17. Scarlet
17
SCARLET
T his is almost as bad as being kidnapped.
Almost as bad as hearing what he did to Aspen and Q.
This is an atomic bomb compared to mere fireworks. It’s left me trembling, hugging my knees to my chest while I try in vain to wrap my head around it.
An older brother? Immediately, I go back through the years, searching my memory for a single reference to a brother. Not once has Luna mentioned one, and I know Ren hasn’t. That’s the sort of thing a person would remember.
Like the fact that he grew up in a cult. So that’s what Safe Haven is? I remember hearing Dad and Uncle Roman talking about it when I was a little kid, but it was the kind of thing where they’d instantly go silent as soon as I entered the room. And let’s face it. It’s not like I was paying strict attention. I was too young to care.
Ren hasn’t said a word yet. He’s too busy observing me like I’m a zoo exhibit. If I didn’t know better, I’d accuse him of joking.
Nobody jokes about something like this. It would be too sick.
As sick as injecting you with something to knock you out?
“I’ve shocked you,” he murmurs. There’s no emotion behind it. Why should there be? He’s only speaking facts.
“Yes. You did. I had no idea you had an older brother.”
“Yes, his name is River. Now you understand why I did what I did.”
Record scratch. “No, I don’t. I want to—you have no idea how much I want to.”
I lean in, reaching across the table for him. He’s still standing in front of the sink, though, and my gesture does nothing to bring him closer. “Ren. I’m here. I want so much to understand. I’m on your side.”
When all he does is stare blankly. What was he expecting? I ask, “What else can you tell me? What do you mean when you say my dad lied? What did he lie about?”
His jaw tightens as he lowers his brow, arms slowly folding in front of him. “He said the cult was destroyed, disbanded, whatever. But that’s obviously not true. He didn’t have what it took to stop them for good, and then he lied about it.”
“So you hurt Aspen and Q because my dad lied?”
“No. I didn’t want to hurt her. It wasn’t me at all. It was…” He sighs. “It was River.”
“River? How the hell did he get into Corium without anyone noticing?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me every little detail of his life.” My eyebrows draw together. There is something odd about the way he talks about River. Something I can’t quite put my finger on yet.
“But you knew about it?”
“Not before it happened. But I knew right after.”
“Why?” Even though his body language screams at me to back off, I can’t shut down the stream of questions bubbling up in my mind.
“Because they were getting too close.”
“Too close to what?”
Ren presses his lips into a thin line. I know he doesn’t want to talk about this, but I can’t let it go. “Let’s start at the beginning. Who is this brother of yours? Does anybody else know about him?”
“We’re not talking about him right now.”
“I’m just curious.” No, it’s more than that. We were supposed to have something real, something true, something meant to last. Yet he couldn’t tell me he has a brother? I didn’t rank high enough to hear about him? It’s the bitterness of feeling like I didn’t matter enough that makes me ask, “Where is he? Does he live nearby?”
He turns slowly away from me, opening the cabinet under the sink. “We are not talking about this. Not until I say it’s time.”
“So what do we get to talk about? I want to help you.”
“Stop asking questions then,” he mutters as he goes through whatever is under there. As if that’s important at a time like this. What, is he going to scour the sink while we talk about the cult he grew up in that I’ve never heard anything about until now? Yet another thing he couldn’t share with me.
Does this make me selfish? Maybe a little.
But I’m only human.
And there I was, thinking he was back in my life. Willing—eager—to dismiss the fact he kidnapped me, all because it means we at least get to be together. And being together is all I’ve cared about for so long.
I’ve been willing to forget that. To ignore what he did to my family.
And for what? To find out there’s so much he chose to hide?
Even now, when he’s the one who brought it up, there’s still so much I’m not good enough to hear about?
“I only want to be a part of your life,” I whisper, trembling, staring at the back of his head. What is he thinking? “Why won’t you let me in? Why are you pushing me away?”
All at once, he straightens up, swinging around to face me. “Enough!”
Sirens begin wailing in my head.
I went too far.
But the thing about going too far is you never know you’ve done it until it’s too late, and there’s no going back.
There’s no going back now; that much is for sure.
Not when he looks like he wants to kill me.
The rage written all over his face freezes me to my core. Gone is the warmth and tenderness from earlier. All that’s left is a hard, blank look in his eyes. There isn’t even a scrap of desire in them. There’s only resentment. Even hatred.
“Ren?” I whisper. No, it’s more of a burst of air coming out of me all at once and shaping itself into his name.
“I fucking warned you, didn’t I?” He lunges for the table, and I let out a high-pitched shriek when his palms slam against it. “Didn’t I?”
“Yes.” I half sob, gripped by terror that only tightens its hold when he grabs the edge of the table and flips it to the side, sending it flying against the refrigerator. I jump, screaming, covering my ears against the crash.
“You push, and you push, and then you have the nerve to sit there and act afraid.” Before I can react, he’s on me, his hands wrapped around my arms, hauling me out of the chair. “Like none of it is your fucking fault. Poor Scarlet, the victim.”
I can barely hear him over the rapid beating of my heart. This is all wrong. This is not the Ren I know. “Why are you doing this?”
“Oh, right.” He squeezes my arms until tears spring to my eyes. “Now you’ll cry about it when you’re the one who started this with your stupid fucking questions.”
“You’re hurting me,” I whimper, which only makes him squeeze harder. Not the reaction I wanted. Since when does he hurt me worse instead of stopping in his tracks?
“You think that’s worth crying about?” He bares his teeth in a snarl that leaves me shrinking back in fear before he drags me across the living room and back into the bedroom.
Oh my god. What’s he going to do to me? Usually, the idea of Ren dragging me to bed and throwing me onto it would get my heart racing for a different reason. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve imagined this very thing happening.
Except the situation was different in my fantasies.
In my fantasies, I wasn’t scared out of my mind.
He wasn’t staring down at me like he wished he’d never set eyes on me.
Like he wanted me dead.
“Why are you doing this?” My words fall on deaf ears, obviously, since he’s not paying a bit of attention while using what he fished out from under the sink: a length of rope, rough and thick, which he wraps around my wrists and cinches tight.
“Won’t listen…I fucking told him so,” he grunts, yanking my arms up by my bound wrists, tying the end of the rope to the bed frame.
What the hell does he mean by I told him so? Is he talking about River?
“What else am I supposed to do?” he growls.
It’s just like before, when I first got here, only worse. I was scared then, but he wasn’t acting this way. Enraged, full of hate.
“Well?” he demands, turning the full heat of his glare on me. “Tell me. What am I supposed to do with you?”
“I-I don’t know.”
A dismayed moan stirs in my throat when he takes hold of my jaw and digs his fingers in. “You don’t know? What the fuck do you know? Huh? What are you good for?”
He presses my cheeks until my lips pucker, so it’s not like I can say anything, even if I had the first idea of what he wants from me. I shouldn’t have pushed him like I did. I should’ve let it go and waited until he was ready to talk.
“Nothing.” He shoves my head away before standing up straight, his chest heaving, his cold eyes staring holes into me. I can’t hide from those eyes. Even when I close my own, turning my head away and bracing myself for whatever’s coming next, I can still see him. He’s burned into my memory, half of his face cast in shadow, his eyes so empty.
He would never hurt me.
He sure looks like he wants to right now.
Is he capable of controlling himself?
Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut?
It isn’t his heavy breathing I hear next or any ugly words. I hold my breath, waiting. Please, don’t break your promise.
He doesn’t.
I exhale slowly, as silently as possible, when his footsteps ring out. Once he’s out of the room, I shudder in relief before my muscles begin to relax.
Not my arms or wrists, sadly. I thought the belt was uncomfortable? The rope is much worse, biting into my skin. Every slight twitch is punishment, chafing until I suck in a pained gasp.
That’s nothing compared to the agony in my head and heart. Why did he do this? Why go this far?
Because I wasn’t about to shut up, for one thing. Obviously, talking about what happened to him when he was a kid is a huge deal. He’s never breathed a word of it to me before now, not because he didn’t care, but because it hurts too much.
And all I could do was keep picking at him, asking questions, demanding. The lantern glows beside me, the flame dancing and jumping enough to make shadows dance on the walls. Shadows full of foreboding. Fear.
A sob begins to build in my chest. I pushed him to this. No, leaving me this way isn’t right. But if he’s never told anybody about his experience, and I was the first person he trusted, how else was he supposed to react?
A cult. What kind , I wonder? I’ve seen too many investigative shows and listened to too many podcasts because a range of ugly images instantly pops into my head. How did I not hear more about this? I wish I had been old enough to understand.
Yet another secret Dad and Uncle Roman kept. I sometimes wonder how they sleep at night with so much weight on their shoulders.
So Ren and Luna came from a cult. Nobody would ever guess it if they met Luna now. She’s nothing but sunshine.
Until now, I wouldn’t have believed it of Ren, either. He always seemed so normal. He had his darkness, sure, like Q. Like me, even.
But nothing about this is normal. This is not a normal reaction.
I’m in no position to help him through his memories; that much is for sure. I’m no trained therapist, and this is too personal for me. I can’t be quietly encouraging when it feels like everything is on the line. His happiness, his peace, our future together.
Obviously, I need to take it easy from now on. No more pushing for answers. I can’t put myself through this again, but that’s nothing compared to the pain I’ve put him through. I won’t push for what he’s not willing to give. It’s enough to be here, with him, just the two of us. Everything was going so well before we started talking.
Now that my heart doesn’t pound like a bass drum anymore, I hear him out there. It sounds like he’s cleaning up. It sounds like he set the table on its legs again, and soon, I hear the canisters that fell off the top of the fridge getting picked up and set down somewhere. Moments later, the sound of a broom getting dragged across the floor brings up the image of him sweeping.
That’s better than grabbing a knife from the drawer and slicing me to pieces, I guess.
Though I can’t imagine him ever doing something like that. My heart won’t let me entertain the idea, even lying here with my hands going numb. Ren wouldn’t hurt me. He loves me. Look at all the trouble he took to bring me here.
I don’t even know what I’m thinking anymore.
I only know it hurts like hell when I try to get myself free, rubbing my wrists together, twisting them as far as I can. The harder I fight, the tighter and deeper the rope digs in. I’ll break the skin if I’m not careful.
What am I going to do now? How do I get out of this? How do I get through to him—not only for myself but for his sake too? Even more for his sake, come to think of it. I need to bring him back from the dark place I sent him to. I’m supposed to make his life better, right?
I’m not doing a great job of it so far.
The noise outside the bedroom eventually fades to silence. Shit. What’s going to happen now? Only when the bedframe starts trembling do I realize I’m shaking.
What’s he going to do?
How can I convince him to stop?
His feet fall heavy on the floor, the sound getting louder the closer he comes. I press my lips together, turning a whimper into a tight squeak. My chin quivers before tears begin rolling down my cheeks, soaking into my already damp hair.
This is Ren. Why am I crying like this over Ren?
Because I have no idea what he’s capable of. I can’t believe I’m having these thoughts about him.
I flinch, creeping closer to the wall when he enters the room. His cold expression and the lack of light behind his eyes make my body freeze stiff; my heart wedged in my throat. When he reaches for me, I close my eyes tight, bracing for what comes next.
Please, don’t hurt me. Remember, you love me.
Only once he loosens the knot holding me in place am I able to exhale, though his brusque, efficient manner doesn’t give me much hope. It’s like he’s completing a chore he’d rather not be assigned and wants to get it over with quickly. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he would rather leave me this way.
Without a word, he leaves the room again, taking the rope with him. The heavy footfall is the only sound ringing out in the otherwise eerily silent cabin. The sort of silence that can weigh heavy on a girl’s heart. My heart is a lead weight by the time I sit up, stretching my shoulders and arms, then rubbing my sore wrists.
I guess I expected an apology or at least an explanation. I doubt any explanation would make things better. He could at least try. He might need to calm himself further—if that’s the case, he can take all the time he needs.
I’ll wait for the pins and needles sensation in my arms and shoulders to ease in the meantime. I have to grit my teeth to get through it without making a sound. I’m that afraid to upset him.
The old me, before he disappeared from my life, would never believe it. Being afraid to make even the tiniest sound around Ren, of all people.
Then there’s been a lot about this experience I find difficult to believe.
I don’t know how much time passes, each minute dragging out until the tension is enough to tear my heart to pieces. There’s no way of knowing what he expects, whether I should leave the room or stay put. I’m afraid no matter what choice I make, it’ll be the wrong one.
His sudden appearance in the doorway leaves me flinching like a hand-shy dog. He notices, too, his features pinching in concern. “What’s wrong?”
At first, all I can do is blink, certain I must’ve misheard. The concern is still there, now tinged with confusion. He’s confused?
He is, and he’s waiting for an answer. I don’t know what he expects after what he did. How cruel he was.
That cruelty is gone now, replaced by the sweetness of the Ren I believed I knew. Whose secrets run deeper than I could’ve possibly imagined.
“Nothing’s wrong.” I even force a tight smile rather than risk setting him off again. “Resting. That’s all.”
I absentmindedly rub a sore spot on my wrist, drawing his gaze toward it.
“I did put you through it, didn’t I?” The playful tone in his voice and the twinkle in his eye tells me he’s referring to the vibrator and everything else surrounding it. If it wasn’t for the dull ache between my thighs, I might have forgotten all about it in the face of his sudden change in demeanor.
“You did.”
He chuckles on his way to the bed, where he sits before placing a hand on my leg. “I’ll take it easier on you next time. Maybe.”
I hope he does, even if it’s clear we’re talking about two different things.
There’s no understanding these mood swings and how he goes from hot to cold and back again. If I had my phone, I would research bipolar disorder right now. That’s the only explanation I can come up with at the moment. Or maybe it’s a bad habit he’s gotten into over time. Could he be unaware of the way he acts? Maybe he has been alone too long. Being this isolated must have had a bad effect on him.
And I’m afraid to point it out, still stinging from the punishment he doled out.
All I can do is cover his hand with mine and wish I understood anything about the person I once believed I knew better than anybody else.