Catching Pretty (Lovely Broken Doll #2)

19. Ava

AVA

O nly when Ty had left me alone again could I fully process everything I’d learned.

Betrayal simmered in my veins, bitter and heavy. I felt betrayed by the fragments of my memories, by everything I thought I’d known.

Scáth was my childhood bully.

Scáth —the man who saved me, who put his life on the line, who haunted the shadows to keep me safe… that was Ciaran.

The boy I had hated.

The boy who hated me, despised me, who wanted nothing but to see me suffer.

He had been my protector all along.

And Ty—the gentle, protective boy who held my hand when I cried, who held me when I had nightmares, who swore to keep me safe— that Ty had become… this.

My captor.

My tormentor .

How could the caring boy I knew become this cold, controlling stranger?

My mind struggled to reconcile the memories of his boyish laughter, his kindness, and his sweet affection, with the man who now held me captive.

It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t fit the pieces together. Even though they were true.

Which meant Scáth— Ciaran —had lied to me.

He’d led me to believe that he was Ty.

The revelation crashed over me, leaving me dizzy, disoriented.

Had it been just another game to Ciaran? A sick game to manipulate me, to watch me fall in love with a ghost from my past? And to what end?

If Ty hadn’t kidnapped me, would I have run away with Ciaran to have him… what? Leave me stranded on a remote island?

Was he just trying to get rid of me?

I’d given him my secrets, my fears, even pieces of my heart that I’d thought were unreachable.

How could I trust him now, knowing he’d worn a mask, knowing he’d hidden parts of himself just to keep me close?

That trust, once a steady heartbeat between us, was breaking, crumbling with every thought of his deception.

I could feel it—an ache that pulsed deep, a wound I didn’t know how to heal.

Now I understood why I’d forgotten everything.

My time at Blackthorn—with Ty, Ciaran, and the professor—it was all too tightly knotted together, every memory twisted up with another, impossible to pull one out without dragging the rest along with it .

So, I’d buried it all, locked it away somewhere deep and dark, a place where none of it could reach me, my mind doing everything it could to protect me.

But being back here… this mansion was like a key, unlocking the parts of my mind I’d bolted shut.

Here in Blackthorn, my ghosts weren’t just in my head. They were waiting in every room, shadows of the past slipping out from every corner, urging me to remember things I’d sworn I’d left behind.

The longer I stayed, the more memories dislodged, like old ghosts coming out of hiding, determined to remind me of the past I’d tried so hard to erase.

God. Too many memories assaulted me in this place.

After that first day when both brothers had crawled all over each other to befriend me, something had changed soon after.

I remembered the day Ciaran’s behavior had switched, as if a totally different boy had taken over him.

The rough wooden boards of the treehouse scratched at the thin fabric of my summer dress beneath my stomach, but I didn’t care.

I should’ve.

It had only been a month since I arrived at Blackthorn Hall, but I already knew I’d get into trouble if the professor saw me dirty—always stay clean and presentable. That was the rule.

But hiding up here in the treehouse felt too good to care about that.

I lost myself in the pages of my pink leather journal, another present from Ty, the scratching of my pencil a quiet rhythm against the stillness of the afternoon. So when someone climbed up through the hatch next to me, I didn’t notice right away .

The clearing of a throat—sharp and annoyed—cut through the peaceful silence, jolting me back to reality.

My heart skipped a beat, and I turned my head, a smile already forming.

But Ciaran glared at me with a hatred that I’d never seen on his face before.

“Get out of my treehouse.” He spat out the words.

I blinked, struggling to process his words, trying to understand where this venom was coming from.

His treehouse? He and Ty had always shared it with me. The three of us had spent afternoons together up here, escaping the world below. Why was he suddenly acting like this?

“Ciaran… what did I do?” I asked, my voice small, unsure.

He folded his arms, scowling down at me with an expression that twisted my stomach. “You think you can just waltz in here and make everyone love you, don’t you? You think you’re so… special.”

He said the last word like it was something foul, something he wanted to spit out.

“Ciaran, I…” I faltered, searching for the right thing to say.

Why was he so angry? A knot of worry settled in my chest as I reached out a hand, instinctively wanting to soothe him, to make things right.

But he jerked back, flinching as if my touch burned.

“Don’t touch me, you orphaned freak.”

I felt my cheeks flush with shame, instinctively curling my hand over the pink leather cover.

“Why are you being so mean?” The words slipped out, my voice barely above a whisper, the confusion thick in my throat.

For a split second, something flickered in his eyes—something almost like regret. But just as quickly, his gaze hardened, and he sneered down at me.

“Get out.”

I stammered, but nothing I thought to say felt right. His face and mine were too close as we stared at one another.

I shivered, but there had been no breeze at all. The air hung heavy and still, like just before a terrible storm.

“Ty said I could be here,” I answered, finally finding my voice. “He said—”

“I don’t give a shit what Ty said,” came his low, trembling voice. “You don’t belong here.”

His hands shook on the sides of the ladder, his jaw tightened so intensely that I thought it might break.

“I have every right to be here,” I said, defiance rising in me. “I’m the professor’s daughter.”

He laughed wickedly. “You’re not his real daughter, are you? You’re no one’s daughter.”

“You’re my brother,” I continued. “And brothers share.”

With horrifying speed, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist with a bone-cracking grip. A cry of pain slipped from my lips.

This only seemed to enrage him more. He looked at me with fury in his icy eyes.

“ Brother ?” he hissed, “Never call me that disgusting word ever again.”

Something had changed in Ciaran that day.

At the time I hadn’t understood what. Why.

But now I did.

He must have seen his father with me. How, I had no idea. But he’d gotten the wrong idea.

His behavior toward me just got worse after that. It ended up driving a wedge not just between him and me, but also him and Ty.

His cruelness grew worse and even more twisted—I remember finding the pages of my journal, the secrets of my young tender heart, wallpapered across the school lockers.

I’d walked into the hallway to find Ciaran, surrounded by students, reading them out to everyone in a high-pitched voice and twirling his pretend hair, mocking me. “Ciaran is so cute but why does he have to be so mean? …Ty accidentally touched my boob last night and my nipple ached but not in a bad way.”

I remembered how he’d taunted me about how ghosts roamed the Blackthorn Halls, that they hated little girls, especially stupid ones named Ava. I hadn’t been able to sleep after that, at least not until Ty started creeping into my bed.

I remembered how Ciaran would steal my shoes and drag them through the mud, leaving them around the mansion for the professor to find and punish me for it.

Ciaran had hated me. So how had he become my protector? How much of him—of Scáth—was really him .

And why would he let me think he was his brother?

But deep down, I knew.

Ty had been my safe place, my sanctuary from the twisted world we grew up in.

And Ciaran… he still carried the weight of guilt from how he’d treated me, how he’d been so cruel to me, punishing me for a crime I never committed, when he thought I was complicit with his father.

He knew how deeply Ty and I had connected, and he’d used that bond to pull me close to him .

Maybe it was his way of rewriting the past, of giving us both a second chance at something real. A way to be the person he hadn’t been then—only now, under the shadow of his brother’s name.

Despite my anger at Ciaran, I knew, somewhere deep within me, that he’d come to love me.

I couldn’t pinpoint when or how it had shifted, but somehow, the boy who’d once tormented me had become the man who cared.

I had to trust in that.

I had to believe he loved me, missed me, and was out there searching for me—otherwise, I wouldn’t survive here.

I wouldn’t have any reason to fight, to plan, to cling to that faint hope of finding my way back to Dublin. Back to Scáth—back to Ciaran.

A surge of hope welled in my chest.

Scáth and I loved each other; we could start over, build something real from the ashes. If we could make it to the other side of all this, maybe we could finally be together, without secrets or shadows.

But first, I had to escape. And so far, every attempt had failed me.

I realized with a sinking feeling that there was no one left to save me.

I had no choice but to do Ty’s twisted therapy. And hope I could save myself.