Page 37 of Not Your Hero

“Of what?”

“Having you. You should have never called him to come over to your house,” I tell her.

“You … you killed him, didn’t you? He was there, he was dead …” she rambles on as some things start to make sense to her.

“Like I said, he was in the way.”

“I don’t even know you!” she screams this time.

“But you do. We’ve been together more than once, baby. Don’t you remember the hotel?” She seems to think long and hard about it when her eyes come back to meet mine, her brows furrowed.

“That was you?”

“That was me.”

“I was drugged, wasn’t I?”

“I couldn’t let you see me. Not the real me and I still can’t. So for now, every time we’re together, I’ll have to drug you,” I admit to her.

“No. That’s over! That’s never going to happen again. You kidnapped me!”

“From a man who was going to put an arrow through your heart.”

“You were going to put an arrow through my heart!” she yells in return.

“That was never the plan. You were never part of the plan, Emerson,” I say as I run my hand through my hair. I knew she’d have questions, and I knew I’d have to answer them, but this was harder than I thought it would be.

“Why were we there? All of us girls?”

“He wanted to prove a point.”

“Which was?”

“That women only hurt us. Ever since we were children, it’s always been a woman who has hurt us. All of those women you saw there? I was with them at some point and they disrespected me in some way,” I tell her.

“You sent them there?” I shake my head.

“That was all his doing.”

“Who is he?”

“Enough questions for the day,” I say pressing my fingers into my eyes, feeling a headache coming on.

“No. Who is he? How does he know about you or what women did something to you? What did I do to you?”

“He’s my brother. And I don’t know how he knows any of this and Emerson, you did nothing wrong. He must have thought you did, and that’s why he took you.” She reaches up and runs her hand through her hair before scrubbing it down her face then turns to look back at me.

“Your brother? He’s … your brother?”

“Yes.”

“And are you going to do the things to me that he did?” she asks, fear evident in her tone.

“No. I would never do those things to you.”

“Why did he do that? Why did he hunt us?”

“It’s … it’s what we do. It’s what we’ve been taught to do since we were kids,” I confess, although I shouldn’t. She needs to know. She isn’t going anywhere anyway. I won’t let her. I won’t let her go.

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