Chapter 3 #2
Thomas doesn't even hesitate. He nods. A sharp, jerky motion.
Rhys doesn't cheer; he doesn't react. He just stands there, hands clasped casually in front of him, watching the scene with those dark, hungry eyes. He’s enjoying this—the slow peeling back of the skin to reveal the rot underneath.
"Why?" I whisper, the word feeling like a stone in my throat. "Why me? Why the fuck was I spared? Why didn't you kill me too?"
Thomas goes quiet. The silence stretches, heavy and suffocating. The moment he hesitates, Rhys snaps the gun up, the muzzle pressing hard into Thomas's cheek.
"I didn't know it was you!" Thomas screams, the words bursting out of him in a panic.
I frown, my heart hammering against my ribs. "What the fuck does that mean?"
"I couldn't tell!" he wails, tears streaming down his filthy face. "I couldn't tell which one was left!"
"You better start making sense, you pathetic cunt," I hiss, leaning in, "before I take that gun from Rhys and blow every single one of those bullets right into your fucking face."
"I was just drunk! I didn't know—"
CLICK.
Rhys raises the gun, cutting him off with a sharp movement. "That's a lie," Rhys says flatly. "You knew exactly what you were doing, you spineless prick."
Before Rhys can pull the trigger again, Thomas lets out a guttural shout, his voice cracking with a mixture of terror and a sudden, hideous honesty. "She wasn't spared! She was simply the last child I saw!"
The gun stays pointed at his head, but Thomas keeps talking, hyperventilating, his chest heaving as he sobs.
"I couldn't feed you! Three of you... three fucking mouths!
Too expensive for my pathetic toymaker job.
I was drunk, I was desperate... I decided to kill two and keep one.
Just one I could actually afford to feed! "
I freeze. The world seems to tilt on its axis.
"You were the last child in my view," he whimpers, his voice trembling.
"It wasn't that I liked you more. It wasn't a choice.
I just saw the other two first. And when they were gone...
I knew one was left. I didn't even know which one it was until it was over.
I couldn't even tell you apart when I was dead sober.
So I didn't know you were the one left, I didn't know which one was left. "
A cold, brutal twist rips through my stomach.
I feel the tears welling up, blurring my vision.
For seven years—seven fucking years—I’ve carried the weight of being the 'survivor.
' In his sober moments, he told me I was precious.
He told me I was irreplaceable, the 'only child remaining.
' I thought there was some reason. Some shred of love or value that had saved me from the knife.
But it wasn't about being wanted. It wasn't about being valued. I wasn't 'spared' because I was special. I was just third in line. I survived by pure, arbitrary sequence.
"Does this mean..." I choke out, my voice sounding small and broken, "that my survival was never about being wanted? I was just... the third one?"
Every ounce of guilt I've ever felt, every time he told me I was the only thing he had left...
it was all a lie layered over a truth too disgusting to say out loud.
It could have been any of us. It could have been Rosalind.
It could have been Cordelia. It just happened to be me because I was the last one he stumbled upon in his drunken haze.
Thomas looks at me, his eyes vacant and cruel in their honesty. "You think I chose you?"
I freeze. "I... what?"
"I didn't choose you," he spits, the mask completely gone now.
The room goes deathly still. The only sound is the haunting, screeching music from the gramophone and the sound of Thomas's ragged breathing. Rhys keeps the gun aimed steady, his eyes flickering between me and the broken man on the wall.
"I was drunk," Thomas continues, his voice devoid of any warmth. "There were three of you. Three mouths. Not enough food. I wanted two gone and one left to lift the burden. You weren't spared, Ophelia. You were just the last one I found."
He shakes his head, a pathetic, shivering motion. "I didn't even know it was you. I only confirmed it was really you when you started talking again after two weeks of silence. I asked your name, you told me your name, and that's how I knew."
I can't breathe. The air is gone. I feel like I'm drowning in the middle of this dry, dusty cell.
Rhys finally speaks, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife through silk.
"See, love? He's not some criminal mastermind.
He's not a monster from a storybook." He lets out a short, mocking laugh.
"He's just pathetic. He drinks. He panics.
He convinces himself that one child is easier to manage than three, so he commits an unforgivable act.
And then he spends seven years pretending fate made the decision instead of admitting he's just a fucking coward. "
It's the ordinariness of it that's the most disturbing. There was no grand plan, no dark ritual, no twisted logic. Just a drunk man who didn't want to pay for more food. It's so plausibly selfish that it makes my skin crawl.
And then, it happens.
A sound bubbles up in my chest. A small, sharp noise. Then another.
I begin to laugh.
It starts as a giggle, a hysterical, broken sound that echoes off the concrete walls.
Tears are streaming down my face, hot and fast, but I can't stop laughing.
I laugh until my ribs ache, until I'm gasping for air, the absurdity of my entire existence crashing down on me.
I wasn't the chosen one. I wasn't the special survivor. I was just the last one in the room.
I look at Rhys, and through my tears, I see him watching me. He isn't worried. He isn't confused. He's looking at me with that terrifying, obsessive love, his eyes wide and dark, absolutely enamored by the sound of my psyche finally snapping.
I can’t stop. I can’t fucking stay still.
I start pacing the small, damp cell, my boots clicking sharply against the stone, the sound echoing like a heartbeat in the oppressive silence.
My breath is coming in ragged, shallow gasps, and my hands fly up to my head, fingers brushing against the cool, weightless presence of the black halo.
It’s the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth, the only thing that feels real while my entire history is being revealed as a fucking joke.
I stop dead in front of him. The laughter is gone, replaced by a white-hot, searing rage that feels like it's melting my insides.
"You absolute fucking piece of shit!" I scream, the sound ripping from my throat, raw and guttural. "You pathetic, spineless, miserable cunt! How could you? How could you do that to them? To me?"
I’m shaking, my vision blurring with fresh tears of fury.
I launch into a tirade, calling him every foul name I can think of, cursing his blood, his soul, and the very air he’s wasting.
I want to tear him apart with my bare hands.
I want to rip the tongue out of his mouth for every lie he ever fed me.
Thomas flinches, cowering against the wall, but then a flicker of that old, manipulative arrogance crosses his face.
"Now look here, Ophelia," he sneers, his voice trembling but trying to sound authoritative.
"If it weren't for me taking care of you, you wouldn't even be alive today. You owe me your fucking life!"