Chapter Thirteen
“Derek!” Jackie gasps at her son. “What on earth has gotten into you?”
“What’s gotten into me? What the fuck has gotten into you? Why do you have this woman in your house?”
“First of all, watch your mouth. Second, it’s none of your business who I have in my house. If you don’t like the company I keep, you should leave.”
If he could shoot fire from his eyes, I’d be a burning pile of ash.
“Do you know who she is?” he hisses.
Jackie folds her arms over her chest. “Of course, I know who Calliope is. She’s just one of the many people your father failed—arguably failed her the most.”
He splutters, shocked to hear her say that. I’ll admit, I’m really beginning to like this woman.
“She ruined his life, and now she’s ruining mine!” he roars. His anger is so palpable that I take a step in front of Jackie, partially covering her body with mine, a stance neither of them misses.
“You think I’d hurt her?”
“I don’t know you, but the encounters I’ve had make me think you don’t like women much, so it’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Derek? What’s she talking about?”
“She killed Dale.”
“Good.”
“Mother!” he yells in shock. I have to stop myself from cackling.
“From what I heard, he broke into her home with a gun in the middle of the night. What if he had broken in here? Would you have been mad at me, too?”
“That’s different.”
“Why? Because I’m your mother?”
“Because you’re not a witch,” he hisses.
Okay, so yeah, not a secret then. Good to know.
“Derek Simon Andrews! I cannot believe what I am hearing. I did not raise my son to be a prejudiced fool.”
“No, you like to bury your head in the sand and pretend the world is full of sunshine and rainbows. Dad was the realist. He taught me everything I know, thank fuck.”
Jackie’s emotions beat at me like a rainstorm against a greenhouse roof. I’ve been picking up other people’s emotions far easier than usual, but the strength of this surprises me. Perhaps it’s because she knows who and what I am, so she’s left herself wide open to me.
“Did he teach you to tie your shoelaces or say thank you? Did he teach you how to be kind and respectful? No, I did. Though clearly, I didn’t do a very good job. I’ve never been more ashamed of you than I am right now.”
Derek flinches, but instead of apologizing, he doubles down.
“She’s a murderer and a con artist. She doesn’t give a shit about whose lives she wrecks, and that’s why she’s here.
You’re just too blind to see it. Maybe it’s time we look for a facility for you.
You’re obviously losing your mind if you think any of this is okay. ”
The pain that lashes through her might as well have been my own. It steals my breath for a moment before anger, bright and hot, rushes through my blood.
Before I can speak, Jackie does. Her voice is barely above a whisper, but the sound of it, so hurt and sad, holds the same impact as if she’d screamed it.
“Martin Hart abused his daughter every day of her life, and your father stood by and watched it happen. He happily took Martin’s money to buy his silence, but truth be told, he’d have done it for free.
He became sheriff because he liked the power.
Not because he wanted to help people. I get loving a father despite their flaws, but you’re too much like him to see that he was not a good man. ”
“She’s working her voodoo on you,” Derek hisses, his eyes wild.
“I wish she were, then I might not feel my heart break.”
He turns his venomous eyes toward me. Before he can speak, I do.
“The last time I spoke to your father, he commented on my clumsiness while ordering more face cream for his wife. My lip was dripping with blood, my eyes bruised and swollen, and my cheek torn open from a ring. If by clumsy he meant repeatedly running into my father’s fist, then I guess he was right.
The last time he spoke to me was when he arrested me for my father’s murder.
I was drugged, beaten, and bleeding heavily between my legs where I’d been raped, and he shoved me angrily into the back of a squad car.
The only reason I ended up at the hospital instead of a cell was that one of the rookies disobeyed his order and took me to the hospital for medical attention.
When he arrived, she stared him down and quit before he could fire her. ”
Jackie cries out at my words, her shock battering at me along with her son’s temper.
“I didn’t really know what was happening, where I was, or even that I’d been arrested.
All I could think about was the pain and the violation.
I still had my attacker’s cum smeared across my thighs, but not a single person thought to have it tested.
Nobody cared that a sixteen-year-old girl had been violently raped, only that a mean, vicious bully was dead.
Mike might have been your father, but he was just another monster to me, and I can see the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. ”
His chest is heaving, and his eyes are wild as he looks around the room as if he’s never seen it before. “If any of that were true, you wouldn’t have killed Dale.”
“I don’t need you to believe me. The facts were recorded.
I was drugged and assaulted. That was the only reason I got fifteen years instead of life.
It’s a matter of public record. I suspect they never tested for DNA evidence because they didn’t want to paint my father as a monster, which would make convicting me that much harder.
As for Dale, he died of a heart attack after breaking into my home in the dead of night with a gun.
He didn’t pop around for coffee and a chat.
But you’re more concerned that he’s dead than I assume you would have been if the body you found had been mine.
“He wasn’t expecting me to be in the living room, or to turn the light on, or to scream in his face in surprise, but I refuse to be sorry for being scared.
If he had succeeded, my death would have been far more violent than his.
Perhaps he would have taken his shot fucking me too.
After all, up until then, I’d only been used once.
He’d know that. He’d be thinking she’d be nice and tight.
It would be a shame to waste that. Maybe, he’d wait until he killed me before he had his wicked way with my corpse.
Some guys are into that.” I shake my head in disgust.
“You wish he’d killed me, don’t you? Even knowing what he had planned. You’d have felt sympathy for the guy because I’m just the woman who ruins people’s lives.”
I’m panting by the time I’m done, and the room is blanketed in silence. Even Derek seems frozen in shock until a hand reaches around him and pins him to the wall by his throat.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t end you now?” Austin seethes.
“Fuck.”
How did I forget he was outside? He’d have seen Derek pull up.
And though he’s likely oblivious to what went down between him and me, he must have heard enough just now to piss him the hell off.
He knows I can take care of myself. I could wipe the floor with Derek easily.
I’m just wary that he’s Jackie’s son. And though her heart is breaking with the knowledge of what kind of man her son has become, he’s still her baby.
“Austin.”
His head whips around, his eyes locking on mine. “He hurt you.”
“No. His words don’t mean shit, and he never laid a hand on me.”
“He wants to. I can smell the violence on him. He wants to make you bleed because he knows you’re right. You’re forcing him to look in a mirror, and he can’t stand the man he’s become.”
“Then let him go and leave him to his misery.”
“No. Why should I? He wants to hurt you, Cece. Let me show him how it’s done. I can make it quick. He won’t even know he’s dead before his soul slips away. Or I can drag it out, make it hurt so bad, he’ll beg me for death.”
That saying—the lights are on, but nobody’s home?
Yeah, I feel like I’m having one of those moments.
Only while no one was home, a demon moved in.
This is the version of Austin he kept hidden from me, the one everyone else is afraid of.
And yet, fear is not what I’m feeling right now.
I walk toward him, making a mental note about looking for a therapist for all my mental issues, as I move into his space.
I slide my hand into Austin’s free one, realizing he’s wearing a pair of metal knuckle dusters.
Shit, this could get really ugly, really fast. Derek is turning a pretty shade of purple.
Though the darkness in me wants to smile with glee as the light fades from his eyes, this isn’t the way.
“Let him go, Austin.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“What are you, five? Put him down right now and give me these...” I tug on the metal so he knows what I’m talking about. “…And maybe, just maybe, we can revisit what happened earlier.”
He tilts his head, his eyes moving over my face. I’d like to say I can get a read on him, but his expression is frighteningly blank. Eventually, he releases Derek, who drops to the ground with a sickening thud.
Austin crowds me, his hands moving to my hips as his forehead meets mine. He doesn’t say anything. He breathes me in, using me to find his balance. I let him. He’s too far gone to pull himself out of the darkness alone.
“Time to go,” I tell him softly.
He doesn’t argue. He slides the dusters off and slips them into the front pocket of my skirt before taking my hand and tugging me down the hall.
I look back at Jackie. She has her hands over her mouth, her eyes on Derek, who is coughing on the floor.
As if sensing my gaze on her, she looks up and offers me a reassuring nod.
Go, she mouths before holding her hand to her heart, telling me she holds no anger toward me.
Or at least that’s how I’m choosing to read it.