Page 117 of Amnesty

I bit the inside of my mouth, bit down so hard the metallic tang of blood hit my tongue. “Go on,” I rasped.

“It was the first time I’d ever spoken to her or really had contact with her at all. She usually only ever bothered with Sadie. I asked her. She told me she was his mother. She seemed sorry…”

“Not sorry enough.” The remark ripped right out of me.

“No. Not sorry enough. She said she knew he wasn’t well. She seemed to believe he didn’t understand what he was doing to us was wrong.”

I laughed. This was disgusting.

“Why would she help him? Why would she let us be tortured that way? Locked in a hole, no sunlight… no hope.”

“Am.” I stroked her hair. For a moment, she paused, rubbing her cheek against my chest.

“Your shirt,” she whispered, still rubbing her cheek over the fabric.

“What about it?”

“I don’t like it,” she whispered. “There’s too much between us.”

I ripped the shirt over my head, throwing it onto the floor in front of us, where it slid a few feet before stopping in the center of the room.

Amnesia wound her arms around me, scooting so close it was almost as if she were trying to climb beneath my skin. The second her cheek hit my bare chest, she sighed and her body gave a great shudder of relief.

I swallowed thickly. Emotion so dense made me feel I might choke.

“You make me feel safe,” she whispered.

“You are safe,” I swore.

“She said she couldn’t lose him. She didn’t want him to be taken away. She hid him there, on the island. I doubt anyone even knew she had a son.”

“No one in Lake Loch knew,” I said, sifting through a lifetime’s worth of gossip and town knowledge. “She was always alone when she came for supplies.”

“She thought people would take him away if they knew what he was.”

“She was right,” I growled.

“She made it sound as though we were responsible for keeping him contained. She told me… She said we were a small price to pay for the safety of everyone else.”

The widow lost her husband, and her son grew up to be insane. I could feel sorry for her, the fact she lost a child, a husband, and all she had left was her son. I could sympathize with her pain and understand she was afraid to lose everything.

I didn’t.

In my eyes, this woman was no better than the son she unleashed on two innocent girls. Look what she’d done! She’d broken Sadie and drove Am to suicide. All to try and keep her son in control.

You can’t control darkness, though, not when you have no light.

“Did she say where he could be?” I asked. The need to find this guy and rip him apart was so strong my fingers shook.

“No. But I have a feeling he wouldn’t go far, not with all three of his possessions here.”

“You are not his,” I demanded.

“He doesn’t see it that way.” Her voice was small. “Sadie and the widow seem to think so as well.”

“No,” I ground out. “I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, says, or does. You are not his.”

Her hand flattened on my chest. “I know.”

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