Chapter 16 #3
Audrey blanches and nods like a wooden doll.
“I’m glad. Any idea why she fell?”
“She pushed out of her wheelchair on her own. We caught it on camera, if you’d like to—”
“No, that’s okay. The doctor warned she might forget her limitations during an episode.”
The head nurse pauses, studies Audrey, and glances at me.
I’ll pull the woman aside later and request a copy.
The frozen tundra of despair in Audrey’s eyes and her stiff composure hint at the horror she’s suffered throughout the years.
She isn’t thinking clearly right now but is reacting from a place of trauma.
“Are you going in to see her today?” Ms. Reed asks.
Audrey looks beyond the head nurse’s shoulder to her mother’s door. The conflicting emotions in her gaze fill me with concern.
“Maybe not,” she murmurs.
“Even though you’ve come all this way?”
Audrey shrugs.
“Okay, no pressure. Who’s this?” she asks with a gesture toward me.
Audrey swings unseeing eyes my way. For a heartbreaking moment, she doesn’t react.
Her pupils shrink as she realizes the depths of her snafu. She squeezes my hand in apology for forgetting I came with her and forces herself to take a deep breath.
“He’s my mom’s stepson,” she tells the nurse before piercing my soul with dread-filled eyes.
“You haven’t seen her in thirteen years, have you? Let’s go in,” she mumbles.
Alarm bells ring in my head.
“Audrey, what—”
She ducks her head and stomps into the room, hauling me in after her, but stops halfway across the floor as though she ran headfirst into a brick wall. She trembles from head to toe but lifts her gaze off the linoleum.
Rose, the bodyguard I hired, sits on the far side of the bed listening with faux raptness to my ex-stepmother. Daphne Tripp beams as she speaks, patting their joined hands as though they’ve been friends for years.
“Oh look, we have visitors,” Rose announces.
Daphne turns.
Every trace of kindness disappears from her expression as she recognizes Audrey. Hate twists her features.
“You filthy bitch.”
Audrey’s hand becomes an icicle in my grip. Shock roots me in place.
“Who let this whore into my room? Get her out before she kills someone else!” Daphne screams and throws the tissue box from her bedside table.
Audrey doesn’t dodge. The cardboard bounces off her thigh and skids across the floor.
Anger breaks my shackles. I step in front of her, shielding her with my body.
Daphne startles and looks at me for the first time. Her eyes widen. Tears stream down her face.
“Oh, Brennan, I’m so sorry! I tried so hard to give you a real baby sister, but that jealous little harlot ruined everything. Get away from her before she murders you, too.”
Audrey’s small, defeated voice from behind me breaks my heart.
“Mom, I didn’t—”
“Don’t call me that, home wrecker! I’m not your mom. I was never your mom. I hate you! Hate you!”
I grab Audrey by the shoulders and march her out of the room as her mother spews worse and worse vitriol at her.
When my baby doll’s knees give out before we reach the elevator, I scoop her up and carry her down the stairs, out through the lobby, and across the parking lot. She rests her head against my shoulder until I settle us both in the backseat of my car.
“Audrey, what happened?”
She reaches for the door handle. I capture her wrist and hold her in place with the slightest pressure.
“Let me go. Let me be the first to leave this time.”
Her voice sounds hollow.
“I’m never letting you go, even if you did kill someone,” I say.
She swings cold, skeptical eyes at me.
“What if I killed your real baby sister?”
My heart thuds against my sternum as dread pulses through me. I don’t want to believe what both she and her mother have implied.
“You’re my only sister,” I say.
She shakes her head.
“I’m not. Three years after you left, your dad got my mom pregnant. I killed her the day we found out it was a girl.”
I pull her wrist into my lap and frame her face with my hands.
“You would’ve only been fifteen years old. How could you have killed an unborn baby?”
“I left them.”
The implications behind her words slice through me. All the times she cursed me for leaving her held a horrible hidden meaning. She was hating herself more than she hated me.
“Left them where? With whom? Why? How is it your fault when you were still just a kid?”
She shifts her gaze over my shoulder and shrugs. I curse and give her a gentle shake.
“Don’t pull away from me. Tell me what happened,” I demand.
Her chest expands on a long inhale, but when she finally exhales and turns her attention to my face, her eyes seem as lifeless as a porcelain doll’s.
Even as I recognize her robotic cadence and tone as the coping mechanisms they are, my soul aches as she recalls what must have been hell on earth.
“Donald was working late, so my mom went to her prenatal appointment alone. He came in while I was doing homework. I broke a vase over his head and ran away. Even though my feet bled all over the sidewalk, I didn’t go back until hours after he usually left for work.”
She doesn’t need to elaborate. The fury festering in my soul won’t rest until I destroy my father for hurting her. She was only fifteen years old. He’s a sick, disgusting old man who deserves the ass rape I’ll ensure he sees behind bars before he dies.
“I found my mom lying in a pool of blood in the living room. He beat her because I wasn’t there.” I long to stop her flow of words, but horror binds my tongue. “She wouldn’t have lost the baby if I had come home earlier. I should never have left. It was my fault. I ki—”
I seal my mouth over hers and kiss her with the desperation thrumming through my soul. For a few heartbreaking moments, she remains lifeless, but I coax her out of her protective shell with gentle insistence. When she shudders and reanimates, I moan in relief and deepen the kiss.
With sorrow, anger, and self-hatred warring within me, I pull my mouth away and rest my forehead against hers for a few heartbeats as I gather my strength.
“Audrey, you—”
“I know. I’m the monster. Now you’re going to leave.”
I lift my head and meet her eyes.
“No. I’m not,” I promise. “You’re not a monster. You didn’t kill that baby.”
“But—”
“I don’t care what horrible accusations your mother has been beating you down with for the last decade; you did nothing wrong. You’re not a home wrecker. Not a whore. Not a murderer.”
Tears shimmer in her bright green eyes. She swallows.
“You were fifteen. Fifteen. At home. A place that was supposed to be safe.”
I rub my thumbs over her tear-streaked cheeks.
She lowers her lashes and trembles. I pull her chin higher and wait until she opens her eyes again to deliver the truth.
“Donald is the monster. He attacked you. He beat your mother. He left her bloody and broken and went to work. He killed the baby.”
Her breath hitches. She searches my eyes, so I pour my honesty into my words and silently beg her to believe me.
“It wasn’t your fault, baby doll. You did nothing wrong.”
She won’t change her mindset overnight, but I’ll happily remind her every day.
“You were a terrified fifteen-year-old girl. You escaped. You survived. You saved your mother and have been protecting her for ten goddamn years. I’m proud of you and I’ll never let you go. Ever.”
I become her shelter as she falls apart. She honors me with her trust as I gather her onto my lap and wrap her in my arms.
I fall apart with her without shedding a single tear. She has every reason to blame me for leaving her behind. Even though I couldn’t have known how low my father would stoop, I should have taken her with me, societal pressures be damned.
I should have protected and cared for her.
I’ll never be able to right the wrongs she suffered because of me, but I’m damned sure going to try.
Every day. Every minute. Every second.
I’ll devote the rest of my life to her.
I’ll avenge her, her mother, and our half sister who never got to take her first breath.
Audrey Tripp owns my future, my dreams, and my heart. I’m hers. Forever.