Chapter 32
Brooke
Iwake to a dark, silent bedroom.
The space beside me is empty.
For a moment I stay still, my hand slides across the sheets where Seth should be. My chest tightens before my thoughts fully catch up.
It has been two weeks since I escaped the manor.
Two weeks of broken sleep and waking up disoriented, my hands clenched and my pulse racing before I remember where I am. It always takes a few seconds to recognize the room, the house, the quiet around me. I remind myself that I'm not in that basement. I'm not in that Manor.
My body still hurts. Some of it comes from injuries that are healing. The rest comes from memory.
Seth only leaves the bed this late when the panic gets to him.
He tells me he is checking the locks, the cameras, and the perimeter around the property. He probably is doing those things. But that is not the real reason he gets up.
He gets up because lying beside me makes him feel useless.
He thinks he is failing me.
I sit up slowly, careful with my abdomen and careful with the way my ribs pull if I breathe too deep.
The sheet slips off my shoulder. The air is cold enough to tighten my skin.
I grab his shirt from the floor and pull it on.
It smells like him. Cedar, smoke, and something that belongs only to Seth.
When I stand, the room tilts for a second. The dizziness comes and goes. It is worse when I have not eaten enough. It is worse when I pretend my body is not still catching up to what it lost.
I slip out of bed and move into the hallway without turning on the light. My bare feet barely make a sound against the floor.
A thin strip of light stretches across the floor from the training room.
The door is cracked just enough for me to see inside.
Seth stands in the center of the room with his back to the door, his fists slamming into the heavy bag over and over. The chain rattles with every strike. The bag swings hard and snaps back toward him, and he drives his knuckles into it again before it can settle.
He is not wearing wraps or gloves.
Blood streaks across the leather where his knuckles have split open. His hands look raw, swollen, smeared red from hitting the bag too many times.
Beau stands off to the side with his arms crossed, watching him.
“You planning to stop before you break something, or is that the goal?”
Seth exhales. It's not quite a laugh. “Haven’t decided yet.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” Seth says. “Say it.”
Beau takes a beat, studying him.
“I came to make sure you don’t screw this up.”
Seth hits the bag again. The chain rattles loudly above them.
“Screw what up?”
“Her,” Beau replies. “You’re letting her die.”
Seth’s fist stops mid swing.
“She’s alive,” he says finally.
“That is the bare minimum,” Beau shakes his head. “Don’t act like survival is the same as living.”
Seth rubs his hand over his mouth, his jaw tight.
“You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t wake up replaying every choice that led to this.”
Beau’s voice lowers.
“I know you do. And I also know this part.”
Seth goes still.
“I understand this better than anyone,” Beau continues. “I know what it’s like to lose the woman you love.”
Seth’s breathing changes.
“This isn’t about guilt,” Beau adds. “This is about what you do next.”
Seth slams his fist into the bag again.
“So what the fuck should I do?”
“Stop hovering, stop deciding her life for her because you feel guilty. Stop making her stay stuck because you can’t stand to see her in pain. Pain already happened. It already owns a part of her. The question is what you’re gonna do now.”
“I’m trying to keep her safe,” Seth answers quickly. “I’m doing everything.”
Beau snorts. “You’re doing everything except the one thing that matters.”
“And what's that?”
“She survived torture,” Beau says. “She doesn’t need a padded room. Let her be angry. Let her be pissed about it. Let her say she wants blood. Let her want revenge.”
Seth exhales hard.
“She’s not a victim,” Beau affirms. “Don’t let her be a victim. Don’t let her decide she’s only something that happened to her. She’s more than that.”
Seth shifts his weight, staring at the bag.
“She can’t even eat without throwing up half the time.”
“So you sit with her,” Beau tells him. “You help her eat. And then you stop building her entire world around what she can’t do yet.”
Seth hits the bag again, harder this time.
“I want her back.”
“She isn’t going to be who she was.”
Seth doesn’t answer.
“She’s going to be who she becomes after this,” Beau continues. “You can stand beside her while she figures that out, or you can keep mourning someone who doesn’t exist anymore.”
Seth drags a breath into his lungs.
“I fucking hate myself.”
“I know,” Beau replies. “But hating yourself doesn’t help her.”
Seth drives his fist into the bag again.
“I should’ve gotten there sooner,” Seth's voice hardens. “I knew something was off. My gut kept telling me something was wrong and I ignored it.”
The bag swings back and he hits it again.
“John. Mary. Amber. Nick. They were around her the whole time and I didn’t see what they were.”
The chain rattles violently above them.
“They were a threat,” Seth hits the bag again. “I should’ve taken them out the second I felt something was wrong.”
Beau watches him for a moment.
“It happened,” he says. “Now you make sure what they did doesn’t define her.”
Seth’s breathing fills the room.
“You’re not helpless,” Beau continues. “Stop acting like you are. You want to help her? Then stop hovering and start training. Start planning. Start putting the rage somewhere useful.”
“Training her isn’t going to heal her,” Seth sighs.
“No, but it gives her a language besides silence.”
Seth stands there staring at the bag.
“I don’t want to push her.”
“You're not pushing her,” Beau says. “You are offering her a way out of the place she's stuck. She can say no. She can say yes. She gets to choose. That is the point.”
Choose.
The word lands heavy in the room.
The door creaks softly when I push it open.
Both of them turn.
For a second Seth just stares at me. His eyes flick over my face, down my bare legs, to the oversized shirt hanging off one shoulder.
“Brooke,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t.”
Beau glances between us. His eyes linger on Seth for a moment.
“I’ll leave you two to it.”
He claps Seth once on the shoulder as he passes, then walks out of the room without another word. The door shuts behind him.
Now it is just us.
Seth takes a slow step toward me. His hands stay at his sides, uncertain, and that hesitation cuts deeper than anything I overheard.
“Are you okay?”
The word twists inside my chest.
Okay.
Like it is somewhere I can walk back to if I just try hard enough.
I open my mouth to give the answer I have been giving for days. The one that keeps him calm. The one that lets him believe I am healing.
It never comes out.
“I heard what he said,” I tell him.
Pain flickers through his eyes. “He shouldn’t have said that.”
“He wasn’t wrong.”
The words fall between us before I can soften them.
Seth flinches anyway. He drags a hand through his hair, his fingers catching like he wants to rip something out.
“I’m trying,” he sighs. “I don’t know how to do this right.”
I see how exhausted he is. The shadows under his eyes. The tension in his shoulders that never leaves anymore. He thinks he has to hold everything together for both of us.
“I don’t want you to want the old me back.”
His eyes snap to mine.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says quickly. “I meant I want you to feel like yourself again.”
“I’m not.”
My voice breaks.
Seth steps closer and this time his hands come up, hovering near my arms like he is asking permission without saying it.
“Tell me who you are,” he murmurs.
My chest tightens.
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
The tears start before I can stop them.
They slide down my face slowly at first and then faster, my breathing falling apart as everything I have been holding back finally cracks open.
“I don’t understand anything anymore,” I sob, my voice shaking. “I feel broken all the time. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. I feel like they ripped something out of me and left everything else behind.”
Seth’s face crumples, but he doesn't interrupt me.
“I see them every time I close my eyes,” I continue, wiping uselessly at my face. “I see the basement. I see that room. I hear them talking. I hear them laughing.”
My chest heaves.
“They live in my head now,” I choke out. “They took a piece of my life that I will never get back.”
My voice cracks completely.
“They took the one chance I might’ve had to…” I swallow hard, the words sticking in my throat. “…have a family with you.”
The words fall apart halfway through the sentence.
Seth’s jaw locks.
Now the sobs come harder.
“They took everything from me,” I whisper.
Seth’s arms wrap around me before I even realize I'm falling forward. He pulls me against his chest, holding me so tight it almost hurts.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into my hair, his voice rough. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
I clutch the front of his shirt, my hands shaking.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” I tell him through tears. “I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to be okay again.”
“You don’t have to be okay.”
His hand presses against the back of my head, holding me there.
“You don’t have to be anything right now.”
I pull back just enough to look at him, tears still running down my face.
“Do you think I’m letting myself be a victim?”
His expression tightens.
“No,” he responds quickly. “I think you're hurt.”
I hold his gaze.
“And what if I’m both?”
His mouth opens, then closes again.
He refuses to lie to me.
“I think they tried to turn you into a victim,” he says finally. “And I think I’ve been trying to keep you safe from that.”
He looks into my eyes.
“I’d do anything for you,” he adds, his voice cracking at the end.
“I know,” I whisper. “But you can’t do this part for me.”
His eyes shine.
“Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it.”
The room goes still.
My heart pounds against my ribs.
I feel the weight of everything I lost. Everything they took. The future that disappeared in that room. The version of my life that will never exist now.
And then I hear Beau’s voice in my head.
Choose.
I inhale slowly.
“I want revenge, Seth.”
Seth’s throat moves.
“Brooke—”
“I don’t want a speech,” I cut in. “I don’t want to be told I’m strong. I don’t want to be told I’m safe.”
I look up at him.
“I want to kill them.”
Seth’s breathing changes. He doesn't look shocked.
He looks relieved.
“Okay,” he whispers.
That one word hits harder than any comfort he has tried to give me.
“I don’t want to be the final girl anymore,” I continue. “I don’t want to be hunted. I want to be like you.”
My voice steadies.
“I want to be the hunter.”
Seth answers without hesitation.
“Okay.”
My eyes burn again.
Seth finally takes my hands in his.
“Tomorrow,” his gaze stays on me. “We start tomorrow if you want.”
“I do.”
He leans his forehead against mine.
“I’m not okay,” I tell him quietly. “I’m not healed. I don’t know if I ever will be.”
“I’m not asking you to be.”
“Good,” I whisper. “Because I don’t have that in me.”
He holds my gaze like he is memorizing every piece of me.
“I want them dead, Seth. All of them.”
Seth nods and pulls me back into his arms.
I name them silently in my head.
Kristie.
Knox.
Sophie.
Elliot.
Grant.
John.
They hunted me.
Now I will hunt them.
And I will kill every last one of them.