Chapter 34
There was always something wrong with this house. It never pretended to be a home. It was a place to endure. Four walls designed for survival and not safety. Nothing here reminds me of anything good. No corner holds laughter or childhood games in the way it should.
Only corruption soaked into the floors, sickness in the air, and a silence that learned my name.
What an irony that this fortress, built to imprison, is the only place that can keep her safe.
I walk around it, trying to remember a bright memory—anything. Maybe when I played in the yard with Cain. Ah, I was a fucked-up little kid back then, lying in the dirt, pretending I was dead just to watch him panic.
He never beat me the way he should have. He was always protective of me. Him and Judas, despite Cain being an ass.
I guess that’s why Mother had a soft spot for him, why she only ever smiled when he was around.
Fucking mama’s boy.
I stood there and learned what it felt like to want something I was never meant to have. I learned early what it meant to be spared but never chosen.
I step into the living room and look around. It’s still elegant, still emptied of people. Only now, it’s calm and doesn’t feel haunted the way it used to.
Her piano still lingers in the corner, polished and cared for. Maintained. Immaculate.
Of course it is.
That fucking, stupid instrument …
Mother’s face brightened every time she glanced at it.
Always eager to step out of her room and play with him, teach him piano, or just exist next to him. I mean, that’s what any mother should do.
But she never did that with me.
She saw the bane in me and chose to rub my face in it every fucking time she could.
I used to watch her like a dog watches a table, hoping something would fall. One glance. One sign that I wasn’t just a mistake breathing in her house. That she saw me. That she was proud.
Nothing ever came. She never fucking looked.
My fingers trace the lines of the piano, bringing back memories of that night. The night something snapped in me and made space for the monster inside.
I’ve always had something chewing holes in me from the inside out. A parasite with good manners, I’d say, patiently gnawing at the walls inside my mind. I didn’t know what it was, only that it didn’t belong to normal children.
I must’ve been … what, six? Seven? When it first scratched. Old enough to understand fear, too young to understand that the fear was coming from within.
Back then, I didn’t have a name for it. I thought it was instinct, some kind of clumsy self-defense mechanism. Like my brain was trying to warn me of monsters while conveniently forgetting that the teeth weren’t coming from outside.
They were mine.
It was a quiet night, like this one, when I walked into the room again, carrying what I thought was a brilliant fucking idea.
I’d made a cardboard guitar. God, it took me days. Cutting, folding, taping that piece of shit together. The only thing missing was the strings.
So I grabbed a pair of scissors and came in here. It was empty, like always, which meant I could take my time.
I cut four strings off the piano. Just snip, snip, snip. Enough to finish my perfect little guitar.
I knew it was wrong, but I was so damn sure Mother would be happy—surprised by what I’d managed to pull off.
Maybe this way, I’d look more like him.
Or at least like someone she might bother to look at.
I’d set it on the table and tried to adjust the strings.
“What have you done?” Mother’s voice sounded behind me, already trembling.
I jerked around, heart slamming, my eyes darting everywhere at once like I’ve been caught naked.
“Mom, look!” I thrusted my hands out, the cardboard guitar wobbling between them. “Now I can play with you and Cain.”
I was smiling too wide, holding my breath.
“You filthy ape!” she snapped, already coming at me.
Her eyes were red and manic, bulging with that familiar madness. Even then, I knew something was wrong with her. I saw something rabid, something barely human. I remember thinking she looked like a monster from a horror movie. Back then, it scared the living fuck out of me.
“You destroyed his piano!”
She scrambled toward me, her bare feet sliding on the marble, her nails scraping for balance. Her hair spilled over her face, wild and tangled, and I couldn’t tell where my mother ended and the thing wearing her began.
“Mom!” I gasped with wide eyes, running further.
She tried to grab the scissors, but instinctively, I kicked them far away.
Then she reached me, grabbed me by my shoulders, and slapped me hard in the face. Sometimes, I still feel her fingers burning on my skin. I’ve been cut, bled, punched so much in my life, I have so many scars across my body and soul, but nothing stings more than that slap from that night.
Because it wasn’t just pain. It was her telling me, clear as day, what I was worth.
“No!” I thrashed in her grip, but she was stronger, her fingers digging in like claws. “Mom—please!”
She slapped me again. Harder.
“You’re hurting me,” I cried like an idiot, tears streaming, my face burning, my skin screaming where she’d touched me.
“I should have killed you the moment you were born,” she hissed, her eyes wide and wild.
That’s when the first urge hit me like a pulse under my skin. It was just a compulsion, like someone else’s hand sliding into my mind.
I shoved her with everything I had. She stumbled back, missed the step, and went down two stairs, straight into the table in the middle of the living room.
There was the sound of glass breaking.
I don’t remember what shattered. Vases, frames—whatever it was, it doesn’t matter. All I remember is the sound. That violent, ringing crack that swallowed the room.
I heard it before I understood what it was.
Her head had struck the table.
I was gasping, my breath coming too fast, my heart hammering so violently it hurt.
I thought it was adrenaline.
That was bullshit.
It was joy. Justice.
I remember standing there, small and trembling, feeling that hunger rise in me and knowing, without words, that something had already claimed me. Something that didn’t care how young I was. Something that didn’t care if I understood it or not.
Kids defend themselves, right?
I thought she might be dead. Again. I wished she was dead, and I would be finally free. Free of guilt, free of jealousy, free of her.
But then, she moved a few seconds later.
Blood streaked her face where the glass had bitten into her skin. She looked at me through it, eyes burning, mouth twisted into something inhuman.
“You monster,” she growled.
“What is happening here?” Grayson rushed in, running to her. “What did you do, Adam?”
I didn’t talk. I just stood there, numb and fucking proud.
Proud of the mess. Proud of the chaos.
I was high on it, already craving more. More justice. More of that rush chewing through me, burning away whatever innocence I had left.
“I’m here, Alice,” he said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’m here, my love.”
“Just get him out of here,” she mumbled. “Get this sickness out of this house!”
Grayson didn’t say a word. He didn’t even spare me a glance.
He just lifted her up and carried her away, leaving me alone in the wreckage. Alone with the mess she had forced me to make.
I told myself it was protection. That I was reacting to things I couldn’t quite see. A nightmare bleeding through the edges of waking life.
Funny how easy it is to lie to yourself when the truth is tapping politely on your skull, waiting to be let in.