Chapter Twenty-five
Rowan
Of course, they sent Niko to come and get me. I feel like this was Luca’s doing, that asshole, if so.
The car smells of menthol and leather with a hint of the smell from the funeral home. It’s not gross, just a smell I’ve never smelled before. Unique and unnerving, just like Niko.
The ride is quiet, and it gives me time to think, thinking that I don’t want to do.
I look at Niko, whose sole focus is on the road ahead of us.
“Can you turn on the music?” I ask him.
“No,” is his only response, not even giving me a stare.
Screwing up my face, I reach for the power button, but before my finger can touch it, my wrist is jerked away.
“Hey, what the fuck?”
“I said no, and that means no.” Niko still doesn’t look at me.
“I’m not fucking Catherine, so watch your tone and never put your nasty ass hands on me again.” It comes out seething, and good. Who is he? He has no right to touch me. A simple ‘hey’ would have sufficed.
A laugh unlike any I’ve ever heard comes out of his mouth.
When he turns his head to me, his eyes are as dark as night, even in the sun blaring in on us.
“I’m not your little fuck boy; what I say goes.
I already said no, and you didn’t listen.
In my car, you will listen. If not, I’ll fucking stop now and you can find your own way to Two Brother’s. ” His voice is haunting.
I swallow deeply and turn to look out of my window. The urge to climb into the backseat and away from him is heavy.
My mind screams to pick, but instead I slowly lift my bottom and sit on my hands, keeping them safe.
The road blurs as my eyes never leave it. I couldn’t even think about falling asleep with him next to me.
We stop at a deserted four-way stop. Why the hell would they put one out here in the middle of nowhere? I feel eyes searing into me.
I don’t move my head, only my eyes to look out from the side of them, and Niko just watches. But he isn’t watching me; he’s looking at my hands I’m still sitting on top of.
Unease wafts over me.
“Why are you doing that?” he asks before staring at the road once more, pushing the gas, speeding through the four-way. I look down the other road, and it’s clear for as far as I can see.
I pull my hands out from under me; they’re numb. Looking down at them, they're scarred and torn up, but I don’t answer him. He’s a dick, so why should I tell him anything? Hell, I don’t even know him.
“I see you. You don’t think anyone does, but the night in the crematorium, I saw right through you. You’re an injured animal trying to be brave and walk on all fours, but at some point, pretending is going to get you dead. Everything has a cause and effect.”
My breath doesn’t come; I cough trying to force it to.
I watch as his chipped, black painted nails tap the steering wheel.
“You may think you have nothing in common with Catherine, but oh, you do.”
My stomach drops when he mentions our names in the same sentence. “Shut the fuck up. You don’t know what you’re talking about!” I scream and it reverberates around the car, bouncing off the windows.
He laughs at me. This motherfucker laughs at me.
My eyes well up, but I won’t let the tears escape. I cried too many because of the woman he’s saying I’m so much alike.
“Two women were forced to play in a game they never wanted to be a part of. Two women so broken that it’s hard to piece them back together. You both are one and the same.”
I begin to feel like I’m going to hyperventilate.
We’re nothing alike. I’m broken because of her.
Because of her father. My heart pounds behind my rib cage like it also wants to escape from this car, from him.
The smell of the car now makes me want to vomit; it’s too strong. It’s overwhelming my nostrils.
“A broken woman like yourself wants to keep being broken. You don’t want to be saved; you want to perish. Everyone around you thinks you’re healing, but Rowan, you’re not.”
I sit there shaking my head continually, like I’ll make his words vanish from my mind. But it’s not; they're sticking and forcing their way in through all the layers to get to my brain. Not stopping until they make purchase.
“Why are you saying these things to me?” I cry out, not able to hold my words in.
He’s quiet, but then the words he speaks are at a hundred percent volume even though his voice is not. “She never wanted to do any of the things she did. She was also a casualty of her own father, like you.”
His words make my head spin. She was a willing participant, just like Colt, J.C., and Grant. All willing, all in it for their own perverted reasonings.
Through hiccup sobs, I say, “She’s fooled you, like she fooled me.”
“Catherine couldn’t fool me if she were in a jester's costume. I’ve healed her.
I’ve walked her through her own healing and revelations.
So many times, Catherine begged me to kill her; so many times, I wanted to, but I knew this woman wasn’t what everyone said she was.
She wasn’t, and I saw through her, like I saw through you, Rowan.
” He pauses. “Your fingers are like that because you think you should feel pain, because you need to be the one to bestow it upon yourself. If you do it, then no one else can; only you. And that there,” he points to them, “isn’t healing.
That’s masking what you need, what your body craves. What will heal you.”
Confusion mars my brain because I’m not sure what he’s speaking about.
“I saw you watching us in the crematorium. We both did.”
My stomach sinks and sours at the same time. Is he saying I should fuck him?
“I’m not fucking you,” I spit out.
Niko laughs. “I’m not asking you to, plus you don’t do it for me. But I know how to help you if you want the help.” His last sentence sounds so sincere, it's scary.
“When Matteo asked me to come get you, I knew it was time to talk to you. It was my sign. What else do you do to yourself, Rowan?”
I know exactly what he’s asking. I stay quiet.
“Do you want to be helped? Do you want to heal? Because I can bet the way you’re living isn’t fulfilling what you truly crave.”
Flashbacks of him and Cathrine run through my head. When Luca was rough with me last night. How I want him to not treat me like I’m broken; it all runs through my head.
“I,” I feel like my tongue is heavy, not wanting to voice anything, “I make myself hurt.” I shrug, like it’s no big deal.
“Please don’t look at me, though,” I plead to him.
I see him nod his head. “Burning myself with hot water, scrubbing my skin raw.” I bring up my hands, looking at them.
My nail beds are shredded and scared. “And making my fingers bleed. It stops the thoughts, but also lets me know I’m really still here.
I’m the one who can cause my pain, and I can stop it whenever I want,” I whisper out, not knowing if he can hear me, hoping he couldn’t.
“You should talk to Catherine.”
My eyes widen, because how the fuck did I manage this with no need to sneak around to get to her?
“I can’t,” I lie.
“You can, and you should. I think she could help you.”
“She fed me to the fucking wolves,” I say angrily, while rubbing my cuticle, wanting to pick at it.
“You need to talk to her, Rowan.”
He says nothing else for the rest of the ride to the funeral home, but his words and voice are on a constant repeat in my head, taking up space.
Pulling into the funeral home driveway, the gate opened automatically. No matter how many times I’ve been here, it’ll always feel like eyes are watching me. Shivers run up my spine.
“Matteo and Clover should be back tonight; they’re waiting for her discharge paperwork. I don’t know what he had to do for them to let her come home and not admit her ass,” he says so casually.
I just pursed up my lips, not replying to him as he parks the car at the back of the funeral home.
Walking to the back door, I wait for him; the air smells better than inside the car; I try to breathe it all in, masking the smell in my nose.
“It’s unlocked. Also, whenever you’re ready to speak to Catherine, we're in the house at the back of the grounds…in the groundskeeper's house.” His smile is sinister, and I don’t give him one back, just turn and walk into the funeral home.
My phone vibrates as I enter the kitchen, needing caffeine.
It’s Luca saying everything will be okay.
I answer him back, but he just tells me he loves me.
And the fact that he didn’t answer my question, if we're okay or not, makes my chest hurt. Fuck. I don’t want to ruin this.
I need him. I’d bleed for him, cut out my heart and serve the crimson muscle on a platter for him.
My eyes blur as I sit my phone down, thinking of me and Luca, everything in-between and what ifs that are now running through my head.
“Stop it,” I chastise myself before turning and finding the coffee pot halfway full, knowing it’s probably been sitting all day, but not giving a shit.
I slosh the coffee as I pour it from the craft, spilling onto the counter. Deciding black is the only way to go at the moment, I forgo sugar and clean up the spilled liquid.
It’s so quiet in here; if you think too hard, you’ll freak yourself out…at least, I will.
I’m not sure how they live in a funeral home, surrounded by dead bodies, and live a normal life in their presence, or actually the lack of their presence.
With my cup of coffee in hand, I make my way out of the kitchen, not being able to sit down after the car ride here and the words Niko spoke.