Page 118 of Mimic
“Do they know?”
“No,” I answered, then looking over my shoulder at my mother, I asked, “Does he?”
Tears streamed down her face as she shook her head.
“He doesn’t know anything yet. I haven’t told him much.”
“Why?” I asked, turning around to face the woman I had missed for half my life. I was so fucking angry, and yet seeing her here, standing in front of me, all I wanted to do was reach out and hug her. Feel her arms around me again. Let her chase away every fear that ever assaulted me.
“I’ve hurt him enough.”
“Fuck him,” I scoffed. “What did he ever do for you? For us?”
“So much more than you will ever understand.” She reached up and placed her hands on my cheeks. “He gave up everything for us. He gave up his life. His dignity. His freedom.”
“What about my freedom? What about yours and Rose’s?”
I couldn’t believe she was making excuses for him. Trying to justify his walking away.
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“It sure as fuck wasn’t mine!” I shouted.
“Thorne.”
“No!” I backed up out of her reach. “For fuck’s sake. He took me! He kept me in a fucking cell. He let his son beat the shit out of me every fucking day.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“What?” I asked, leaning forward, unable to believe her words, but at the same time, they confirmed everything I thought all these years.
“He told me. He visited me every week and told me exactly what he was doing to you.”
“And you did nothing?” I yelled.
I turned my back on her. I couldn’t fucking look at her. How could she do this to me? Her son. The child she claimed to love. The child she claimed she thought of every day. Spouting bullshit about Rose and me being the only thing that got her through.
“I couldn’t do anything. I was in an insane asylum, Thorne. Drugged out of my mind for ten fucking years!” she screamed.
I spun around. I had never heard my mother use that word. Never heard her raise her voice to me. Her lips trembled as she tried to get control of herself. She took a deep breath and sat down.
“I did everything I could to keep you and your sister safe. I ran; I left everything I knew—my family, my husband. I didn’t even know you were twins until the day you were born. You have no idea how hard it was to keep George Stone from finding you. And it was all for nothing. Because he found you anyway. And he took you, and he tortured you. And then he came to my room and tortured me by telling me everything he was doing. Everything Dakota was doing. I couldn’t do a damn thing to protect you. But at least I knew where you were.”
She looked at me as tears streamed down her face.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to know your son is being tortured? While having no idea where your daughter is? If she’s even alive?”
“No. And I never will; do you know why, Mother? Because GeorgefuckingStone forced me to have a vasectomy.”
Her gasp broke me. Her hand swiftly covered her mouth as she sobbed.
“I was eleven fucking years old. Barely going through puberty and he took that away from me. Do you want to know why?”
She shook her head.
When she closed her eyes, I slammed my hand on the table. “LOOK AT ME!”
I waited for her to open her eyes. “Because that motherfucker out there you love so much, the one you don’t want to hurt? He’s my father. That was my fucking crime.”
