Page 79 of Ashes of Saints

Out of the blue, I consider something I never have before. Aurora might’ve been interfered with during that time. Privately. In my child’s mind, I saw her whisked away and kept safe from all the men and women at those parties.

What if she wasn’t?

What if she FUCKING wasn’t?

What if she was the prize at the end of the night or something similarly fucked up. I wrap my arm tighter around her.

This wasn’t the goddamn plan.

Aurora was meant to be a source vengeance for my pain. Now the fire inside me has fuel poured on it and the need to hunt down every single one of those fuckers and rip their throats out is a million-fold.

Then I’ll exhume her mother and cut her up into tiny pieces. Piss on her and burn her while laughing at her ashes.

Aurora is watching me, questions on her face. I know I’m not hiding my reaction well enough.

Does she remember me?

Does she know it’s me? Has she always known...

“These other kids,” I begin, my throat dry. “Why were they allowed to be there?”

I feel sick.

My mind is thrown back to that room, the pool table, the bottles of booze and nineties music. The feel of eyes on me, my pants being taken off. The fear, the pain.

The shame.

The confusion.

“I don’t know. I hated being left out,” Aurora sniffs. “I wanted to play with the other kids. Even the adults. I was so lonely.”

Fucking hell.

My stomach lurches, but I swallow and stay, holding her against me. I want to scream and shake her all at the same time.

“There was one little boy. He was bigger than me, but smaller than the adults.”

Fuck.

“I saw him a few times, but when I tried to smile at him, he looked so mad. I’ll never forget him.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

That boy.

That was me.

I know it was.

I lift her and stand abruptly. Walking to the windows to catch my breath, I feel myself shaking and fight to clear my head. I can’t get this far and expose myself.

Aurora knows more than she thinks. I just need to dig through her mind—and her mother’s home—then I can get the hell away.

I hated being left out.

Left out?

If only she knew what evil had taken place in the home she’d lived in. That the little boy that she watched from the doorway has hated her his whole life. Now he’s fucking her like a wild animal and manipulating her.

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