Chapter Thirty-Two #3
“We don’t do anything either,” I muttered, tugging at my shoelaces. “She pulls my hair. Calls me names because I’m different. I tell the teachers, they laugh behind their hands. So why shouldn’t I hit her?”
Mom turned the faucet off. Her eyes did that flicker thing again, like she was watching two timelines at once. “That’s not how we solve things.”
“Then how?” I said, crossing my arms. “Because being nice isn’t working.”
Before she could answer, Dad stepped into the kitchen. Something about the way he lingered in the doorway made my stomach tighten. “Just tell her, Kai. She deserves to know.”
“Tell me what?” I squinted between them, suspicion rising like bile.
“We’re moving,” she said finally. “To the United States.”
“The U.S.?” That caught my attention. “For real? Like, away from here?”
She smiled. I caught the way it didn’t reach her eyes. “Your daddy got a new job. Big opportunity. We leave next month.”
I launched into her arms, clinging like a vine. “This is better than getting a baby brother!” But just as I looked up to see her smile, I caught a flicker of something else, fear. Guilt. Regret.
It passed.
But I saw it.
And then I ruined everything.
“Maybe now I won’t have to smell that dog-faced Park Sun-”
“Athens.” Her voice cracked like thunder, and for a second, just a second, my body remembered something my brain couldn’t name.
My breath stalled. My vision blurred.
She raised her hand, just to swat my behind like always. Nothing new. But the moment it moved toward me… Boom.
The thunder outside cracked open the sky.
And so did I.
“No!” I dropped to the ground, screaming and trembling as shadows closed in. “Don’t touch me like that, Daddy! I said I was sorry, I said I’d be good. Please, don’t hurt me again. Don’t make me bleed.”
“Athens!” My mother’s voice tore through the air. “Henry, don’t touch her. She’s, she’s somewhere else right now.”
“Mama!” I sobbed into the hardwood. “Mama, please, make him stop! I won’t tell anyone, I swear, I swear.”
But I was there.
I was back in that room. That bed. That night.
And then, like a rope being pulled around my ribs, her voice reached me.
“It’s just a storm, baby. Just a bad dream. Come back to me.”
Her hands cradled me like I was made of ash. She whispered things I barely caught. But I came back. Slowly. Dragged from that place. Ripped from it.
“Momma?” My voice was a ghost of itself.
She pulled me into her arms and I felt her tears on my cheek. “We’re here, baby. We’re here.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I mumbled, my tiny fingers curled around her shirt like lifelines.
“You’re not broken,” she whispered. “Just haunted.”
Poppa knelt beside us, wiping his eyes before smirking like he didn’t just cry in front of me. “No more timeouts. Big girls don’t need those.”
I reached up and touched his face, catching his tears like a secret. “Don’t cry, Poppa. Everything’s alright now.”
They smiled.
But smiles lie.
“I can do better. I’ll be good,” I promised, kissing them both before racing upstairs.
But I didn’t make it far.
Their voices floated up the stairwell, low, tense, surgical.
“She’s resisting,” Mom said. “The methods should’ve worked by now. Her mind’s fighting me.”
“She’s different,” Dad murmured. “Holding on to the trauma while pretending she’s not.”
“She’s not like the others. She’s his child. That blood... it doesn’t forget. Not easily.”
And just like that… The memory shattered.
And the next wave hit me like a freight train.
“He’s the one who had them killed.”
“No!” I scream, the sound ripping out of my throat like it’s coated in barbed wire. “Gaia, tell me it’s not true! Tell me Bash didn’t have my parents murdered!”
Her silence says everything before her mouth does.
“He did.” Her voice is calm, but it’s the kind of calm that comes right before a building explodes. “And that’s just the beginning, Athens. There’s more. A lot more. And you’re about to find out exactly what the fuck that man’s been hiding.”
My stomach knots like it’s trying to strangle itself. “How do you know?”
“Haven’t I always told you I hated his fucking guts?”
She had. Over and over. I just didn’t listen.
“I don’t have solid proof yet, so don’t lose your shit,” she adds, reading the fury on my face. “But that night, the night you were getting all dolled up for your ‘date’ with that lying bastard and we were on our way to the Devils of Cliffside party, I heard him.”
“What did you hear?”
“Him. On the phone. Bragging that he’s had people killed before and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. The fucker sounded bored. Like murder was just another Tuesday.”
“That doesn’t mean,” My voice cracks. “that doesn’t mean he was talking about my parents, does it?”
Gaia doesn’t answer.
I step back. The floor tilts beneath me. “Gaia, I’m so sorry. I should’ve believed you. I-I don’t even know how to fix this.”
“You can’t,” she says simply. “But I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yeah… yeah, you are. I’ll never doubt you again.”
“Good. Because there’s more.”
Of course there is.
“Remember the man who came to see you a while back?”
“Vaguely. Something about his eyes freaked me out.”
“That was your uncle. Newton. And the boy with him? His stepson?”
“Wait…” My skin goes cold. “Silan?”
A single word falls from her lips. “Yes.”
Silan.
The boy I once trusted. The boy who tried to ruin me.
Suddenly I’m back there, in the dark, choking on fear and sweat.
“You stupid bitch,” he growled, his breath reeking of alcohol and something worse. “All you had to do was listen. But now? Now you’re gonna learn.”
“Get off me, Silan!”
He didn’t. His hands were everywhere. Fumbling, forcing, laughing. “He said I had to teach you a lesson.”
“He? Who the fuck is he? You don’t have to do this!”
But I saw it. The switch in his eyes. He wasn’t in control. He was a fucking puppet. And I’d had enough.
My hand found freedom first. I balled my fist and punched him right in the nuts.
His scream tore through the night. He slapped me hard, but he went down. “I’ll fucking kill you!” he screamed.
I was already running. Heart pounding. Legs shaking. Eyes burning.
I ran until I hit someone. “Shit,” I gasped, fearing the worst.
“What are you doing out here?” the stranger asked, stepping into the moonlight.
“I-” I could barely breathe.
“Athens?” His voice stopped me cold.
“Yeah?” I rasped.
“You don’t recognize me?” He was beautiful. Not handsome, beautiful. But I had no clue who he was.
“Should I?”
His jaw flexed. Hurt flashed behind his dark eyes. “Did someone hurt you?”
“My ex. He tried to rape me.” I said it aloud and felt the shame try to crawl up my spine like rot.
His whole face changed. Gone was the softness. What replaced it was devastatingly savage. “Where is he?”
“Back there. Doubled over. Hopefully sterile.”
He pulled out his phone. “Karter. Bring the guys. Someone hurt Athens. Old mill. Now.” He snapped it shut and looked back at me. “Go straight ahead. You’ll see a house. Someone there will clean you up.”
He turned to leave.
“Wait!”
He paused.
“What’s your name?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Wyck.”
And he disappeared like smoke.
Oh, Wyck…
“What is it?” Gaia’s voice pulled me back.
“I saw Wyck. Now I see something else.”
“What do you see?”
“It’s beautiful,” I murmur, “Like a stained wooden box… locked, but not with a key.”
“That’s it.” Mama’s voice breaks through the haze. “That’s where your memories are, baby. All of them. Once you open it, you don’t come back the same.”
Gaia leans closer. “Open it, Athens. You can do it. You’re strong enough.”
Fred adds, “You’ve made it this far. Don’t stop now.”
“Come on, scaredy cat,” Ryan smirks. “Open the fucking box.”
Fred smacks her. “Jesus, Ryan, encouragement, not psychological warfare.”
But I’m already moving.
The box is right there. Glowing. Beckoning.
I reach for it.
The second my fingers close around it, everything changes.
A surge of electricity punches through me like I’m standing in a storm with my ribs open. My lungs convulse. My mouth opens in a silent scream as a tidal wave of memories shatters every dam in my head.
Wyck and I, younger, raw, dangerous. Friends. Then lovers.
Bash. His fists. His belt. His fucking lies.
Blood on my hands. Tears in my throat. The Devils watching, waiting.
It crashes in, all of it.
It’s too much.
I can’t breathe.
“ Oh my God! ”
Darkness swallows me whole.