Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kytten
I wanted to hide in my room until everyone had left. But I knew Val wouldn’t leave until they found Amber. Cash said she had sent the Nyght Nymphs away. At least I didn’t have to face them. Yet.
Cash tried to remind me that the hard part was over. I had told Val what had happened.
But that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part would come when she asked me why I hadn’t told her. Why I hadn’t trusted her. And I would have to tell her the truth. That she forgot me. That her real daughter meant more to her than I did.
I didn’t blame Val. I actually understood now. It took years for me to forgive her. But the truth was, I had nothing to forgive her for.
She may have saved my life and raised me, but she wasn’t my mom. I didn’t call her mom like Thorne did with Sam.
She was my president.
She didn’t owe me anything more than that.
I didn’t even blame her for not noticing the signs. I’d hidden them well. The monsters were good at what they did.
I walked slowly down the hall. The sound of King’s voice boomed throughout the clubhouse, and I wondered who he was yelling at.
“YOU HAD NO FUCKING RIGHT TO DO WHAT YOU DID!”
“She is my sister,” Thorne’s angry voice answered. “I had every fucking right.”
I hurried my steps and gasped when I stepped into the room. Thorne stood in the middle, King in his face. Cash stood back, and when he saw me, he held out his hand. I ignored the looks of everyone else and went straight to him. He pulled me close and held me tight.
In his arms I could breathe. It amazed me every time how just the feel of him calmed everything in me. The parts that wanted to hide, the parts that wanted to rage, and scream and cry.
I think it was the knowledge that whatever I needed to do, he would hold me while I did it.
“You do as you’re fucking told,” King growled.
“No one told me I couldn’t kill her.”
King seethed at my brother. Val stepped up and placed a hand on King’s arm. “Mimic’s right. As her brother, it was his kill.”
“She has an old man,” King pointed out.
“And he was where he should have been, taking care of Kytten. I was Syrena’s president. I have no issue with Kytten’s brother taking her out,” Val said.
“He should have fucking waited,” King argued.
“Maybe—”
“It wasn’t just Rose,” Thorne interrupted.
Every sound in the bar vanished with Thorne’s declaration. Even the air felt like it had been sucked out of the room. My knees buckled beneath me, and if it hadn’t been for Cash’s arms around me, I would have hit the floor.
“What?” I whispered, not able to fully ask the question. I didn’t want to know the answer. I wanted Thorne to be lying. I prayed he was making things up to excuse what he did.
“What do you mean?” Val asked, slowly turning to face my brother.
“I was content to let her die slowly. The way she was breathing and clutching her chest, I’m pretty sure Melissa busted a rib and punctured her lung.”
“Good!” Melissa called out.
“Not now, Princess,” Ghost said behind her.
Thorne didn’t falter. His eyes were on King.
“I’d planned to watch her die. But she wouldn’t shut her fucking mouth.
Rose wasn’t the only one.” He took a deep breath.
“I know I should have come to get you. She should have been questioned. But there was something about the way she said it. Like she was proud no one ever knew. I thought about what the Nyght Nymphs do and who they save.”
Thorne cleared his throat. His next words were an arrow to my heart. I could have stopped it. I could have saved countless others if I had just said something.
“I understood her to mean that she was assaulting children she helped save. Maybe the women too. She said it wasn’t just the girls, and I lost control. But I won’t apologize for that.”
“This wasn’t your fault, Rosie,” Cash whispered behind me.
“It was. I should have said something.”
“Kytten, no!” Val said, her words sharp and firm.
She looked at King. “Are you done? Mimic did the right thing. Would it have been helpful to know who else she hurt? Yes. Do I believe she would have told us? No, but I have records of every family she worked with, and I will find out who they are and make it right.”
Val walked to my brother and stood in front of him. “She never stopped looking for you. Even when I told her you were probably gone. She never gave up. I’m so happy you she found you.” Then, she wrapped her arms around him, and the look on his face was priceless.
Val was a hugger. She wouldn’t let him go until he hugged her back. I made a motion with my arms, telling him what to do, and he finally understood. When Val released him, she went one step further and kissed his cheek before coming to me.
“We need to talk, sweetheart.”
“I know.” I turned to Cash.
“You can do this,” he said. “But if you need me to come with you I will.”
I thought about it. I looked at Val, then back at him. Taking a deep breath, I shook my head. “I can do this,” I whispered.
I took Val’s hand and led her outside. If we walked while we talked, then I wouldn’t have to look at her face. I wouldn’t have to see the hurt and disappointment when I told her the truth.
“Kytten, I want to apologize.”
We hadn’t gotten far when I stopped and looked at her. “For what?”
“For not seeing what was happening. For not protecting you under my own goddamn roof.” She closed her eyes, and a tear slipped down her cheek. “I have spent my life trying to protect women from fucked-up men. It blinded me beyond that. I’ve seen what women can do, but somehow, I still missed it.”
“This wasn’t your fault. If I had told you the first time, it would have been dealt with then.”
“Can I ask why you didn’t tell me?”
There it was. The sadness, the disappointment at the lack of trust I had in her. I looked away and took a few steps. When I told everyone what happened, I left out the part about it being on my birthday. I didn’t want Val to know that. Not in front of everyone.
“The first time it happened, I was sad and upset. I felt forgotten and lonely, and Syrena had always been so nice. I wasn’t stupid; I knew what sex was.
I knew women were attracted to other women, and I guess I let it happen, even when I knew it shouldn’t and that I didn’t want to because I felt like everyone had forgotten me except her. ”
Val gripped my arm and stopped me. “Forgotten you? How could we have forgotten you?”
I rolled my lips between my teeth. I didn’t want to look at her. Instead, I looked over her shoulder, avoiding her eyes. Maybe I should have let her see the hurt. But I loved this woman and owed her so much. I didn’t want to hurt her.
Dr. Dunaway had been trying to get me to understand that my feelings weren’t contingent on someone else’s actions. They were mine. And they came from my life. My happiness, my trauma—all of it made me who I was today.
And there was a part of me that understood. Logically, I knew that her actions weren’t responsible for my feelings, and my actions weren’t responsible for hers. But I knew Val. She loved so big and so hard there was no way she wouldn’t blame herself, and that would make her hurt.
Val was compassionate and empathetic. It was why she was so good at what she did.
“It was my fifteenth birthday.” I chanced a look at Val and knew she didn’t understand. “The first three years, you and the girls made such a big deal about my birthday. And I loved it. I felt loved and wanted. But that year, when I came downstairs, no one was there. I was alone.”
I studied my feet. My hands in my pockets. Melissa still had the knife I wanted to give to Thorne. The one that had suddenly become more than a way to call the monsters. It had become a talisman of sorts. Something to remind me of what I had done. What I had endured.
What I was able to overcome with the help of the people who loved and cared about me.
“Syrena had come home with groceries and told me you were in Louisiana.”
Val gasped. Her hand covered her mouth, and she mumbled, “With my daughter.”
I could only nod. My throat had closed up around a lump so big I didn’t think I would ever get past it.
“The call came in the middle of the night. I didn’t want to wake you. Arsyn, Slyce, and I left right away, but Syrena was there. She was supposed to tell you everything when you woke up.”
“She did as she was putting the groceries away. Then a glass bottle spilled, and I got a piece of glass in my leg. I ran upstairs and sat on my bed and watched the blood drip over my skin.”
It was like I was there again. My mind caught up in the story I was telling for the third time in twenty-four hours. Only this time I saw it differently. The words came more easily.
My strength and resolve didn’t come from the monsters.
It came from Cash, the man I loved. It came from my brother, whom I had finally found after what felt like a lifetime.
It came from Sam. A woman who had taken my brother on as hers and wanted to welcome me into her family with open arms. And it came from Melissa.
Someone who wanted to stand behind me and support me even after the way I treated her.
This club was different. This was the family I had longed for. Val would always have a special place in my heart and in my life. But Diamond Creek was where I belonged.
“I never wanted you to feel forgotten, Kytten. I didn’t bring you to Louisiana because I knew what I was walking into.
I knew what Amber had endured. I had been there months earlier searching for her with no luck.
But I helped a few women escape. I didn’t want to put you in the path of those sick fucks.
Make no mistake, the men and women on that compound were some of the worst I have ever encountered. And you were still so young.”
“Val, I understand why you didn’t bring me. I even understand why you had to go. I’m glad you did because you saved her. But at fifteen I was jealous and selfish. It wasn’t until I came here and met Cash, and even Amber, that I understood why you made the choice you did. It was the right choice.”
“But if I hadn’t gone. Or if I’d taken you with me.”
“Syrena would have found another opportunity. She groomed me, Val. All the attention, all the praise and little gifts that I saw as love was her preparing me. She was a predator.” I wrapped my arms around her waist. “This wasn’t your fault.
You didn’t do anything wrong.” I pulled back.
“Everything that has happened to me since the day I was born led me here. To this clubhouse. With these people.”
I stepped back and looked at the building. “I have to believe that. My brother was here. Cash is here.”
I smiled as I thought about Cash. The way he made me feel like I could battle the world and win.
“Dr. Dunaway has helped me see that my path is my own. I have to walk it. No one else can. There will be bumps and hills. There will even be mountains. Then there will be times when I can slide down the other side and land safely.
“You were a part of that path. The things I learned from you. The love you shared with me was something I will cherish forever. And if I had to choose between having you or having a life without Syrena and the monsters in my head. I would choose you. Every damn time.”