you going to do with me to find the rest of them?”

“We’re going to continue with the things that we’ve found to aid in recovering your memories.”

My skin prickled at the thought of being beaten with the riding crop again, just like he did the other day to make me remember one of the Circle member’s faces. A little thrill shot through my system.

“How do you even know about them in the first place?” My chin shot up, suddenly curious. I'd wanted to know this all along, but I hadn’t yet had the chance to ask. “Like… where do you get your information from? How did you find out my father was one of them?”

His eyes flickered, and he squared his jaw. “Let’s just say I’m not the only one who knew they existed all those years ago.”

“Oh. So you’ve had help from others.” My fingers traced a pattern in the loose fabric of the pillowcase. Then I looked back up at Alex. “Why do you cut out their hearts?”

I expected some sort of meaningful, metaphorical answer like the ones killers always seem to give on crime shows once they are caught. Something like: ‘I cut their hearts out because they destroyed all these young, innocent hearts by corrupting and defiling them. I just pay them back in kind.’

Instead, he shrugged. His eyes were steely, his face blank. “Because I can,” he said simply.

“Oh.” So that was it? I wondered if he was lying. If there was more to it. But that was obviously all he was willing to tell me right now, so I had to accept it. “What’s it like to do that to someone? To kill them?”

His eyes darkened, and one hand ghosted over my arm. “You really want to know what it feels like to kill a man?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He looked away. “The first thing you feel is your senses becoming more intense. You can smell better, hear better. You feel powerful, in control. To feel someone’s very essence draining from their body by your doing….” He trailed off, hesitating, before looking back at me. My stomach clenched, and a strange tingle shot between my legs. “I won’t lie, angel. The thing I feel the most when I’ve killed these bastards is an intense moment of pleasure.”

My heart skipped a beat, and my breaths came heavier and faster. Something about his words was stirring a deep need inside me; something I’d never experienced before. “How… how can you do it?”

“With a knife, a good pair of bone shears and a—”

I shook my head wildly. “No, I don’t mean literally! I mean how can you kill people?” I said. “I know these particular people deserve it, but still, I don’t know if I could go through with it if one of them was right in front of me. Not like you. You don’t seem to have any issue with it. It seems to make you… happy.”

He smiled patiently. “You might think you’re so different from me and any other murderer out there. But I doubt it. Our society, our world… it forms us in many ways, whether we like it or not. You think you could never kill a person even if it came down to it, but if the right set of circumstances presented itself, I think you would do it.”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think I could. I might think about it, but actually doing it….” I looked down, a pit forming in my stomach at the thought. “Like today. I had no problem watching you kill Dan. He deserved what he got. But if you’d asked me to slash his throat myself, I know I couldn’t have done it.”

“That’s what you think.” Alex’s eyes narrowed. “But somewhere inside us, we all have the basic materials that can inspire murder and destruction. Some raw, primal matter. Every single human is capable of committing heinous acts, and like I said, it’s really just a matter of circumstance.” He drew out each word carefully. “With a certain combination of events, those raw materials inside of you can be ignited, make you burn with the urge to kill. It can happen to anyone.”

“Not me,” I whispered.

His eyes burned into me, lit with intensity. “Yes, Celeste. You,” he said softly yet firmly. “One day, even you might kill.”

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