Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Senior Year – Spring
I found myself in a deep abyss, immersed in my quest for revenge. I had poured so much of my vindictiveness into this charade that I lost sight of the role I was playing for the world. Ember, her dad, and especially Walsh—I resented them all. Walsh stopped coming around, vanished without a word. No more muse. Not even a glimpse at the Alpha house parties. Even though he extended the invitation to Ember a few times, she was too wrapped up in what had happened with the Den to take him up on it. He'd take one look at me and veer in the opposite direction. Whatever connection we had, had unraveled, and I was disintegrating beneath the void of his absence.
The amiable Maddy my friends once knew was gone. Bitterness, anger, and exhaustion replaced her; after years of wearing a disguise, it was unraveling.
When Ember lost her boyfriend, Ash, I felt nothing for her. That's how the game worked in Isles, a game her brother taught me. You came here, and by the spring bonfire, someone was bound to die. I lost Cagen last year, and no one checked on me. She never turned up and was pronounced dead. They had a funeral for her and everything.
After walking out of that house sophomore year, I went home to nobody. No family, no friends. I thought Walsh would check in on me, but I heard nothing. So, when I’d concocted this plan to get close to his sister, I thought it would draw him out. It didn't. It did the opposite, and he retreated deeper. I messed up morally, and now that my mask was gone, revealing the cold-hearted bitch I was, I was utterly empty.
After Cagen went missing and was eventually pronounced dead, a deep depression set in. Fear of the fire led to selfishly putting personal safety first, and now the consequences of those actions were painfully clear. Ember was roped into a grand scheme thought to be perfect, but it only pushed Walsh further away.
I was living, but it was as if I was already dead. There were times earlier in the year I thought about killing myself. Ember’s boyfriend had taken his life last year. For a moment, I almost envied him because as much as I wanted to die and not live anymore, I couldn’t come up with a plan to actually do it.
The life I was living was not really living at all. I trudged through the year as a shell. If I went to a doctor, they’d tell me I was depressed. Maybe it was because my parents abandoned me when I was a child and left me with my grandmother who passed away the day I started at Isles. Maybe it was because when I had to leave campus for breaks, I had nowhere to go and often spent weeks living in my car in the city with the little money I had saved from my inheritance. Or maybe it was because I was drinking five to six days a week and fucking strangers all the time which was likely not helping my mood.
The only family I had was my stepbrother in Joshua Tree where my dad had remarried to some rich lady. We had no contact, and honestly, I wasn’t sure his family even knew I existed. It was just me up here, all alone in Dansport and at the University of Isles.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved living in Isles. It was gloomy, rainy, and moody every single day. The town’s weather was like living in a high school emo girl’s Tumblr every single day.
It was always just me, which was the reason I craved fitting in so much. At the end of the day, I was just the kid version of Maddy, and all I wanted was to feel loved and have the warmth of a family around me.
I lost sight of everything, spending too much time hiding behind a persona. The real reason for my depression was clear—I had crafted a personality to be loved, Maddy Ryan. My quest for revenge on Walsh Solis drove me deeper, and in the process, I lost my grip on that persona. It had kept me safe, a means to achieve my goal of feeling loved. Losing it over the past year had messed me up.
I hated that Walsh was right about me, always pretending for everyone, knowing it would eventually fall apart. I was the girl who let Ember get drugged and kidnapped, who didn't bother to check in when Ash died because I simply didn't care enough. The cold parts of my heart took over, erasing the warmth I once had and replacing it with an incessant, chilling wind that seemed to scratch at my very soul.
Watching Ember enter her brother's fraternity with her fiancé, Rain was enough to push me over the edge. I stood outside the gates of Walsh’s fraternity house, concealed behind a tree, witnessing family members pouring in with congratulation balloons, celebratory flowers, and platters of food and cakes.
I sat there, consumed by envy because the revenge I thought I was seeking was a failure. I had lost the battle long ago, and suddenly, the magnitude of the hole I had dug became painfully clear.
After crushing the beer I’d been pounding, I tossed it aside and grabbed another. Over the past couple of years, I had become adept at drowning myself in alcohol. Perhaps that's why I didn’t get into the masters counseling program in Seattle. My grades had slipped as I embraced a lifestyle of hard partying. Being hungover during finals was far from the advice I'd give to someone aiming to ace a college class.
Instead of having my family come to celebrate with me, I found myself watching the one person I had tried so desperately to bring down spending time with his family. He made me feel foolish for my actions with Ember—responding to that ad and exposing my vulnerabilities to her had only put me down.
I had become someone I hated. Walsh, with his infuriating accuracy, had won. I couldn’t keep this act intact without him. I couldn't escape the harsh reality that I had lost not only the battle against Walsh, but also the battle against myself. The girl who once sought revenge for Cagen stood defeated, a casualty of her own misguided vendetta. Every step I took toward my own destruction was a testament to my failure, and the hole I had dug had become an abyss of regrets.
Watching Rain lovingly kiss Ember on the cheek as he guided her inside the gates while Ember’s father followed. The whole scenario made me want to throw up. I’d become so obsessive over the last year with trying to stay relevant that I realized Walsh no longer remembered me, nor did he care.
Once most of the crowd had gone through the gates and they shut behind them, I felt safe enough to leave without getting caught. I crushed the last can of beer before pressing my back against the tree and attempting to stand, but fell face-first into the physical markings of my trauma. All the ripples of skin formed in different areas where they’d had to use skin grafts to make my hand look more normal. I hated them and was grateful gloves were an acceptable form of fashion during the winter.
I rubbed my scars and fell flat on my face.
"Fuck you, Walsh." I held up my middle finger toward the ornate house, then a blacked-out SUV pulled around the street and a man in his late-forties hopped out of the car.
"What the fuck?" I slapped my hand to my mouth, not intending to say that aloud.
"Go the hell home, Madison." I snapped my head around at the sound of his voice—the first time in over a year. The first time since the moment we shared in the closet.
There was something about this man. He saw me for who I really was and was the first person to realize I wasn't the Maddy everyone knew growing up. I was a broken little girl trapped in this grown-up body. He saw every part of my empty soul. Mostly, he saw me for the tired, cold, and angry emotions I wore like armor.
It was infuriating as he walked toward me with his chin held high and confidence in his step. He was the reason my mask broke and I walked my graduation without anyone there. He was the reason I obsessed over this revenge plan and why I was wandering around this forsaken place with no plan for my future.
"I hate you." I seethed. He laughed, fueling the hatred I harbored for him.
I stumbled toward him, shoving him, but he didn't budge and stood there looking down at me. It felt eerily similar to when my parents used to hit me as a kid for making mistakes. They were drunks. When they were angry and blacked out, they'd come to my room in the middle of the night to cause chaos. They would hit me, throw things around, and deliberately ruin the few things I loved and cherished as a kid.
The way Walsh was staring at me was how my parents would before berating me the next morning for making a mess. Somehow, it was my fault for not cleaning up after their mess.
"I fucking hate you," I spat out, swinging to slap him, but he seized my wrist, forcing it down to my side.
"No, you don't," he rasped. "You've made it abundantly clear, Madison, by spending your entire year trying to make my life a living hell."
"No, I haven't." Who could blame me for lying? I was trying to save face here, and I was drunk.
"Madison." He stalked closer toward me. "Is this all because of that one night?"
That was it. Something bubbled inside of me, boiling over and spilling out of me.
"What, Walsh? The one night where you cheated on your girlfriend, and then told me I was not good enough for you? Maybe it was the time when my roommate ‘disappeared.’ Huh?"
"Tell me the truth," Walsh demanded, his icy demeanor remained as I exploded on him, shoving two hands onto his chest.
"She is gone and because of it, I lost control."
"No, Muse. Not because of her missing. You lost control because of yourself."
"And where the fuck were you to help me?"
He barked out a laugh. "I am not supposed to be the one to help you, Madison Ryan. It is your job to keep up your alter ego. It is your responsibility?—"
"No!" I shoved him again. "No, it is not. You brought this all out to the open. I have sat with your indiscretions and your secrets for far too long. I need help."
I took a deep breath. "When she was purposefully put in harm's way, you threw this on me. You took away the world that I was building for myself."
"You fucking ruined your own life over one blowjob, Madison."
I scoffed at his words, knowing it was so far from the truth. "Liar. You are a horrible liar, Walsh. You felt it between us. There was something magnetic. You touched me when you were dating her. You were the one who folded first. I would never have?—"
The tears burned my cheeks, as if they were leaving an imprint behind. "I would have never ruined it. You did, and I need you to fix the problem."
"So you decided to fuck with my family? You’re lucky you haven't met the same fate Cagen did. You hurt my sister, and when you hurt my family, you fuck with me," he spat as he backed away.
I could have sworn I saw a hint of hesitation in his eyes, but as soon as he noticed, it was quickly replaced by his cool, indifferent demeanor.
"You made me your problem," I whimpered.
"It's been crystal clear, Madison." He’d been using my full name—no familiar nickname. "Go the hell home."
"Fine." I glared into his dark-brown eyes, searching for any sign that he meant none of this. That the entire year I spent on what I thought was simple revenge wasn't a total loss.
"You were the one holding the gun, though."
He stayed calculated and cool.
"You ruined my life." I spat at him, a loogy flying from my mouth and landing on his face.
He used two fingers to wipe the spit away, then guided them into his mouth, licking me up.
"Mmm. You taste exactly how I imagined, Madison." He huffed out a breath. "But I must say, it's graduation, and you ruined my suit."
A small wet spot darkened his suit jacket.
"I don’t care."
He inhaled deeply before the corner of his lips twisted into a devilish smile. "Ah, but see, that’s where you are wrong, Madison. You do care. Because while you’ve been plotting this little scheme to, what? Take me down?" He stepped closer. "You’ve been failing mercilessly. Your shield has fallen, and now everyone knows who you really are. They know that the good-girl persona you’ve tried so hard for years to cultivate was bullshit."
He wrapped his hands around my waist, and I swear the oxygen left my lungs as he spoke his final words. "Never ever try to plot against my family again. Because now you see the consequences of your ill-thought-out plan. You fucked up the moment you responded to that ad for my sister."
I knew what I did was wrong, and I shouldn’t have found the apartment, found Ember, been her roommate and allowed her to be kidnapped, branded, and drugged. It's not like I had known that would happen to her. I just brought her to a bar and stopped paying attention to her.
That didn’t make me a better person, though. Just because I wasn’t aware something would happen didn’t justify me ignoring her. When Ash died, I never checked in on her. Like no one had bothered with me after Cagen; I was punishing Ember in the same way.
I thought it would bring me closer to Walsh, that he’d see the pain his sister was going through with Ash and remember me. It was selfish—I was selfish. I lived with so much regret this year, but I was in so much pain.
"I was only trying to make you feel bad about what you did with Cagen—what you did to me."
"And what did I do to you?" He dropped his hands from my waist, knuckles turning white as he clenched his hands at his side.
He knew what I would say. The secret I kept for years between us. "You fucked me and left me out to dry. You told me I wasn’t worth your time, your love because?—"
"I don't love…anyone."
"Bullshit!" I shouted, letting the unfiltered thoughts run rampant.
He snapped, pulling me close and digging his fingers into my hips.
"Ow," I cried as his hands dug deeper, holding me steady, sobering me.
"No, Madison. You fucked up. The moment that you brought my family into this, you ruined yourself. Because for a moment, I thought you’d be capable of being my queen, but now I know you need a little more…training…before I can make you mine."
"T-training?" Fuck, I didn’t mean to hesitate when the words came out.
"Yes, Madison." His hands gripped me so tightly that the pain pulsed underneath his fingertips.
Come on, focus on his words, not his hands. "Wha-what are you talking about?"
"I told you I’d make you mine one day, but this little…stunt that you’ve pulled has shown me that you need a lot more training in order to make this work."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
He let out a maniacal laugh. "I fucking warned you that one day you'd be my queen, because you're the only person I've ever known who wears a mask like I do."
My eyes drilled into his, searching for any spark beneath those dark, hooded eyes, but all I found was pure venom.
"But here's the problem. You thought you were going to take me down, but you didn't realize I was the other damn player in this sick game. I spent the past year ignoring you, making you think you were losing, and in the end, your damn mask crumbled."
Damn it. It was all a twisted game to him.
"You lost the battle, Madison, and now, I'm gonna win the goddamn war."
I tried to spit out something, but my mouth wasn’t cooperating. "Wha?—"
Walsh casually waved a hand behind me, gesturing toward the black SUV that had pulled up earlier. "Time to go home now, Madison. Time to wait until I decide to train you."
He released his grip on my hips, only to grab my cheeks, pulling me closer. "Because you need a shitload of punishment for the way you fucked with my sister. I fucking promise you, I'll be the one watching you."
"Go ahead. Kill me, Walsh. Just like you killed?—"
"Get in the car, Madison." I turned behind me where the driver, wearing all black, was approaching me.
"Fuck. You."
"Go home. I’ll call for you when I need you."
"I won’t be around to answer." He emitted another deep rumble from his chest.
"I told you this before. I will never be someone’s second choice."
"You will be exactly where I need you, Muse." I paused at the familiar nickname rolling of his tongue and turned to catch him heading through the gates of the Alpha house.
"Remember, Madison, this was a war and I won. You are now indebted to me."
"And what do I owe you?" I shouted.
"Your life."