Page 246 of Like Grim Death: Part One
“It doesn’t matter. I’m going to let it go—”
“What Lazar and I do withanyoneis not your fucking business, do you understand? There is nothing tolet go.It hasnothingto do with you. After all the lies I’ve swallowed foryou…” My dad rounds on Mom, inches between them. I stare at their feet, Dad still in dress shoes, Mom’s bare. “After your fucking betrayal… I could kill him and I wouldn’t feel a thing. Do you understand?”
She’s swaying a little.
I watch a drop of blood plink to the hardwoods.
I want to throw up. I want to scream.
“I understand,” Mom whispers, so weak, her voice like I’ve never heard it before. “But those girls… they’re… they’reBrooklin’sage.”
I feel dizzy. My sister is thirteen. I rest my head against the wall, trying to stay on my feet.
I hear the hardwoods creak. A gasp from my mother.
I don’t look.
“They arewhores.Brooklin ismy. Daughter.”
Mom is silent.
“No one touches Brooklin. She’s safe.” Dad’s voice drops low, and despite what I think I’m hearing, his reassurances… reassure me too. “She’ssafe,Liz. No one will touch her, okay?”
Mom swallows a sob. “Okay.” Her words are a whisper. “Okay.”
No one touches Brooklin.
No one touches Brooklin.
I swing my fist into Atlas’s face, his head against the glistening steel of the merry-go-round. Bears and unicorns and shadowy creatures surround us. My cheek throbs where Atlas hit me too, but when I swing again, I hear something crunch, and a shriek like I’ve heard from Mom pierces the air as his head snaps to the side.
I raise my fist again, but he’s not fighting anymore, lying half-on the merry-go-round as I loom over him.
He’s motionless as Cain’s arms band around me, yanking me back.
No one touches Brooklin, no one touches Brooklin,no one touches Brooklin.
“I don’t want the whip.”
The whispers from the tail stop and I clench my teeth. Father Tomas is behind me. “What?” he asks, confusion threaded through the word.
“I don’t. Want.The whip.”I force the words out, my eyes still closed.
Father Tomas says nothing.
“Kick me. Hit me.” A smile curves my lips as Tomas stays silent. “Anything. Anywhere.Nothing is off limits.The door to this place is locked and you have plenty of room.”I open my eyes, seeing the dim lights of Pluvia’s basement as I turn to look over my shoulder into Tomas’s eyes. Most people would have revulsion on their face with my words, but instead, the whip hanging limply in his hand, his eyes fuckinggleam.A mild-mannered priest, it’s how he appears even now in his clerical robes, but his cheeks flush pink, and I know he’sdyingfor this. “Don’t worry, I won’t fight back.” I could kill him if I wanted. But I don’t fucking want to. “And I know you’re a sadist, so come on.” I jerk my chin.“Hurt me.”
I turn away from him, because I don’t think he could ever let loose on me if he’s staring right at my face. I bow my head, total surrender, because all I want at this moment is damage.
Seconds pass.
And he says, “What about Ella?” There’s a fervor in his voice, and I feel my pulse race hard in my ribcage, telling me this is a bad idea. I’ll have questions to answer from her.
But I deserve this.
“She’s sleeping twenty-five floors up.” Another Benadryl and this time, I’m the one who gave it to her. She needs to rest. Everything else can wait until I get my fucking head on straight. “Stop wasting time.”
And he doesn’t, after that. He kicks my spine first, a tentative gesture that feels like nothing. I laugh out loud, taunting him, myself, wanting him to find it in him. That primal need tofuck shit up.Some of us are born with it, and it never goes away. It’s not about age or maturity. It’s a dark curtain in our brains, and we can only keep it closed so long before the nastiness spills out, spiders crawling up our skin in the night, devouring us whole.
