Chapter 32 #2
“Brooks was different.” Terra’s voice goes distant and chilling, as though she’s not really here.
“He was kind to me. Protected me. He was my friend first. He was the only one who ever saw me, and I loved him for it. I loved him so much, but then Vivian dragged him on a double date with my slutty excuse for a stepsister, Dahlia. She paraded Dahlia into the picture as though she had every right to be there. But I had him first. He was mine first.” Her voice is downright feral.
Terra blinks rapidly, still digging into her thumb, while her free hand absently reaches for Clover.
I break protocol and move as fast as my legs will carry me to Clover’s side.
“Easy, V,” Roman murmurs in my earpiece.
My hand seeks out Clover’s as bits of a shared past we could have never imagined surface before our eyes.
“Then he chose her.” Terra’s face twists with a decades-old pain. “Your mother,” she sneers at Clover. “She waltzed in with her perfect smile, and he just…chose her. Like I was nothing.”
Something cold slithers down my spine. A whisper of a memory I can’t quite grasp.
“Everyone steals from me. Everyone betrays me,” Terra’s voice is scratchy and cold.
“Vivian and Miriam thought they could save those children from me. From me!” she screams. “Even my own sister chose that bitch Vivian over me. My own flesh and blood. My own DNA drugged me for years because she couldn’t function without me at her side. I’ve never had that problem.”
“The brake lines,” Clover says. “My parents were leaving ROS, leaving you. Again. Their brakes weren’t faulty, were they? You did it. You killed my parents because he didn’t love you the way you wanted him to.”
The cold sensation spreads through my chest, my fingers, burning as though I’m submerged in ice. There’s…something tugging at the edges of my consciousness.
“I gave him chances!” Terra screams, and I instinctively pull Clover and Chief back another few steps.
Sterling scanned the area with a drone for explosives, but that doesn’t mean Terra doesn’t have one on her person.
“Be patient,” Sterling says calmly in my earpiece. “We don’t see any explosives on her, and we’re recording all of this.”
“I waited,” Terra cries. “I built something powerful, well beyond anything my stepfather ever anticipated from me. People needed me. They wanted what I had, so I waited for Brooks to see what he’d missed, showed him, even. But he never came back to me. He had you.”
She points a bloody finger at Clover. “He had his perfect family, and I was still nothing to him. You were supposed to be mine. Mine and Brook’s child. My little girl. Little girls don’t leave their moms. Not like the spawn of devils.”
She’s crying now, years of mourning pouring out.
“So, you just took me?” Clover asks. “I was a replacement for the daughter you never had?”
“You were perfect. Brooks’s daughter. If I couldn’t have him, I could have you.” Terra’s voice takes on a dangerous edge. “But then she ruined that too. Vivian poisoned Valen against me. You ran from me after everything I gave you.”
“I was a child,” Clover says quietly. “We were both children, Terra. You manipulated and bullied us until you got your way. That’s not love, it’s not even kindness, it’s just plain selfish. You tried to destroy us because you couldn’t handle being unloved.”
Sadness drains from Terra’s eyes, replaced with something dark and cruel.
“You want to hate me, my bloom?” Her voice drops to a poisonous whisper. “You want to blame me for your parents’ death?”
“You killed them,” Clover says calmly, as though she’s stating a fact she’s always known.
Lights flash before my eyes. Half-second screengrabs that play out of order. They dance before my vision, and I sway on my feet.
Oh. God.
More memories come. Harder, faster, crueler than before.
“No.” Terra’s sneer cuts open the tether of my mind. “I didn’t.”
Ice explodes across my body.
I know what she’s about to say. Somewhere deep inside, in a place I’ve kept locked away for twenty years now, I know.
“Your precious Valen did.”
The world stops.
Me at eight years old, wanting more than anything to make my mother proud.
Terra standing beside a car I don’t recognize.
Me sliding underneath it with her while she guides my hands this way and that.
“What?” Clover’s voice is barely more than a breath.
“He was such an eager little boy.” Terra’s mocking eyes lock onto mine.
“So desperate to please his mother. I told him it was a game, that we were playing a trick on an old friend.” She cackles, and I flinch.
“He didn’t even think twice when given the opportunity to gain my favor.
” Her sick smile widens. “But it was his hands that cut that brake line, not mine.”
The ground moves below my feet.
No.
No, no, no, no—
“Valen.” Whatever Chief was about to say is drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears.
A lifetimes’ worth of memories blast through me.
Not a trickle. Not fragments. A flood that crashes through the walls of my mind.
“It’s just a game, Valen. We’re going to play a trick. He’ll think his car is broken, and we’ll all laugh.”
“The new friend won’t be mad I touched it? Aunt Vivi said I shouldn’t touch other people’s stuff.”
“I’m not Aunt Vivi,” Terra screams in my face.
“That’s it, sweetheart. Just cut that tube right there. Good boy. Such a good boy.”
I was so proud. Terra had even hugged me.
Then we had a new guest in Terra’s special room. I wasn’t allowed upstairs the rest of that summer.
That’s when she turned Calla into Clover while convincing me the entire “car prank” was a dream.
I’m going to be sick.
“Valen,” Clover’s voice sounds far away. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
This is the weight I’ve carried every day since.
More memories crash through, squeezing my head in a vice. It’s too much all at once. I have a job to do. Protect Clover. But I can’t even see her through the blurry haze of memories.
Clover crying under our tree.
Terra’s terrifying smile.
The nightmares I couldn’t escape.
The feeling that followed me everywhere—knowing I’d done something unforgivable.
The night we ran. Clover’s hand in mine as we fled through the trees.
The promise I made her—that I’d never let anyone hurt her again.
But I was already the one who’d hurt her the most, and I didn’t even know it.
I’m on my knees. When did I fall? The ground is cold beneath me, but I can’t stand. I can’t even think.
I killed them.
I killed Clover’s parents.
Everything I’ve built—Styx and Stone, my reputation, my entire identity—was founded on protecting people. Saving them.
I told myself it was my purpose. I told myself it was because I cared.
But it was never a purpose.
It was penance.
My whole life, I’ve been running from this.
“Valen, please. I need you to get up.” There’s a demand in Clover’s tone as Chief attempts to help me rise, but it’s as though I’ve forgotten how my limbs work.
“We have to move, son. Now,” Chief says, his fear registering in the back of my mind. It’s what has me blinking hard as Terra inches her way closer, but I still can’t move.
Every person I saved was supposed to balance the scales. Every rescue, every extraction, every life pulled back from the brink. If I saved enough people, maybe the heaviness in my chest would lift.
But it was never enough. It could never be enough, because you can’t save your way out of being a killer.
“This is what haunted you at night,” Terra says, almost gently.
“I always wondered if you made the connection. Vivian certainly did. She was always trying to ruin every good thing in my life. That’s when I knew.
Clover was the key to keeping you, to hurting Vivian the way she always hurt me.
I just didn’t expect you to be so fucking weak.
Always worried about other people. Protecting Clover like it was your damn job. ”
She’s right. I’ve felt protective of Clover since the moment I first saw her.
“Valen, please get up,” Clover pleads, her voice is closer now. My memories are reorganizing and categorizing themselves in my mind as if they were never missing.
Her hand reaches toward me, but I flinch away as if she burned me.
She can’t touch me. Not now. Not when these hands—the hands that held her, cradled her face, traced her skin—are the same hands that killed her mother and father.
“Don’t.” My voice is a ragged whisper. “Don’t touch me.”
The hurt that flashes across her face nearly kills me.
She doesn’t listen. She’s not retreating. She’s not rebuilding walls. Even now, even with this impossible truth between us, she’s still reaching for me.
“Valen.” Her voice cuts through the static in my head. “Look at me.” I force my eyes to meet hers, expecting hatred, preparing for the pain I’ll find.
Instead, I see tears—and beneath them, understanding.
“Useless,” Terra snarls. I’ve lost track of her. My one job and I’m failing. Again.
“You were eight years old,” Clover whispers. “You were a child. She used you, just like she used me.” She cradles my face, and even though every instinct screams that I don’t deserve her touch, I can’t pull away. “We’re both victims, Valen. Both of us.”
“Get up, son,” Chief mumbles again.
The sob that tears from my chest doesn’t sound human. She’s offering me grace I don’t deserve.
“I’m so sorry,” I choke out. “I’m so fucking sorry, Clover. I would take it back. I would give anything—” My voice breaks, turning raw and bleeding.
She pulls my forehead to hers, and we sit there, both of us shattered, both of us somehow still here.
“Roman. Now. Move now.” My voice is broken gravel, cutting on each word.
I’m the reason Clover is an orphan.
She thought if she stayed small enough, hidden enough, controlled enough, she’d be safe.
I thought if I saved enough people, protected enough, that maybe I’d earn my place in this world. That maybe I’d finally get rid of the weight that was suffocating me.