Page 125 of The Hunt

She bit her bottom lip and pulled her hand back, suddenly looking chagrined. “Sorry. You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. I shouldn’t—”

I cut her off, bringing her hand back to rest on one of the bigger scars. “It’s fine. I want to tell you, Ev.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” I dipped my chin in a nod and sat up straighter, leaning my back against the velvet headboard. “I want to tell you everything.”

29

Everly

Rhett’s handslay heavy on the blanket between us, his fingers twitching slightly like he was unsure whether to grab mine again or keep them to himself. His face, usually carved with sharp lines of confidence and strength, looked different in the dim moonlight filtering through the curtains. Softer, almost haunted. I hated the way his jaw tightened every few seconds, like he was bracing himself against something painful.

“Rhett…” I reached out and rested my hand lightly on his arm. His muscles were rigid, his body taut like a bowstring pulled too tight. “I’m here, okay? Just take your time.”

“Okay.” He exhaled sharply, the sound almost like a laugh, though there was no humor in it. “It’s such a long story. It’s hard to know where to start.”

I stayed quiet, waiting. Worry clawed at my chest. Whatever he was about to say, I could tell it wasn’t something he let himself think about often. And yet here he was, getting ready to share it. For me.

His eyes finally lifted to meet mine, dark and solemn. “When I was three, my parents hired a nanny to take care of me. Jessica. She was pretty much exactly how you’d picture a nanny.Bubbly, friendly, loved kids. She took great care of me. She was practically my best friend when I was a kid.”

He paused, and I frowned. “Something happened to her?”

“No. To me. When I was seven, things changed. She was—” He stopped abruptly, shaking his head. “She was sick in the head. But no one knew it. Everyone thought she was such a perfect person, and for a long time, I did too. I loved her.”

When he paused again, I didn’t try to fill the silence. I just sat there, waiting patiently.

“I think that’s why it was so hard for me to accept what was happening,” he went on. “Because I loved her. I saw her as an older sister, or something like that.”

He glanced at me, as if searching for reassurance, and I nodded to let him know I understood.

“My little sister was four when it all started, and she had a few medical issues when she was a kid, so my parents were always busy and stressed dealing with that. Less likely to notice what was going on. Plus, they trusted Jessica implicitly by that stage, because she’d always done such a good job with me. She took advantage of that to start…” He trailed off again, swallowing audibly. “I guess they call it the grooming process.”

My heart lurched. “She abused you?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

He nodded. “It started pretty subtly. Little touches here and there. Tickling that lasted a bit too long and strayed to weird places while we played. But I was a kid, you know? It didn’t seemthatweird to me at the time. Plus, I trusted her and looked up to her. I thought she knew what she was doing and couldn’t possibly be wrong about anything.”

“Because you didn’t know any better,” I said. “Like you said, she was grooming you. Trying to make you think it was all normal.”

“Exactly.” His brows drew down. Then he spoke up again, looking across the room with a slightly glazed expression, as if he were looking into the past. “When I was about eight or nine, it started to escalate. She'd touch me more. Make me do things to her too. She told me she was helping me. Preparing me for all the girls I'd be with in the future. I still had no idea it was wrong. I felt scared, because it was stuff I’d never seen or heard about, but I was excited at the same time, because she kept telling me it was good, and that it was how I’d become a man one day.”

My stomach twisted, and I squeezed his hand, unable to speak over the lump forming in my throat.

“She’d sneak into my room at night, and… well, I don’t need to spell out every detail for you,” he said gruffly. “She’d always tell me it was our special secret, so I could never tell anyone. She’d tell me that she’d have to leave if that happened, and then I wouldn’t get to see her again. I still loved her, because I always had, so I was terrified of losing her. I know how fucking weird that sounds now, but—”

“No, Rhett. It’s totally understandable,” I murmured. “You were just a child, and she was manipulating you. Using that pure, innocent love that kids feel against you. It’s emotional and mental abuse on top of the rest.”

He nodded slowly and went on. “One day, we had some sort of presentation at school where a guy came in to talk to us about recognizing bad people, not accepting rides from strangers… stuff like that,” he said. “One thing he told us really stuck with me: if an adult makes you keep a secret, that’s not normal. It made me start to realize that what Jessica was doing was wrong. Then I started to have all sorts of horrible feelings about it. Guilt, shame, anger, hurt.”

I scooted a little closer, waiting in silence again.

“At first, I didn’t hate her for what was happening. Instead, I hatedmyself.” Rhett scrubbed his hand over his jaw. “I knew itwas bad, but I blamed myself for letting it happen. Then I hated myself for liking it sometimes, because there were actually times when I enjoyed what was happening. That’s really fucked up, right?”

“None of that was your fault, Rhett,” I said, shaking my head. Tears were stinging the backs of my eyes. “You were still so young and so confused about what was happening.”

“Yeah, well, back then, I didn’t know what I know now,” he said bitterly. “To cope with all the bad feelings, I sort of just… shut the door on that part of my mind. It all hurt too much to think about. But I guess it had to come out somewhere.”

“The nightmares?”

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