Page 103 of Devoted

Well you weren’t safe in your own home, so it’s not that different. Besides, no one has displayed this behaviour towards you.

The instant they did, I’d be out of here. Something told me Zeke wouldn’t let that happen though. Thinking about it, they’d all come running to save me the other night. Why would they want to hurt me now?

I took us back to the story. “What changed when you turned seventeen?”

“I met Micah. He was on the same path as me. He’d lost his parents when I lost my mother.”

I sucked in a breath. “Both of them?”

He inclined his head. “Yes. There was…something happened that took them all from us.”

I was dying to ask what that was, but I held back. Now wasn’t the time, not when he was just opening up. And I wanted to see inside of him, to know what made him tick.

“Micah’s quite a bit older than me,” Zeke said. Huh, that was strange. I wouldn’t have said he was older than his thirties. “He took me under his wing. Thanks to his position in our…community, my father was happy to let him do so. It’s what led me to the rest of them and the life I have now.”

My mind was reeling, trying to take it all in. Trying to make it marry up with what I knew about Zeke already. “What happened to your father?”

“He’s dead,” Zeke said emotionlessly. “He attacked someone more powerful than himself, thinking he was better. That this…person, could never be strong enough to beat him. But he was. He had more power in his little finger than my father could ever have hoped to muster.”

Powerful? Who was this man? Did he think he was some kind of superhero? My brain was trying to make sense of this and failing. “And he killed your father?”

“He did. Ironically, he’s known for losing control as much as I am. Some have described him as unhinged.” Zeke shook his head in frustration. “My father moulded me into what I am today. He should’veknownnot to tangle with this person. But, as always, his pride and ego got the better of him.”

It was so much to take in. “Is that why he pushed you? Because of his ego?”

“Yes. When I was younger, I used to tell myself it was because he wanted me to be safe. He didn’t want to lose me as he had my mother. But as I got older, as I learned how he spoke and bragged about me, I realised the truth. None of it had ever been about me. It had always been about him.”

I suspected I knew the answer to this, but I asked the question anyway. “How did you feel? When you heard he’d died?”

There was a long pause. “Relieved. Slightly pissed that I hadn’t been there to see his downfall, but overall it was like a weight had been lifted.”

I was silent as I thought again about Zeke as a little boy. Never seeing anyone. Rarely seeing daylight. Forced to embrace a part of himself that he hated. Fighting. Always fighting.

Zeke stopped walking abruptly, mistaking my silence for judgement. “I’m sorry. Fuck, that’s probably made you think I’m a terrible person. I shouldn’t feelhappythat my only surviving parent is dea?—”

His words were cut off by me throwing myself into his arms. Tears burned my eyes as I wrapped myself around him, hugging him fiercely. “Nevereverapologise for what you feel, especially abouthim.I refuse to call him your father, because no father should lock up their son.”

Zeke’s arms came up to hold me, the two of us clinging to each other beneath the leafy canopy. “What he did was abuse, Zeke. And you feeling relieved that he’s no longer breathing? That’s completely justified.”

He buried his face in my neck, making a sound that sounded suspiciously like a muffled sob.

“It’s okay,” I repeated, cupping the back of his neck and speaking directly into his ear. “However you feel, it’sokay.You were a child, Zeke. You were betrayed by the one person who was supposed to love you. I don’t blame you if you hated him. I wouldn’t even blame you for celebrating his death.”

“I wish I was the one who killed him.” Zeke’s confession was almost lost on the wind. “That he’d unleashed the monster he’d created and his life was the price he paid.”

If you’d told me before today that I’d be holding someone who confessed wanting to murder someone, I’d assume I’d completely taken leave of my senses. But this wasZeke.A man who’d shown me nothing but kindness. A man who had a reason for why he behaved this way when pushed. His father had tormented him during his formative years and created a monster he tried so hard to leash inside of him. If anything, Zeke needed therapy and a long, hot bath, not for me to reject him.

Did that make what he did to the twins okay? No. But for someone like me, someone who’d seen so little kindness in his time, I didn’t care. Especially not given what he’d been through.

What hisfatherhad put him through.

My own sperm donor had walked out of my life when I was a toddler. Now, hearing Zeke’s story, I was glad he’d left.

Sometimes, no father was better than a shitty one.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to either,” I said eventually. And I meant it. The thought of a child-sized Zeke suffering had me changing my moral and ethical stance on everything. I’d started this conversation claiming that violence wasn’t the answer, but I was ending it wishing for a weapon and five minutes alone with his cunt of a father. “But I’m glad he was taken out by someone similar to you. Talk about some karmic justice.”

“Yeah.” Zeke sniffed. “I’ve never liked the fucker who did it, but ever since then, I’ve hated him a little less.”

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