Page 80 of Two Chambered Heart

“Yeah, it needs rewiring, and I need to switch some parts out.”

“I know a lot about cars, but I know nothing about motorcycles. I’d never even been on one until Kayden took me.”

“The mechanics are very different. You can watch while I work.” If it went anything like the stitches, he was sure that she’d be following closely, asking questions and for demonstrations. It seemed she was eager to learn anything and everything. No piece of information was too insignificant.

He understood that. It was self-preservation, the thirst for knowledge bred from having only yourself to rely on.

He got to work, losing himself in the metal tapping against metal, the whir of the drill and the hum of the air compressor. Eventually, Corey made her way off the leather couch, crouching beside him while he worked. As expected, her questions were continuous. She asked so many questions, he just started describing everything he was doing as he went.

He worked for hours, fixing the suspension, finishing the performance exhaust system, and running the air intake system to ensure its efficiency. His hands had finally stopped shaking. He took every part he added to the bike from other bikes he had purchased. They were all Frankensteins, a motley crew of expensive bikes and expensive hardware, mixed and matched to make an even more high-performing bike. He already had upgraded wheels on the bike from earlier. The only thing left was to fit the custom grips and then a paint job. He’d paint it red, like they always did.

Jason dropped the drill he was holding and grabbed a towel, wiping his sweaty, grease-stained face. She passed him a bottle of water from the fridge and took one for herself, sitting back down on the couch. He joined her, twisting the cap off and chugging back the entire bottle.

She was staring at him when he brought the empty bottle away from his face. “What?”

“His name is George Martosh.”

“Whose?” Maybe it was his hangover still clouding his brain, but he wasn’t following.

“One of the men I want to piss on,” she said seriously.

He laughed, but then caught himself, thinking that she might take it as him laughing at her, which was not the case.

She didn’t get angry, though. Instead, a grin pulled at her lips. “I want to do so much worse to him than that.”

Again, Jason didn’t push. He hated questions being asked about his own past, knew what it felt like to be asked for information he didn’t want to speak out loud. The more he gave voice to his history, the more real it became for him. The less he thought about it, the less he spoke about it, the more he could pretend it hadn’t happened. He could pretend that he hadn’t failed everyone so miserably, so unforgivably.

“He was my third foster father. Well, you probably know that, since you have all my records. The first two were fine. There were a lot of kids in the home, and they didn’t really have enough money for food or clothes for us, but it was fine. We all got by. They didn’t want a teenager, though.” The amusement was gone, her shoulders hunching.

“I was excited when they handed me over to him. With only one other boy living in the house, I was going to have my own bedroom. I needed to change schools, but I didn’t really have any friends anyway, so it didn’t matter. Most kids don’t want to be friends with foster kids. We stuck together. I thought it was going to be my fairytale ending.

“When I met him, he was big and burly and strong looking, and I thought, this is it—I’m going to get a dad. But he got creepy really fucking fast. He was so touchy. At first, I didn’t understand. I tried to ignore it, but then the other kid, Michael, he thought it was a green light to do the same. It all spiralled out of control, and it was fucking hell putting up with both of them touching me, making comments, demeaning me. I was just a little girl.

“I tried to complain to my school. When I told the guidance counsellor, he just told her I was seeking attention. They bought it. Or maybe they didn’t, but they sure as fuck didn’t do anything about it. Just left me in that fucking house.”

She wasn’t looking at him as she spoke, staring off at a spot on the wall, her voice fluctuating between cold and detached, to quick and emotional, likely reliving everything she was telling him.

“He got more handsy as the year went on,” she continued, pulling at the hem of her sweatshirt sleeve. “Then one day, he broke into my room and pinned me on the bed. He had his pants off, and I really thought he was going to fucking rape me. I scratched the motherfucker’s eyes out and broke my hand punching him in the face. That’s when I got theviolent outburstsnote in my file. Nothing in there about it resulting from an attempted rape. So fucked up.

“I got transferred to another house after that, but it’s hard to shake the feeling of his hands on me, even after all these years.”

She blinked, coming back to the present moment and finally looking at Jason, who’d been watching her carefully, his teeth grinding together hard enough to strain his jaw.

“Anyway, I heard that Michael died from a drug overdose. I thought good fucking riddance to that little perverted prick, but then I realized that George was probably assaulting him too. Which kind of makes me feel sick, because he was in that house for a lot longer than I was. So yeah, I’d do a lot worse than piss on him if I ever saw him again.”

“That man is a monster. People who abuse children should fucking die.” The venom in his voice was a familiar tar.

She grinned at him like it was the first time someone had actually validated that idea to her. “Right? I think I’d torture him first, though. Little fourteen-year-old me needs her revenge. And who knows how many other children he’s touched? Fucking pedo.”

“Have you told Kayden this?” He had to know. Not that there was competition between the two of them, but he just needed to know what this meant. He wanted to kill that fucker for her.

“Eh, not in so many words. But I think heknows the gist of it.”

Now that she’d established that she was willing to talk, that she didn’t need to repress her story to keep functioning like he needed to, he had to ask. “Who’s the other one?”

“My ex. We fought a lot, and he was always really controlling, but I let him take too much. I didn’t have any friends, couldn’t have my own money, and then things started getting physical. That only escalated, because the first time he hit me in the face, I hit him back harder. Violent tendencies and all.” She waved her hand in the air like it was just an irritant and not an abusive relationship she was describing. “I convinced myself that because I was beating him up just as badly as he was beating on me, it was fine. I mean, I thought I really loved him. But upon reflection, it turns out he was actually a piece of shit. Surprise, surprise.”

“What was the last straw for you?”

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