Page 122 of Kept

“So you come here?” I force out. “At night? How did you evenfindme?”

“The festival,” he says roughly. “I saw you there, and I followed you back. They didn’t see me, but I was there.”

My throat tightens. “You’ve been here? All this time?”

Hiding. Watching. Revulsion washes over me, my breathing so rapid I think I might pass out. Questions pound in my brain, too many to form a single one.

“Why?” I croak finally. Ethan watches me silently, his head tilted. “Why did you do it? The fire?”

He inhales. “So you know, then.”

When I nod, he sighs. “I never meant for that to happen, Zella. I just wanted to speak to Maria, but she was so angry. She wouldn’t come when I asked her, when I begged her. I knew her better than she knew herself. I knew where she needed to be.”

His face twists in revulsion, his fingers tapping against his leg. “She needed to be with me.”

His voice twists, going higher as I watch him in disbelief.

This is the real Ethan. I can feel it. This bitter, twisted creature.

And he wasright.

This world has truly opened my eyes to what evil looks like.

It looks like him. I just never knew any better.

“But you…,” he breathes, stepping closer. “You were so perfect, Zella. So pure. They hadn’t twisted you yet, hadn’t molded you. I knew I could shape you into perfection, and I did. Idid.”

“You caged me,” I snap. “Like an animal, Ethan. Youmurdered my mother!”

My voice raises in a shout, and his face darkens. “I released her,” he snarls. “I took her from that place, and I freed her, Zella. I sculpted her with my own hands, and she was perfect, then.”

My legs shake underneath me as his words filter through. “What do you mean, Ethan?” I whisper. My lips feel dry, my head light and dizzy. “How did you free her? She died in the fire.”

Ethan twists away from me, pacing. Slowly, I take another step back, and then another. He doesn’t notice, lost in his own ranting.

“They had no idea,” he snarls. “They saw a fire, and a body, and they didn’t think to look beyond that. But she came, in the end. She followed, for you.”

Bile stings my throat. “She went with you,” I whisper. “She didn’t die in the fire. So where is she?”

He barks out a laugh. “Oh, Zella. Innocent, naïve little Zella.”

My hands twist into fists. “Where is she?” I scream. The noise shocks him, and he stumbles back.

A creeping, horrific thought is hovering at the back of my mind. I shove it away, hoping, praying that it’s my twisted imagination at play and not the truth.

Ethan straightens, tugging at the ends of his sleeves in a familiar move that jolts at me. “Such a beautiful collection, I had, Zella. All of them, so perfect.”

Nausea surges, and I twist, losing the contents of my stomach. A hand lands on my back, and I jerk away, losing my balance and scrabbling over the ground to put distance between us.

“Maria.” My face feels frozen. “Maria.”

My only companions. My only friends. And the whole time…

My mind feels sluggish, slow, as Ethan comes up to me. I try to push away from his grip, but he holds my face up, turning it from side to side.

“You were my proudest achievement,” he murmurs. “Absolute perfection. Untouched. So pure in body and mind, Zella.”

He shoves my face away, and it hits the ground, sending a searing pain through my cheek as I cough.

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