Page 116 of Voracious

He’s still not fucking answering me! My question comes out in one word that requires so much more than one answer.

“Why?”

Why wasn’t I worth keeping?

Why does he care now?

Why didn’t he love me?

Why is he telling me?

Why is he hurting me?

A single tear rolls down his cheek as his voice cracks.

“Because I thought you were dead.” His face turns red, and he wraps his fingers around my wrist to maintain the pressure of the gun against his chest. “I fucking buried you with my own hands, dug through the frozen ground and left my daughter, my baby girl, in it.”

I try to pull my hand free but he presses his thumb over my finger on the trigger, pushing his chest harder against the weapon that’s definitely going to kill him.

“Do it, solnyshkuh,” he whispers, smiling again, “if it will make you happy, do it.”

My knees aren’t strong enough to keep me standing. My entire life was a game, and I was right — I did die. I died before Ilived and it’s Yulia’s special fucking plan of switching babies.She would make me do it when one of them had died from the things she’d put them through, and I’d have to check they’d match — weight, hair color, eye color, length. Everything had to match and I hated going to the hospitals to swap them when her doctors said the coast was clear.

My arm is limp, falling to my side, as I squirm away from Vlad’s touch. Dima wraps his arms around me and hugs me to his chest with my arm still extended as Vlad’s thumb twitches on top of mine. My cheek is pressed directly over Dima’s heart and it’s too much effort to breathe with all the fog inside my head. He’s the only thing keeping me standing as he wraps his hand around the top of the gun and his chest vibrates as he says, “Let go of it, don’t scare her.”

My other arm drops as I push my face closer to his chest and it all hurts. I didn’t do anything to anyone, why was it me?

Tears fill his voice as he picks me up and presses his lips to my temple. “I’ve got you, lisichka.”

My body is shaking, I can’t breathe, it hurts too much. The pain intensifies when I look out from Dima’s chest and all three Vartanovs are staring at me.

Val’s eyes are even more red as he slowly looks from the back of Vlad’s head to me. Tali is frozen, tears slipping through his stubble and dripping from his jaw.

A whimper gets stuck in my throat because they keep staring, at my eyes, and Marlo’s voice is in my head.Evil eyes. This is why I was supposed to hide them, and I can’t get him to shut up. Bringing my hands up, I cover my ears to drown it out as I avoid Vlad. I can feel his eyes on me, and I don’t have anything to say.His bloodied, inked hands raise in my periphery, they reach out to me as though he’s going to cover my ears and my whimper gets louder as I flinch away from him, deeper into Dima. His face falls but his hands stay in the air and I hate that I look athim. Tears clear lines through the blood on his face, leaving pink paths as he keeps fucking staring at me.

The one thing I made up for comfort is killing me. My dream world when I was B, and I had a dad who would protect me is real. But he couldn’t, no one could when I’m not real, I’m dead. He said it, that he buried me, because Ana isn’t a real person and B isn’t either. I’ve never done anything good, I didn’t save B so she could be safe, and Marlo was right. He and Yulia were both right.

I’m the one who has a dad and I don’t even fucking like him. It’s dumb but I focus on that. He’s an asshole and a crazy person, but he stares at me with hope. I cling to the only thing I have left, hiding my face in Dima’s chest, while I plot how I’ll torture Yulia. She’s going spend the rest of my life being an outlet. Every fucking time I get angry or hurt, I’ll push it so deep under her skin that the emotion doesn’t exist within me.

Lips touch the back of my head and I hold Dima tighter as Vlad whispers, “Hate me, solnyshkuh. I’ll make sure you’re safe from now.” His breath shakes and he adds even quieter, for my ears only. “I’m sorry, Vanya. I love you, my happy baby.”

His tone hardens to something more dangerous than he’s ever used before as he steps back. “If you hurt her, I’ll make you wish for death.”

I don’t know who the threat is for, but Dima’s chin brushes the top of my head.He doesn’t let me out of his arms as he tries to walk out of the warehouse. I can’t unlock my muscles to do it, and he lifts me, his arms circling around me so tightly that they force me to breathe.

Dima doesn’t sit me in the passenger seat, he gets in the car with me still wrapped around him, one hand holding the back of my head while the other strokes down my back. My sobs come faster, and I can’t stop the words coming out.

“Why does everyone hate me?”

It’s always been me. From birth I’ve been hated. What the fuck did I do in a past life or is it something inside of me that automatically requires loathing?

He squeezes my nape, pulling me out of the crook of his neck, the redness in his eyes makes the silver starker and he cups my face, wiping away my tears as they continue falling with his thumbs.

“No one hates you, it’s impossible, lisichka.”

That’s worse. If it was hate that made them do all this at least there was a reason. Instead, I’m a pawn in some fucking game of power that Marlo and Yulia had planned.

My voice shakes as I try to calm my breathing.

---