Page 123 of Vicious Hearts

But the alarm bells suddenly blaring in my head as I slowly allow him to guide me between his legs aren’t the erotic ones I get whenever the thrill of this monster sends my adrenaline spiking.

These ones are from my past.

These ones are from a time I wish I could never remember again.

Now, who’s going to give me a back rub? Which of you wants to help me feel better today?

The room goes dark at the edges, and red miasma starts to cloud my vision.

“Una.”

My eyes roll back as every part of me shuts down and goes catatonic and numb.

“UNA!”

Everything fades.

27

UNA

“Finnand I were twelve when we aged out of the group home.”

I’ve never once wanted to think about this again, much less talk about it. Even Finn and I had an unspoken agreement to go through our lives as if that period was a nightmarish hallucination that never actually happened.

Even though it did.

And yet, for some reason, I know I can tell Cillian. It’s like looking over the edge of a black canyon and screaming your secrets out into the darkness of the abyss, knowing no one will ever find them again.

Cillian hands me a drink. I nod in thanks, taking it in both my hands as I sit on the edge of the bed, the blankets wrapped around me. Cillian sits in a deep leather chair by one of the windows across from me, naked but for his boxers. He slips a cigarette between his lips—a habit that I’ve noticed he’s been indulging in with less and less frequency recently—and lights it with a flick of his silver Zippo.

I swallow, raising my eyes to meet his through the darkness of the bedroom, lit only by the city lights slanting in through the single open window, and by the glow of his cigarette as he inhales slowly.

“It was in Denver, so we could…”

I look away, taking a sip of the whiskey in my glass and letting the burn dull the pain inside.

“So you could visit that monster.”

I nod quietly, grimacing. “Ihatedthose visits with every single fiber of my being. And then, when we were twelve, it was like a miracle. The doctor stopped her research on him, and that was it. We didn’t ever go back to visit again, and then it was time for us to leave the group home.”

I close my eyes, determined not to let the demons of the past choke away my words.

I’ve never once wanted to come back here. But I know I never will again after today, so this is it.

I’ll see this through—just the once, just to cauterize it from my memory—even if it fucking kills me.

“There’s not a lot of foster parents out there who want a teenager. We’re too broken by then, too rebellious, come with way too much baggage and emotions, not to mention hormones. And there’s even fewer who wanttwoof them. Every now and then, we’d get someone interested injustme, orjustFinn…”

I blink, hot tears welling in my eyes.

“But we always made a huge stink. We werenotgoing to let them separate us. And then one day…”

One day, the devil came knocking.

“Una…”

I know he can see the pain walking all over my face and treading on my throat. But I shake my head and push on.

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