Page 88 of Dollhouse

I defended Tate when Eli told me she was up to no good. Even when I had a gut feeling and knew in the back of my mind that something was off about her, I still defended her, looking for the best in her.

I allowed my guilt from our childhood to consume me and used that as my reason for believing everything she had told us.

Tonight was about luring out this bastard. We thought we had all the basics covered.

We had bodyguards all over the club who were checking every single person who entered tonight. Every single guest was fully fucking vetted. Guards were both inside and out, so how the fuck did she get away?

When we found King in the alley cursing at himself for getting shot at, he told us what happened.

Tate climbed out the window and ran toward the van willingly.

My worst fears were confirmed. She was in on it.

But what I can’t figure out is why.

Was she just another Stephanie who was sent to make us weak and learn our secrets for one of our enemies to use against us?

We were missing the bigger picture. We didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle, and I was racking my brain trying to figure this shit out.

Luckily, King had been wearing a bulletproof vest. He’ll be bruised, but he’s fine.

It knocked the wind out of him, and he’s been blaming himself for letting Tate get away ever since we got home.

It’s not his fault that she escaped, she had help.

If only we wouldn’t have let our guards down.

This is on all of us.

She played us.

The little bitch fucking played us, and when I get my hands on her, I’m going to slit her fucking throat and watch as the life drains from her blue eyes.

I now know that I never meant anything to her.

* * *

“There’spieces of her background that are missing. There are too many things that are not adding up. She says that Ace Jackson helped her after she left here, yet there’s no record of any of that,” Eli says, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I can’t find the missing pieces.”

We’re sitting in the living room of our penthouse, going over all of the files for everyone we know about in Tate’s life. “There’s two years missing. She doesn’t reappear again until she’s fifteen, and the family she lived with weren’t even registered foster parents.”

“The ones she killed by setting the fire?” King asks from where he lays on the couch, icing his bruised chest.

“They did something to her in that house. She had the same look in her eyes that she did when we were children and in that house together,” I speak. The night she broke down crying in the living room and I held her while she cried against my chest, she let me see how broken she really was.

I saw her broken pieces. I recognized it because the broken parts of her mirrored my own. Her pain called out to mine, and I believed she was something she’s not.

The girl I knew is gone.

“She could already be dead for all we know.” Eli sighs.

“Yeah, nice job with shooting her, asshole,” I mumble, looking at King.

“It wasn’t a death shot. At least I don’t think.” I don’t like how nonchalant he is when he says that.

I understand that all our emotions are fucked up right now, but that doesn’t mean we can ever deny that we all feel something for her.

I did, or do, and they do too; I know it.

---