Chapter 35 Kip
KIP
The air pressed in, thick and heavy, making it almost impossible to breathe as I waited for her to speak.
“Not only were you drugged, but, Kip also … you were conditioned. Reprogrammed. And I think I know who did it,” she said, her voice calm but somehow more chilling for it. “And what’s worse, however your mother and uncle did it, I think they still have some kind of hold on you.”
Doubt and denial swirled inside me—a storm I couldn’t escape—leaving me caught between wanting to dismiss her words yet feeling the uneasy sense that maybe she was right.
“Why do you think this?” I needed more puzzle pieces than she was giving me.
“Your lapses in time and not knowing what happened, the drug use, the manipulation. I think it was more than the heroin.”
She set her wineglass down on the little table next to the couch, then stood and paced in front of me, wringing her hands.
“I don’t think you remember what actually happened, Kip,” Holland said. “I think they—your family—made you believe you hurt me or another girl.”
My jaw clenched so hard it ached. “Don’t.”
“They drugged you, didn’t they?” She stepped closer, her expression shimmering with something between terror and heartbreak. “You have marks on your arms, Kip. I’ve seen them. Old track scars. That’s not …” She swallowed hard. “That’s not recreational. That’s forced use.”
My pulse slammed against my throat as I jumped off the couch, unable to sit still. My fingers twitched at my side. Don’t let her see you break. Don’t let her see—
“You blacked out,” she whispered. “You disappeared, you lost time, you woke up in places you didn’t remember. That’s not just trauma. That’s programming.”
“I killed you,” I rasped, the words tearing out of me raw, wrong, rotting on my tongue.
I remembered her. Blood. Screaming. I remembered the needle. I remembered the lies. But none of it ever fit. It never felt like mine. And maybe that’s because … it wasn’t.
“No, Kip.” Her expression softened. “You thought you did. But I was there. I remember now. You weren’t the one holding me down. You were …” Her breath hitched. “You were the guy who was screaming.”
The room tilted. Flashes slammed into me—her face, tear-streaked, younger, reaching for me. My mother’s fingers digging into my shoulders. Uncle’s laugh in the dark. A needle. The sick-sweet rot of heroin. No. No.
“I think they made you believe it,” Holland said softly now, like she was talking to a wounded animal. “So you wouldn’t go to the cops. So you would stay quiet.”
My knees nearly gave out. My vision tunneled.
I remembered—a small hand in mine, blood on the floor, her screaming, me screaming, and then—the cold flood in my veins, the snap of the belt, the smell of incense and bleach, my mother’s whispered prayers in the dark.
A rough, cracked laugh tore from my chest. “So what, I’m your charity case now?”
Her shoulders tensed. She crossed the last few feet between us and curled her fingers into the front of my shirt. “You are not the monster they made you believe you were.”
Monster. Killer. Broken. It thudded under my skin like a second pulse, fast and loud and vicious.
But I focused on her warm touch.
“You’re …” She hesitated, like she was barely holding herself together. “You’re the boy who tried to save me.”
Something split open inside me. Not clean. Not sharp. A jagged, wrenching crack right down the center. I sucked in a breath like I’d been buried for years. Holy fuck. She was wrong. She had to be wrong. But—but what if she was right?
I was shaking, but it wasn’t rage. It was from something I didn’t have a name for.
Her hands stayed fisted in my shirt, pulling me in to keep me from losing my shit.
“Kip,” she whispered, like it hurt to say my name. “You felt it too, didn’t you?”
I clenched my jaw until I felt the crack in the joint. “Felt what, Holland?”
“That something was wrong,” she said gently, her stare pinned on mine like she could dig the truth out of me. “That it had always been wrong.”
Something in my chest twisted so hard I thought it would split me wide fucking open.
“I—” My tongue burned as the word rasped out. “I remembered blood. I remembered her crying. I remembered my mother.” My throat ached with the words that scraped my throat as I spoke them aloud. “Her saying, ‘look what you did.’”
Holland’s grip tightened. “I don’t think that was your memory, Kip. That was what they made you believe by reconditioning your mind.”
My legs buckled, and I crashed down onto the edge of the couch, head sinking into my hands, lungs pulling air like I’d been underwater too long.
I saw it:
My mother cinching the belt around my arm. My uncle whispering in the dark, telling me I was brave, telling me it would help me forget. Me fumbling to untie a girl while someone laughed behind me. The rush, the warmth, the blackout.
“I tried,” I whispered, not even sure if I was talking to her or myself. “I tried to help you.”
“You did,” she said, her voice breaking as she dropped to her knees in front of me. She cupped my face as if I were fragile. “You were only a kid, Kip. You tried to stop it, but they were bigger. They were crueler.”
A choked sound ripped out of me, something between a laugh and a sob.
She touched under my eyes, thumbs brushing away something wet I hadn’t realized was there. “You didn’t kill me. You never did.”
I grabbed her wrists, hard. She didn’t pull away. She stayed, solid and soft, holding like she was trying to stitch me back together with her bare hands.
“I don’t know who the fuck I am,” I rasped.
She sank her teeth into her lower lip, but she didn’t look away. “You were the one who tried to save me,” she whispered. “And you are not your mother’s monster.”
And right then, it split—the cold, hollow place inside me, the one I’d locked up tight for years. Not clean. Not sharp. A slow, deep crack, like ice breaking under old weight.
Because deep down, where I’d buried everything, I had always known the truth was different from what I’d been told. I just wasn’t sure how different.
“I need proof, but I’m not sure we’ll ever find it. All I can tell you is that I’ve worked with people who have survived this, and they got through it.” She rubbed my back. “We’ll get through this one way or another, if you want me by your side.”
Fuck. With everything she’d said, I’d forgotten about the possible blood relation. “It depends. There’s something else we need to talk about.”
Concern flickered across her features. “Okay. You can tell me anything, Kip. I think you know that by now.”
Except this. This would fuck her up for the rest of her life when she learned she’d slept with her brother.
I licked my dry lips and swallowed.
“Holland. I—I—” I leaned my head back and stared at the ceiling, trying to form the words that refused to leave my mouth. There was no other choice, though. I had to. I looked at her, our gazes locking.
“There’s more, Holland.” I swallowed, throat raw. “I think … we’re.” I paused. “I think you might be my sister.”