Page 3 of Siccitas

I chuckle slightly as I reach for my cane, then get to my feet as steadily as I can.

Perhaps I was innocent at one time in my life, but I can’t remember when that was, and I don’t like to dwell on it either.

I start to walk through Dalton’s home, seeing the essence of our shared monster everywhere. Whether he knew it or not, this home is a damn tribute to Luke.

I try to tear my thoughts away from him, because maybe it’s my own obsession that sees him in everything.

But failure is something that I’m used to, because I still struggle to think of anything other than Luke.

I love my father and I always will.

I can’t love what he did to me, or to my daughter, but I can’t help that Idolove him.

Never in the way he would have hoped for, but the way a daughter should love her father.

Her abductor.

Her tormentor.

The man who made her bear a child, then threw her in a fucking hole to die, only to later taunt her with a hope of being a family.

No matter how fucked up his idea of a family was, any time spent with Darby was more precious to me than no time at all.

He took her from me, and Istilllove him.

I wish I knew the easy answer to the question–why? But I don’t, and I never will.

I’m starting to become as crazy as the rest of them,I think grimly as I brush a strand of hair away from my face.

The Greene Family curse is to always love him—no matter what—but the obsessive thoughts I’ve been having ever since I knew I would be the one to end this have become almost too much to bear.

Obsession drives us all in one way or another. For him, it made himlovehis children, their children, and by the looks of Dalton, the children after theirs as well.

So far, there are only three of us who I have figured out haven’t given in to his way of love.

Me, Dalton, and Darby.

My sweet baby girl.

She never knew it, but I watched her some nights when she slept with the children in their room.

I watched on the nights when she sat wide awake, angry at what her life had become, and her determination to keep him out if he tried to enter and harm their children.

She was born a Greene but held the same convictions as her mother.

She knew that this was never love.

Dalton knows it too.

So do I.

I look away for a moment, my eyes taking in the dirty, worn carpet of the living room.

When I raise my eyes again, I look out the window and nod.

I’m the only one standing between Luke Greene and the end.

After what he did to my child, I’ll gladly accept the burden of looking him in the eyes for the last time.

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