Page 81 of Cruel Lies

Even in an empty room, the sounds were as visceral as if we were still in the same room. I could feel it, each fucking word, dragging across my skin as easily as one of his blades. It cut deeper than any flesh wound could ever go, though. This kind of pain dug its nails into you and refused to let go.

I should know. I’d been dealing with it since the day my mother died.

Broken!

Tears fell from my eyes, soaking into the silky fabric of Ro’s sheets that tried desperately in vain to absorb my sorrow.

Maybe I should just go. Let someone else take me out. Maybe if I just turn myself over to the people looking for me, it’ll all be over for them. Maybe then they can go on with their lives. I can stop messing everything up.

My hands clenched into fists as the thought of just ceasing to exist rolled around in my head, sounding increasingly bleak with every passing. I knew it was the anxiety and mental drop talking. But somehow, that didn’t diminish the effect it had on me, the power it held. Hell, if there was a knife nearby, I couldn’t be sure I would have the control over myself to not reach out and take it, put it to a part of my body, and just bleed.

"A bunch of jagged edges, all looking for a body to dig into and bleed dry."

Maybe he was right. But that body didn’t have to be anyone’s other than my own. Maybe this world wasn’t done taking from me. If I reached out and took a blade to my wrist, perhaps the sacrifice would slake the universe’s thirst for pain.

Thankfully, exhaustion claimed me before I could take any drastic actions. With shuddering sobs, I succumbed to unconsciousness and curled into the fetal position in the center of Ro’s big bed.

Alone.

Scarred.

Broken.

THIRTY-FIVE

ROWAN

The doorsto my old childhood home stood before me. Once a place of dread and fear, it now held nothing but ghosts of my past, things that couldn’t hurt me anymore. I’d long since stopped letting them affect me.

Now, the only thing haunting these halls was old memories and the echoes of silent screams.

My boot made a hollowthunkas I planted it square along the seam of the double doors, forcing them open with all the fanfare of the hero in an action movie. A few guards rushed out to see what the noise was, but it was clear my father thought himself above enemies these days. Their reaction time was slow and inefficient, and as they pulled pistols from their jackets and aimed them at me, I grinned with a malicious twist of my lips, hands slowly rising in the air.

"Aw, come on, now, boys. I’m just here for a visit with dear old dad."

One of the guards must have recognized me because he signaled for the others to lower their guns. "It’s one of the master’s sons. Let him know."

"Right away." The man turned on a dime and rushed off, heading for the old study, right where my father had always conducted his business.

Where he beat the rebellion and free will out of us as kids and, later, as teens. Where he made all his decrees, solidifying them into law as we stood by and stared on in resignation.

Where he turned our worlds on their heads seven years ago and demanded we kill our step-sister, or he’d kill us.

"I’m not interested in waiting for permission," I spat as I lowered my hands to my sides and stepped forward again. "Now get out of my way."

The guards didn’t dare to shoot me without my father’s orders. And Father wasn’t about to cut down his only remaining puppet. I walked completely unrestrained to the doors of thestudy and shoved them open, taking a little satisfaction in the way they slammed against the wall from the force.

The man behind the desk looked up from his old school ledger book with a tired and irritated expression, his eyes skimming me over, much in the same manner that one regards an irritating and unwanted fly. His old, gnarled hands closed the cover of the book, and he narrowed his eyes, cutting me down in the same manner he’d had since I was a small child clinging to my mother’s skirts.

"Rowan, my youngest failure. What brings you to my doorstep these days?"

My eyes narrowed in response to his little dig, though it was the only indication I gave him that he had affected me. "You know why I’m here already." My hand balled into a fist, and I stared him down, refusing to back down. "It’s you, isn’t it?"

His lips, pursed in a thin line, curled upward at my words. "Why, Rowan, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Perhaps you should be a bit clearer."

"You know what the fuck I mean." I tugged the blurry surveillance photo from my pocket and threw it on the desk, gritting my teeth so hard it might’ve broken a few molars. "Why us? Why all the secrecy?"

My father stood with a predatory smile and tucked his hands in his pockets, strolling leisurely around the desk as his eyes went everywhere but on me. "I think it’s clear by now that I know you failed seven years ago. What I don’t understand is, were you stupid enough to think I wouldn’t find out, or did you just screw the fuck up?"

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