Page 149 of Quinlan

“Tell me.”Trust me.

The decision has already been made when he picks up where he left off. “She’d scream at me to finish my homework faster on school days, sometimes over the weekends if my parents had overlapping shifts. Then she’d lock me in the closet for hours.”

His breath slows. His scar gets hotter beneath my fingers. I don’t dare move.

“She’d bring her boyfriend or friends over. I was a little shit that got in the way.” I think it’s him growling. No, it’s me. Liam is the one who continues, his voice flat. “She said I can’t tell my parents about any of that.No one would babysit a snitch. It’ll be your fault that your parents would have to quit their job and be with your whiny ass.”

“That bitch. That fucking bitch.” I’m supposed to shut up. To listen. Impossible. “You were a kid.”

“I was.” Liam slides his hand down my neck, my shoulder. Stopping at my waist, he pulls me to him. “I believed her. I couldn’t do that to my parents. Couldn’t fail them. I was resilient. Went through almost a year of being miserable. Of being locked up in the closet for hours with a chair leaned up against the knob to keep me inside. I couldn’t tell Rome or Damien. They would’ve fought for me. And it wasn’t like that every day. My parents tried to be there, at least one of them, when their schedule allowed it. So I sucked it up. I hid a book in the back of the closet, had snacks in my pockets without anyoneknowing. Aria would’ve taken it away, and I couldn’t ask my parents for a flashlight. They would’ve figured it out.”

He was so smart. Had done everything he could to survive this.

“But the days turned into evenings and sometimes nights. It was impossible to read without the light filtering through the slits of the closet doors.” Every part of me touches every part of him. His body. His soul. I’m listening. Iunderstand. “The darkness is a beautiful thing, little flame. Truly beautiful, until it’s forced on you. Until it's the only thing that’s left. Stealing my dad’s gold Zippo was my last resort after months of this.”

Dread and rage of what’s coming crawl up my spine. My teeth slam together in an attempt to abate the shivers. I make it. For him. For my captor. For that boy. For Liam.

“His father passed it on to him, and he planned on passing it on to me when I turned eighteen. Technically, it was mine. That was what I told myself when I took it. I couldn’t stand another evening of being locked up. Of not seeing anything even for a couple of hours.” Liam’s body tenses. My lungs shut down. “Of all this fuckingnothing.”

Eyes. There are eyes on us. Liam pretends we’re alone. We aren’t.

I have to play along. The others’ presence doesn’t stop him, and he needs this. I need this.

“I stole the Zippo while my parents were sleeping.” Liam’s amber eyes go somewhere far away. “Carried it in my pocket at school. Curled my fingers around that lifeline.”

Those fierce embers are back on me, and I face him head-on. No pity. No tears.

He strokes my arm. Jesus. The fucking irony. Liam’s relaying the story of his abuse and he’s the one comforting me.

“That day, she brought her boyfriend. Daylight faded, like it always had, and I flicked the Zippo open.” His eyes swallow me whole. “I stood there, in a tight space, surrounded by myparents’ clothes. I wasn’t paying attention to the flame in my hand. Too busy looking out through the slits, making sure Aria didn’t see the light. She would’ve beaten me up if she caught me with this small comfort. She wanted me to be miserable.”

Liam’s voice doesn’t break. He’s okay.

I’m the one who loses it. It’s my throat that’s locking up. My eyes that have tears leaking from them.

“I’m not pitying you,” I growl. “I just hate it. I hate it so much, Liam.”

“I know.”

I should hate him for kidnapping me. For telling his friends it was okay to leave me bound here.

I should, but my heart refuses.

I should, but I wasn’t lying to him earlier.

I care. I want to be here.

“She went into my parents’ bedroom. Sprayed my mom’s perfume on her. She didn’t see the flame through the slits.” Liam’s mouth presses to my cheek. His tongue swipes at my stupid tears, licking them off me. Then his lips are in my ear, and my fingers dig into his scar. Binding him to me. “Mom’s dresses caught fire. By the time I stopped focusing on what Aria was doing, by the time she left the room, the smoke was everywhere. The flames found me.”

Liam pulls back, and the fire from that day is there. In his eyes. On his features. Flickering. Destroying everything.

“Liam…” I try to reach out to him with this one word. Desperate to put it out. To stop hurting him.

“I shouted. Begged for her to let me out.” His glare is deadly. “I never beg. And I did, that day. It hurt almost as bad as the smoke in my lungs. As the flames on my cheek, in my hair. Having to beg her to help me was the worst of it all. Then she…”

I wish he wouldn’t continue. I wish I wouldn’t hear how cruel and inhumane people can be. But that’s not how caring for someone works.

There’s no running from it. No hiding.

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