29 Everett
October 29th, 2022
I was tethered to the world again.
It seemed silly, how relieved I had felt waking up to find a collar. It seemed absolutely ridiculous that something so small brought such tears to my eyes, even after the crying I had done last night, but I couldn’t help it.
And it wasn’t just a collar, a new one at that, but cuffs too.
Cuffs to hide the marring. Cuffs to further tie me down, to hold me in place while I tried to figure out where the Hell I was supposed to go now.
I had cuffs, a collar, paper roses, a bathroom filled with self-care things, and a fridge filled with good food.
I had a dog who wouldn’t leave my side, other than to go to the bathroom, and a mouse who loved me.
Was this healing?
The realizations that I wasn’t doing it alone? Was that what healing was?
I still felt that darkness in my soul.
I still felt the monster growling against my bones.
I still didn’t feel safe.
But at least I was tethered.
At least I had a giraffe named Rover to join me for breakfast this morning.
Evelyn and Emily were both gone this morning, although my phone was filled with texts from both, assuring me they’d come over soon.
I couldn’t believe they were still wanting to come over. Didn’t they have jobs? A publishing company to run and people to kill? I thought Evelyn had to remain with Everett so he didn’t go full maniac. So, if she was here, did that mean he was out there somewhere, slaughtering and maiming without a tether of his own to hold him down?
I felt a thread of guilt grow in my gut. I needed to tell Evelyn to join him. To make sure he wasn’t losing it just because I was lost in my own mind. I had my tether now, she needed to go be his.
I had the television on loud, and I had positioned myself to be able to stare out the window, Rover sitting across from me, Lucy beside me, and Merlin in front of my bowl of cereal, as I ate at the table.
Still too silent, but better than nothing.
I wasn’t alone here.
I chewed slowly as I watched Merlin eat one of the puffs I had given him. “I want to rearrange everything,”
I told him quietly. My voice was no longer raspy, but it still didn’t sound like my own. “I want to redecorate, change everything. What do you think? I need something to match what I am now, right? Something not so…”
I glanced towards the living room, taking in the dark blue walls and the patterned gray rug. “Blue.”
It had been something I had been thinking about since the day I came back. Today, I was finally feeling like I was getting my energy back, so maybe I would go to the store and pick out some things.
Or maybe I would get online and order some things. Yeah, that sounded like a better idea.
Merlin paused and looked up, squeaking once.
Lucy’s ears perked.
I almost felt myself smile, but it wasn’t quite strong enough to get there.
“Maybe—”
but my words were cut off when the door opened.
My heart skipped a beat, and I leaned back in my chair, immediately looking at Lucy, every muscle in my body tight.
Her ears folded back, her nostrils flaring, the snarl already on her lips, only to pause a moment later. She sniffed the air and her ears perked, her own body relaxing.
My eyes lifted to the kitchen doorway, and a second later, Everett walked around the corner.
My eyes widened. Fuck.
I swallowed and looked down at my cereal. I hadn’t prepared for this. I hadn’t focused enough, I hadn’t breathed. What if I still couldn’t talk to him? What if the monster broke out? What if all he saw was what those men did to me and nothing else? I couldn’t change that. I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix anything, all I could do was fuck everything up and not talk and not breathe and not—
“Hello, pup.”
The words silenced everything.
I worked my jaw, stirring the cereal, suddenly not hungry. He was here. Weeks of not seeing him, of not hearing him, and he was finally here. Finally deigning my life in his arrogant light.
“I’m taking you out today,”
he told me, pulling my eyes up to his.
Icy blue and chilling, unwavering, just like they always were.
“We’re hunting down someone in the city,”
he explained. “A debt that this person refuses to pay. We’re going to take care of it. So, get dressed.”
What? After weeks of nothing, he thought he could just walk into my house and tell me that we were leaving? Where had he been all this time? Where was he when I was in that room?
Everett’s eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “You’re angry?”
His eyes softened. “No, irritated. It’s an emotion, that’s good. You’re doing good, Olivia.”
And despite my anger towards him, I felt my heart skip at his little ounce of praise.
I worked my jaw and pulled my hands into my lap, looking at Merlin instead. Fuck him. He broke his word, didn’t he? He had left. I know what the others had said, what Emily had said, but they had to be lying. Everett wouldn’t waste his time sitting by my bedside, and if he did, I would have seen him. I would have remembered him, I know I would have.
He had left.
If he ever came to visit at all.
“Was it the collar I put on you last night or Baily’s visit that helped you start feeling again?”
My breath caught, my eyes finding his again. He put on…
I had always been able to feel. Always, but I was suddenly unable to control it less, that was all. It was fine, so long as the anger didn’t come out, everything would be fine.
But there was no one who brought out my anger like he did.
When I didn’t respond, he gestured to the door again. “Let’s go.”
I searched his eyes. It wasn’t quite an order. His words were softer than that. It was almost like a suggestion he was hoping I would take. Should I take it?
Spending the day with Everett?
I glanced at Lucy, her eyes on me.
It would be dangerous, spending so much time with him knowing what he did to me, but what else would I do? Sit here and shop online? Sit here and sit in this feeling?
Maybe going with him was the best option.
“We’re taking the Chevelle,”
he told me as if thinking that’s what I was worried about. The bike.
But it wasn’t that, it was so much deeper.
I should go. Not just for me but for him. For Lucy. Maybe even for Merlin.
I found his eyes for only a moment before I pushed myself to a stand. This had to be the best option. It had to be. I picked up Merlin, and headed for the doorway, leaving my bowl on the table and Rover in his spot.
My heart beat louder the closer I got to him. I could smell him. The real him, not just the smell of his clothes, but him. I could smell our time in the woods. Our time in the park. The memories slammed into me like a train that I needed to stop. I had to stop it.
But I remembered how his touch felt. Good and firm. Sometimes gentle, but mostly secure. His grip on me never wavered. It never faltered. Not once, not even a little.
A warmth spread across my skin, my breathing picking up, my steps slowing as I reached that large doorway.
I found myself slowing against my will, and finally pausing right beside him, my eyes closing of their own accord, my throat closing as I stood in his presence. In his death aura. The aura I thought would come find me if I was just patient enough.
The aura I had counted on.
Seconds ticked. “Please talk to me,”
I heard him say suddenly, his voice a low whisper of a plea. “Please, pup.”
I worked my jaw, tears burning my eyes. I couldn’t. I just…I couldn’t, not yet. Not until I fixed this. Not until I could get rid of the crack those people had widened within me.
It took more strength than I cared to admit to walk away from him.
I still couldn’t close the door behind me, so I ordered Lucy to guard the door while I changed into a pair of joggers, a tank top, and his hoodie. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and pulled on some shoes before finally heading back into the hallway, ready to do whatever it was he wanted me to do, Merlin secure on my shoulder.
Everett was waiting at the door, his eyes unreadable. “Is Merlin going to be secure up there?”
Merlin’s little grip was as unwavering as his was supposed to be.
I stopped in front of him, watching him carefully.
He searched my eyes before nodding. “Then let’s go.”
He led the way to the car, letting Lucy in the back before letting me in the passenger seat, closing the door behind me.
I settled back in the seat, staring out my window. This was good, this would be healthy. I would get out, get some sun, maybe heal a little more. I was making good progress, I was sure of it.
I was sure.
We drove to an apartment building in the middle of the city. The sidewalks filled with people, the streets with cars. I wasn’t too worried about the amount of people there were. This was Everett’s job. He knew how to get away with murder. He had done it hundreds of times.
He pulled the car over and shut it off, sliding on his mask with ease. “You don’t have to wear a mask, he’ll be dead in an hour,”
he told me, but made no move to get out.
I watched the people walking by, living their daily lives, and wondered what they would think of us when we got out. A man in a mask, dressed like he was heading to a photoshoot, and a woman with a bright pink collar around her neck, littered in scars with a mouse on her shoulder and a wolf on her right side.
I certainly wouldn’t be blending in. Not even a little bit.
“It’s powerful, you know,”
Everett began quietly. “Knowing that they fear you.”
I looked over, finding his eyes, the chill gone for something else. Something deeper. He was watching them too, reading my mind like he always had, as if no time had passed at all.
“I know you always had this persona of this woman of sunshine and light,”
he went on, finding my eyes. “Kindness and goodness radiating from you, but you’ve always had fire in there too. That’s what I saw in you the day I first saw you, despite my denials. You were my own personal sun, made of molten lava, lighting up my world in a way no one else ever had. You, Olivia, have always been fierce. Just because it feels different now, doesn’t mean it is. Your voice doesn’t have to be the only power you have left. You have more. You’ve always had more.”
My face twisted as I watched him, his words falling into me like fucking…bullets.
I turned away from him, glaring at the road, trying to decipher what I was feeling, trying to understand the emotions pushing against my skin.
God, I hated this. I hated whatever was wrong with me. I hated that I couldn’t figure out how to fix it.
I wanted to fix it.
I needed to fix it.
“Are you angry, pup?”
I felt a breathlessness fill me at his sentiment. At his voice. Low and sultry. Ever the same. If I had not just seen the look on his face, I might have believed he was the same as he always had been.
Fuck! What was his goal with this? To make me feel worse? To make me feel like I was the problem? I knew I was the problem! I was fucking trying! I was trying! But I didn’t know how to push through this without—
My heart started pounding way too fast, my hands clenching into fists.
I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to swallow it down, trying to control it. No, not here. Please, please don’t do this.
“I don’t know how to help you,”
he confessed, his voice low as if this were a secret he was worried the ghosts of this world would overhear. “But I’ve been doing a lot of learning since we brought you home, and I know you. I know how you were after you watched Steven die, after you watched us kill that man who attacked you. I’ve spent so much time considering my first steps. Considering every possibility, every outcome, every potential trail we could wander down, and do you know what I’ve learned?”
His voice was a song I had missed more than I missed air. I hadn’t realized how addicted I had become to just that, just his voice, until now. Until I went without it for so long. Fuck, I missed him. I fucking missed him.
“I learned that aftercare can come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes, it can mimic certain things. So long as you feel safe, so long as you feel…calm,”
he decided after a few seconds of humming the word ‘feel’, “it helps. It’s not about what the world sees, it’s about what ultimately helps you. So, before I…enact my little plan, which I hope will help, I’m going to tell you something that I hope might kickstart it.”
My brows pulled together, and after a second, I turned back to him, finding his eyes as cold and chilling as they always had been. Icy blue, endlessness in their depths, a deep-seeded dark hatred swimming within them.
It caused my skin to tighten, staring at him. It caused my heart to stutter and my hand to tighten into my own thigh.
“I hated you, and that is not a lie,”
he told me, my entire body going cold. “For a good…a good two minutes, I felt a deep, unfamiliar kind of hatred towards you when you told me goodbye.”
His entire body was tense, his shoulders tight, his jaw working so tightly, I worried his teeth would crack.
“You selfishly destroyed my only connection to you because you didn’t think I could handle listening to you die.”
I felt it then, that strange burning in my stomach, I felt it spark and flame, burning along my bones, my face twisting, tears filling my eyes as that fog started to work its way towards my eyes.
His eyes widened and then narrowed to slits. “Say it, Olivia. Say it whatever it is that’s burning your tongue. Tell me.”
I watched him carefully, willing my lips to move. Willing myself to do something other than just sit here and take it.
I didn’t want to take it. I wanted him to feel the fear I felt. I needed him to feel it so he could understand how I felt right now.
I shook my head, working my jaw, the words pushing their way up, clawing at my throat. “You fucking asshole,”
I finally breathed out, the world blurring in front of me. “You think I destroyed it so you wouldn’t hear me pleading for mercy from a man you didn’t kill?”
I asked, watching his eyes widen in pure rage. “You fucking idiot, I destroyed it because I couldn’t handle hearing you shatter in my ear when I was doing my best to keep it together. That’s why I destroyed it. I knew I was going to break, I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer, and yeah, while part of me didn’t want you to hear me die, another part of me, a fucked up part of me just didn’t want to hear you shatter completely when I did.
“You, Everett, you don’t fucking break. You have always, always been the ocean that breaks against my cliffs, always. You don’t waver, you don’t…don’t—you don’t…blink, you don’t stumble. You just…you just are. You’re supposed to be a fucking monster. The guy who tortures the girlfriends of men stupid enough to take out a loan with you, but you—”
I shook my head, my hands shaking, my entire body shaking with that thing inside of me.
That’s what I wanted to say.
I wanted to yell at him. Scream those words at him.
I wanted to tell him how much I hated him for not coming like he promised. For not being there when he gave me his word. I wanted him to know that there was something inside of me now that I didn’t understand. As if they were living inside of me now, breathing, and screaming, and clawing, and I couldn’t control it unless I kept my mouth shut.
I needed him to know that it was just him. That it had always been just him. The person who made me feel safe enough to feel, but now I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t feel safe anywhere except for with him, because I wouldn’t be feeling like this if I didn’t, that much I knew.
I couldn’t afford to feel safe around him.
Not yet.
So, all of those words I thought I said, the words I wanted to say, they remained right where they were, on the tip of my tongue, burning me, tasting of ash and ember.
And Everett remained silent, glaring at me, waiting for me to say something I just…I couldn’t. He would never understand why I couldn’t speak. He would never understand why there was this…this rage inside of me turning my blood to crystal and my bones to glass. He couldn’t possibly understand.
It would never make sense to him. I was sure of that. I was positive.
So, I just stared at him, wondering if my face actually held the anger I wanted it to or if I was imagining that too.
And eventually, he gave me a single nod, smoothed out his face, and leaned back in his seat. “I have more patience than you realize, Olivia, and I will give you your time to heal but trust me when I say that it does have bounds. Eventually, you will find those bounds, and I can’t promise what will happen once you cross them.”
With that, he got out of the car.
I swallowed, my heart picking up, my stomach warming at his threat. I was trying. I was. Even if it didn’t look like it, I was doing my very best, but I was so, so tired. I was just…just tired.
He was allowed to feel that anger. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t blame him if he hated me for the rest of his life, but hating me because I destroyed that earpiece? That was rational, that made sense.
He was trying too, I could see that, and I was grateful for the patience he was giving me. I only hoped it was enough to get me through fixing whatever it was that was wrong with me.
He opened the door, allowing me to climb out, and I stepped onto the sidewalk, watching him let Lucy out.
I missed him though. I missed him so much, it physically ached.
He shut the car door and turned towards the building, but my body slid into his path before he could take another step.
I almost forgot how much taller he was than me. A whole head, it seemed.
My eyes locked onto his neck as his throat bobbed, his lips a foot from mine.
I felt the tears burn my eyes as Lucy’s fur brushed against my hand. I stared at his lips, watched them part, felt mine part. I opened my mouth, pleading for the words to fall.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, please help me. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix this, please.”
But nothing came. I so desperately needed to talk, and I couldn’t. I thought I was healing. I thought the shower was me healing. I thought that agreeing to come out here was me healing. I thought that feeling something other than nothing was healing, but I still couldn’t force myself to talk.
This had to be important enough to say. Why wasn’t it important enough to say?
“I’ve learned,”
he finally told me, his words falling from his lips, dusting across my eyes, his voice a low purr in the screaming of my mind. “I can fix this, we both just have to be patient, with each other and ourselves, even when it gets hard.”
I pressed my lips together, swallowing the tears, my hands working at my sides. Just touch him. He won’t hurt you. He would never hurt you in a cruel, mean way. You know that, just…just touch him. Please.
But touching him gave him permission to touch me, and even at the thought, I felt my body lean away from his, and I hated that.
Fuck, I hated it so goddamn much.
“Come on,”
he told me, taking the initiative to step to my side, giving me space as he did, “he’s in room 406.”
I nodded, rolling my shoulders as we headed for the door. Before I could even think about the questions I had, Everett was already answering them.
“He pulled the debt 9 months ago,”
he began on our way to the elevator. “10,000. Small change to us, but we’ve got an image. He made a few payments in the beginning, but then completely stopped about six months ago. Ghosted us. We were busy, had a lot of other people to go after, so he fell to the wayside.”
And why wouldn’t he? $10,000 was chump change to someone who could loan out 4 million.
I straightened. Goddammit. I had completely forgotten about the company. About the loans, about everything.
I frowned. What was I supposed to do about that? What was I supposed to do about the months of writing I lost? They assured me Katie was fine, but was she?
“Your company is taken care of,”
Everett spoke, causing my frown to soften. “The people we hired have been smoothing everything out since the last week of July.”
I felt my shoulders fall an inch, my eyes falling to Lucy. In my mind, it still felt like I was only in the room for a week or two, but it also felt like I had been there for decades. The entire world had kept going. All of it. Even the parts that needed me, it had all just…it kept going.
“My world stopped.”
I turned at his barely audible words, taking in his softened expression.
“My world stopped when you disappeared.”
And for the first time since I met him, I didn’t mind his softness. In fact, I was relieved. Relieved that he was still capable of feeling it even after a lifetime of bad things. Because maybe…maybe if Everett Kingsmen was still capable of being soft, maybe that meant I was too.
I swallowed, turning back to the elevator doors. I worked my jaw against the emotions, but I was relieved that he had felt that. Between he and Lucy, that was enough.
The elevator doors dinged, sliding open. “You can finally see your dog at work,”
Everett told me, letting me into the hall first. “I taught her some new tricks.”
I glanced down at Lucy, her ears perked. She had no idea what was happening yet, but I was curious to see how my girl had changed too. Maybe if I could understand that, I could better understand me.
We headed down the hall to room 406, Everett standing on one side, Lucy, Merlin, and I on the other. “The surrounding people are at work,”
he explained. “But not the person directly above or below.”
I nodded, glancing at his hips, searching for his gun.
“No gun,”
he told me, pulling my eyes back. “Not in buildings like this. There’s too much of a chance for the bullet to go through a wall. The only way out is through the balcony or through the door.”
Oh, he wouldn’t survive a four story drop onto a city sidewalk. At least the chances were low.
“You ready?”
My heart picked up as I found his eyes. Yes, I was ready. Ready to do something other than sit in my sorrow and memories. Ready to help. Even if that meant just observing. I could do it. I was prepared. I gave him a nod and saw a small smile flick one corner off his lips up, pulling my eyes to them.
I couldn’t remember how that felt.
Everett stepped up to the door, less than a foot from me, and knocked a few times.
I heard the footsteps nearing.
“Lucy.”
Lucy straightened, sniffed at my hand a few times, and finally squeezed herself between me and Everett, her ears folding back.
The door opened.
Lucy started growling.
The man’s eyes lifted to Everett’s and widened. “Oh fuck—”
He tried to slam the door, but Everett stopped it with ease, Lucy snaking into the room, snarling.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,”
the guy whimpered, stumbling back a few steps, his hands up.
Everett sauntered in, and I was right behind him, shutting the door quickly behind me. “Do you have our money, Tommy?”
Tommy? God, what a shitty ass name. No character, no aesthetic. Not Tom or Thomas, but Tommy. Not a name I would use in my books, that’s for sure.
“I was going to get it, I swear,”
he tried, his legs hitting the back of his recliner.
Lucy snapped, her fur raised.
Tommy whimpered, trying to get away from the dog.
“That’s our dog,”
Everett hummed tauntingly. “She hasn’t had her daily dose of meat yet today, and she’s been craving it. $10,000 Tommy,” he sang.
“I’ll get you the money, I promise,”
he pleaded. “I lost my job, I didn’t know what to do.”
Everett’s smile turned wicked. “Oh, I don’t like liars, Tommy.”
His eyes widened. “Please, please, I’m sorry, I’ll get your money, I’m sorry.”
I glanced around the room, taking it in. Nice, sort of clean, a normal little apartment filled with normal things. Nothing spectacular, nothing extraordinary.
I walked over to his table, glancing over his things while Everett continued to intimidate him, Lucy’s snarling comforting. There was safety in this room. For me, at least.
Certainly not for Tommy.
I moved around some of his papers, his untouched mail. Who was Tommy? Why did he need the money? Nine months was a long time ago, and if had always had the same job, an unremarkable apartment, nothing new here, then where did the money go?
Gambling?
A secret family?
A porn addiction?
My fingers slowed when a red envelope came into view. Red was a loud color. One that screamed ‘open me, I hold secrets’.
But it was a felony to open other people’s mail.
Did that matter in this situation? I picked it up, studying it. No return address, something stiff inside.
I held it up and turned to Everett who seemed to be waiting patiently for me.
He gave me a single nod, Tommy’s eyes widening. “I have the money,”
he gasped, turning back to Everett. “I have the money, it’s in the safe in my room. I have the money.”
I rose a brow, glancing to the envelope and back.
“Someone doesn’t want us opening his mail,”
Everett hummed. “Good girl,”
he praised, his eyes flicking to my lips and back.
That feeling that I had a smile just under the muscles around my lips filled me again, but it never quite got there.
“Good girl.”
That was me. Because I had gotten curious, and I had looked rather than just standing around and watching.
“I swear to God, I have the money,” he cried.
I turned back to the table, trying to ignore the butterflies in my stomach. I didn’t know if it was from his words or the rush of the situation, but I welcomed anything that wasn’t that black fog. If I could just learn how to control it like I controlled my panic, I could get back to my normal life. I could regain my control.
I finally found the letter opener and quickly used it to open slice open the envelope.
Lucy snapped.
The man screamed.
“Ah, ah, ah,”
Everett sang, pulling my attention back to find their position had changed. Now the man was facing me, Everett was behind him, a knife to his throat, his hand around the back of Tommy’s neck, blood soaking his pants where Lucy had torn in quickly before letting go.
My brows furrowed. I turned back to the envelope, my curiosity growing, my heart skipping. What was so terrible that he didn’t want us knowing about?
Reaching in, I pulled out a few pictures. Polaroids. Names and dates on the back.
I flipped them over and I felt that thing inside of me flare painfully as my hand tightened around the letter opener.
Children. They were pictures of children.
It happened so fast, the black flooding over my eyes and suddenly, I was back in that room. Morris was pinning me to the wall, his hands going where I didn’t want them, his cock pushing into me, the pain, the horror, the absolute, blood chilling fear.
The pictures slipped from my hand in slow motion, and I turned, the roaring growing in my ears, my skin on fire, my heart slamming painfully.
I saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing, but him. All that mattered was ripping his soul from this world.
“Olivia.”
I froze, staring into a pair of icy blue unblinking eyes, my heart stuttering, my grip on the weapon only tightening.
“It’s me, pup. Come back,”
he instructed carefully, his voice as steady as ever.
My nails dug into his throat, that letter opener pressed into his carotid artery, my mind sparking in confusion.
Kill.
Stop.
Kill him!
No, please, wait.
He’s a threat.
He’s Everett. He’s Everett.
The black fog disappeared fully, revealing to me what I had done.
I gasped, releasing the letter opener and stumbling back a few steps, my hands shaking, my eyes wide, horror filling me.
“Olivia,”
he tried, remaining right where he was. On his knees, blood dripping from the small hole in his neck, from the bloody handprint that I had left.
What the fuck have I done?
My head whipped around, taking in Tommy, dead on the ground. His stomach had been cut open, his guts pouring from him, his heart with fingernail marks pressed into it. He had deep gouges along the arteries of each arm, and his eyes. Where were his eyes.
The sound of chewing found my ears and I tracked the sound, my jaw dropping as Lucy ate his eyes. I slid my hands over my head, turning back to Everett. What the fuck have I done?
“It’s okay,”
he assured me. “It’s okay, we have people, remember.”
But it wasn’t okay. This was why I wanted him to stay away. This was why I couldn’t talk to him, why I couldn’t be around him. I couldn’t control this. I couldn’t stop it from happening. It was just…it was there, living inside of me. I could have killed him. I could have killed him!
I turned away from him, my mind racing. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be here. I had to stay at home where it was safe, where I couldn’t cause any harm. Where I could control it easier.
“406,”
I heard Everett say, and my breath caught, my arms wrapping around my waist. “Yeah, come over.”
I fucked this up for him. I fucked it up for Malachi. I shouldn’t have come. I never should have left the house.
“You did good, pup,”
he said, causing me to freeze. “You did good.”
I finally turned back to him, finding him still on his knees, relaxed back on his heels, that blood from my hand slowly seeping into the collar of his shirt.
I took him in slowly, my body warming as my eyes worked their way back up to his. God, he looked good like that. I glanced towards Tommy and back. How could I have done good? I lost control. I fucked up.
He only smiled. Smiled. “I would have done the same. Maybe not as messy.”
I felt my expression shift to a glare. He was dead, wasn’t he?
His smile widened. “You’ll get better.”
The glare fell, my heart skipping a beat, my arms tightening around myself. Better? How could I get better? I couldn’t control it. That…that rage inside of me, that monster, it wasn’t something I wanted. I wanted nothing to do with it. Ever.
His expression softened, his brows pulling together. “Is that why you’re scared?”
he asked me. “Because of that anger?”
I swallowed, turning away from him. I didn’t want to do this right now. I didn’t want to talk about it, I just wanted to get cleaned up and move on. Leave this place, go back to my house and…and what? Watch television? Sleep?
Let my own thoughts eat me alive?
I closed my eyes and shook my head. There were no good options here. I had traded one cage for another. I would never escape.