Page 88 of Moth to a Flame

Those gut-wrenching sobs will be the end of me. Everything hurts as I watch her fall apart.

I’m not a selfish bastard. I don’t let any of my pain show. Never.

It’s not mine to feel.

So I steel my expression, calling for the hate and wrath and vengeance inside me.

Minutes pass before she sniffles. Before shejustcries instead of crumpling before me.

“He put his baton in me. He sodomized me with it. I don’t know for how long.”

No.

No.

No.

I see black. I see red. Blood everywhere.

I was wrong before. This does affect how I kill him. Whatever I had planned, it’ll have to be worse.

I’m not having anyone else do the job for me anymore.

I’ll fucking mutilate, torture, and destroy him with my two bare hands.

“He laughed. Through everything, he laughed. I couldn’t scream. He threatened that he’d kill me. I cried. That, too, made him laugh.” Her lips twist. She’s so fucking brave that my heart lurches for her at the sight. At what she was forced to become. “I thought I was going to die there. I could feel the blood between my legs. I felt something tearing inside me. I closed my eyes and floated over my body and even that didn’t help. It was hell, looking over us and watching what he was doing to me. I prayed with everything in me for it to end. For someone to find us. For him to leave me alone. Anything. It took forever, Landon. Forever.”

“You weren’t meant to die there.” My hair caresses her cheeks as I shake my head. This time when more of her sobs come, I keep talking to her. “You weren’t. You were meant to find me. Tosaveme. You’ve always been mine. Always. And you did it. You made it, my love. You’re incredible. You’re the strongest, fiercest person I’ve ever met. There’s no one like you in this entire world, Regan. There will never be another you for me.”

Her smile is wobbly. It disappears before I get a chance to kiss it. “When he was done, he grabbed the knife again and cut my stomach. Over and over and over.”

Her lips pinch and her expression shifts into a cruel one. She’s remembering him. I’m too enraged for more words. They won’t help anyway. So I search for her. I find her by pressing my body to her as if I’m molding myself into her soft body. Me. Not him.

“So much blood.” The imitation of a man’s voice has my heart hammering. Has vengeance scalding my skin. “You deserve this pain. You deserve to bleed, bitch.”

“Motherfucker.” In this cloud of rage and agony, an idea comes to mind. I won’t bring it up now, though. There will be time for this.

“The laser treatments I’d undergone the following year helped. It’s still there though. And…This wasn’t all of it.” Her eyes pinch shut. “You said you’d love me anyway, except…You won’t. You couldn’t after you hear this.”

“Look at me. I’m here, Regan. I’m here for everything.” Brown eyes stare at mine and it’s a punch to the gut. There’s so much hope in them. So much dread. “Don’t you dare insult me by calling me a liar. Nothing in the world would make me love you any less. Not a goddamn thing.”

“Even if I can’t have babies?” Her voice is low. I’m not sure I was even meant to hear what she just said.

I did.

There are no words to describe what I’m feeling. This isn’t pain. Anger, wrath, fury. No. None of those either.

I’ve transformed into the devil himself. The ruler of hell. I can and will unleash this fire burning inside me. There will be consequences for what was done to her. What was robbed from her.

Her choice.

She could’ve chosen to have babies or not. I would’ve felt the same for her either way. I would’ve fucked my cum into her either way, IUD or not. Would’ve made her hot by telling her that I’m marking her from the inside.

Babies or no babies.

It’s the fact that her choice was stolen from her.

I’ll burn the world down later.

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