Page 80 of Psycho

“You’re fibbing.” I shook my head, refusing to believe that Maddox would have been so—fuck, animalistic.

That was exactly what Maddox was.

It was exactly what Maddox would have done.

I’d seen it with my own eyes as he tore through the Hell Eaters in that hallway, trying to get through Tamen to me the other day.

“The look in your eyes says you know I’m right.” Tamen droned on.

“How does that involve Dane? And you?” I snapped, trying to piece the story together in a way that would link Maddox, Dane and Tamen all together in the same universe.

“Easy.” Tamen held my stare with that cocky arrogance that made me want to shove my foot up his dick hole to make him sing soprano. “There’s no place in the public for boys like Maddox. They’re too skilled and too nuts to function around ordinary people. Kids like that end up in special institutions.”

“Homes.” I whispered in disbelief.

“No.” Tamen said, and for the first time since he walked into the room, there wasn’t any mirth or crass in his eyes as he held my stare. There was only that familiar darkness. “A home for kids would have been a paradise compared to where we ended up.”

“We?” I questioned.

“Coincidentally enough, when Maddox arrived, Dane was already there. They committed Dane years earlier, when he was six.”

I shivered, imagining a six-year-old little boy in a place like that, and I hugged Rory tighter to my chest. “And you?”

That bitter grin grew on his face again as he reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, taking one out and putting it between his lips. “Me? I wasn’t a prisoner there like them. Though I should have been.”

“Then how were you involved?”

He rolled the cigarette between his lips and eyed the oxygen tubes coming from the wall like he was contemplating lighting it up, which was the only sign that he was stressed fromthe conversation, despite his cool facade. Standing up off the windowsill, he put one hand in his pants pocket and gave off an arrogant air about him. “My dad owned the place.”

“Your—” I began, as it started falling in line, “Your father imprisoned little boys who needed mental health help? Dane was his own son; how could he do that?”

“He turned them into tools.” Tamen replied, blinking away that darkness, but I could see it lingering right behind his bright blue irises. “He used their rage and their skills and weaponized them.”

“Jesus Christ.” I deflated in the chair, imagining the horrors that Maddox and Dane endured in a place like that, but then stopped to look up at Tamen. “And you? Were you just a by-product? A casualty of your situation?”

He smirked and pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. “Me?” He scoffed, “No. I was just a little boy who wanted to be just like his strong, big brother.”

I trembled at the realization. “You wanted to be a weapon. You wanted to be just like them.”

“Bingo.” He repeated in the same creepy way he had before. “There are only two types of people in the world, Olivia. Those who are victims, and those who do the bullying. Sometimes it’s up to us to choose which side we want to be on.”

“You’re wrong.” I shook my head, refusing to allow him to characterize Maddox that way. He wasn’t bad. “Maddox and Dane, they aren’t bad people. They didn’t choose to do whatever sick, fucked up things I’m sure your dad made them do. They’re good men.”

He chuckled, “They’re insane, Olivia. They’ll even tell you that themselves.”

I remembered all the times I called Maddox a psycho, after he referred to himself that way the first time. I remembered the wayPeyton called Dane a monster and cringed at how we victimized them all over again by agreeing with them.

“No.” I sat up taller in the chair and stared down my nose at him. “You’re wrong. They have moral compasses. They try to do good, they’re—” I hesitated, trying to find the right words as I looked down at my sleeping daughter in my arms, Maddox’s daughter. The exact definition of innocence and purity. “They’re line-walkers.” Looking back up at him strongly, I defended the man I loved against his own descriptions. “They walk the line of good and bad and choose when to cross over to either side, but the fact remains the same; they can cross over the line. They can be good. But you,” I cringed, staring at the man, “You gave up that choice. Youdecidedto be bad, purely for your own benefit. You don’t walk the line; you leaped over to the bad side of it and never looked back.”

His face was almost unreadable, but the flicker of anger was there, in that darkness, nonetheless. He wasn’t impenetrable. He wasn’t immune to it.

“Yet I rescued you.” He challenged, tsking his teeth again, “What do you call that?”

“A side effect.” I replied honestly, “Of human nature trying to find some footing in your black soul. Because you didn’t rescue me.” I stood up and faced off with the giant man, clutching my infant daughter in my arms. “You kidnapped me. You tortured me and allowed Damon Kirst to drug me and harm my daughter, forcing her to be born early so he could sell her!” I took a step toward him, glad that the bed was between us, or I might give in to the urge to kick him in the nuts for the fun of it as I remembered how fucking terrified I had been during those hours of captivity. “You only called Maddox at the end because of some fucked up fondness for my sister. But face it Tamen, you’re the reason she’s lying in this bed, unconscious, fighting for her life. You helped a man like Damon Kirst terrorize us all,simply because you didn’t realize who we were until it was too late. If we had been from any other family, though, you would have gone through with it all. But if she dies,” I raised my finger up at him with all the indignation I had left in my body, “It will be your fault. And your fondness for her will be the very thing that solidifies your eternity in hell.”

His cruel, chilling grin stretched across his face, a grin that made my skin crawl and dredged up memories of his manipulative strategic shifts while I was held captive. When he confessed his unending hatred for Maddox with his voice dripping with the venom of a death wish. Tamen cocked his head, a strange, unsettling tilt that was pure Bryce family evil, and opened his mouth, but a soft, raspy voice interrupted before he could speak.

“What did you do, Tamen?” We both snapped our heads down and stared at Peyton’s blinking green eyes as she scowled up at the man before turning back to me and looking at the bundle in my arms. “What the hell happened?”

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