Page 16 of Beautiful Liar

Time lapsed in spurts of consciousness. I’d been knocked out, woke up on a hospital bed, both wrists cuffed to the frame as they bled me. I couldn’t move to scratch the itch under the surface of my skin. The sound of bugs in the room was driving me fucking insane. And when I used my legs to fall off the bed, they had strapped that too.

And now I had to pee.

After I peed myself, they stuck a catheter up my urethra. That was not fucking fun. And none of what they did to me made Miguel Moya, my psychopathic brother, disappear.

So. I started to sing. I sang until I tasted blood in my throat. I sang until the words fell away. I sang until I damaged my vocals.

“Do you want to learn how to play?”The kindness in his dark eyes made me squirm. Not Miguel this time. But him. Enzo. And Enzo wasn’t a figment of my imagination. He’d been a secret I had buried deep in my mind never to see the light of day. He had been the reason I had freaked out when Kieran had touched me for the first time. He’d been my lie, my shame, my guilt, my fear. And now he’d escaped the prison I had sent him to inside my mind. The walls surrounding him had collapsed.

My memories had been freed to roam.

“Do you want to learn how to play?”

“Yes,” the younger version of myself responded.

“You have a beautiful voice,” he said.

I wanted to have a good voice for him. Afterall, we were friends. He’d been older. A lot older. And rich. He had a big place in a tall building with tall ceilings and windows that overlooked the world. At least my stupid self had thought it was the whole world. It’d been Chicago’s skyline. But what did I know?

He could’ve been my dad. And at one point in time, I had wanted him to be my dad. He’d been nice to me.

“No, he wasn’t,”Miguel said.

“He listened when I needed to vent.”

“And hugged you when you cried. Made you feel better.”

I shut my eyes, refusing to see what Miguel meant. He had made me feel better. And I’d burn for it. “He cared!”

“He fucked you over,”Miguel’s voice whispered into my ear.“In more ways than one.”

“Fuck you!” I cried out, though it sounded garbled.

“He made you into what you are. The reason you love music. Didn’t you wonder why you were so good. Why the musical seemed to be your thing?”

I shut my eyes, fisting my hands. My nails dug into my palms. The pinch of pain felt better than whatever was crawling under my brain because Miguel was right. I had loved being up there. I had loved the music.“He made you a pussy, never letting anyone touch you.”

It’s all I’d ever been good for. A pretty face.

Everything I’d ever felt became an extension of the rot building inside of me. The fruit of the poisonous tree, and worms were rising to the surface to consume everything good that had been left behind.

Worms.

I knew a guy who believed he had worms coming out of his skull, out of his skin. He saw them in the mirror. He’d been crazy as shit. Maybe I’d gone crazy too. There was no way Miguel was here.

Unless Maddox had saved him too. Maddox would’ve saved him so he could torment me. Maddox hated me.

“Just leave me alone. Please,” I cried. I couldn’t help it. Despite Miguel being a psychopath, he had been my brother and I loved him.

“You didn’t love me. You were afraid of me.”

That too.

“I can help you get out of here,”he said.“Just do as I say.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“You’ll have to if you want to survive. Just like you hurt him.”Miguel groaned. “And there she comes. Don’t believe her, Tomás. She’s the warden in the place. You’ll never be free.”

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