Chapter 30 #2
“We need eyes on him,” he says. “I have an idea how to take care of all our problems.”
I arch a brow and he nods. “We need to get some pieces in order to see if it’s even possible and we’ll have to call in a favor or two.”
“We have plenty of those,” Jude says, waving him off. “I’m more concerned about Berlyn. She wasn’t herself.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Ezra promises and I stroke my hand up and down Berlyn’s arms as she sleeps. “I’m going to get to work, you stay with her.” I nod my agreement and Jude follows him out, chewing on his lower lip as he turns to look back at her.
I nod my promise to call him as soon as she wakes up and settle in with my girl.
Nightmares chase her in her sleep. I soothe her with gentle touches, whispering sweet nothings and they fade, only to come back even stronger. Over and over we play this game. I do everything in my power for her to know she’s not alone, even as she softly whimpers in her dreams.
It’s not a sound I want to ever hear from her again.
When she finally does wake up, she’s groggy and confused, maybe even more exhausted than she was before.
“West,” she whispers?
“I’m here,” I promise.
“Is he really here?” she asks in a small voice, sounding almost childlike.
I text my brothers she’s awake and they both come crashing into the room as I answer her. “Yes, but you’re safe.”
She snuggles into my chest, looking at my brothers before closing her eyes. “He’s taken everything from me,” she whispers. “My mom died, and he changed.” She’s quiet for a few moments, each one dragging out and ballooning into the next.
My brothers join us on the bed, resting their hands on her in a silent show of support. Something for her to draw strength from.
“He was always controlling,” she continues, keeping her eyes closed.
“Demanded perfection from both my mom and me.” Her chest heaves with her deep breath.
“He was always an angry man, but my mom protected me from so much of it. Hid the worst of it from my eyes. Shielded my innocence and I still loved him.”
We all stay quiet, knowing she has to get this off her chest. I don’t need to know her story to understand her, but I’m grateful for every piece of herself she’s willing to give us. Even if it hurts to hear. Maybe especially because it hurts to hear.
“He hated her for getting sick. For dying.” Her voice cracks and tears slip past her closed eyes.
“It was weak.” She squeezes her eyes shut tighter, making her whole face scrunch as she fights to get the words out.
“He never forgave her. Tried to erase her existence from our lives. No photos, no mementos, never allowed to speak of her again.”
Berlyn shudders. “Forced me to act as her replacement.”
I freeze, praying to a god I don’t believe in that the implications of that statement aren’t where my mind is jumping. I’ve never hoped to be missing the point so fervently before. But looking at my brothers, my fears are mirrored on their faces.
“The perfect daughter out of the house. Perfect grades, excellent behavior, never a hair out of place. I wasn’t very good at that,” she admits and any other time, it would make me smile.
She is chaos incarnate, not one to be shoved into someone else’s mold.
“But in the house?” Her hands grip the sheets under her.
Jude opens his mouth to tell her she doesn’t have to say it. We understand, but I shake my head. She’s not saying it for our sake.
“I had to be the perfect wife. At his beck and call. Anything he asked. Under constant surveillance so there was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to have a moment of peace. A moment as me. I was his plaything he could use, abuse, and completely control. The promise of punishment every time I fell short of his expectations haunted me every waking moment.”
My own body shakes as I hold her. Torture isn’t enough to avenge what he did to her. What he stole from her. Her innocence, her peace of mind, her identity, her mom. Even if he didn’t kill her, he refused to allow Berlyn to grieve.
“He can’t take you guys too,” she cries. “He’s going to try.”
“Let him,” I say, my voice so cold I hardly recognize it. Her eyes fly open, meeting mine in confusion. “You’re mine,” I remind her. “He can’t touch what’s mine.”
“Never again,” Ezra echoes. “We are going to keep you safe and erase this problem.”
She blinks rapidly, clearly expecting a different reaction from all of us.
“We already have a plan being set in motion,” Jude tells her with a smile. “He’s a monster, but we’re deranged. Or did you forget?”
She laughs, if you can call the startled broken little sound a laugh. “Really?”
“We’ve never been anyone’s heroes,” Ezra says with a shrug, “but there’s no one better to defeat a monster than an even bigger one.”
She scoffs, forgetting her tears for a moment. “You guys aren’t monsters.”
All three of us laugh. She’s clearly forgetting the whole liver thing.
“We are,” I assure her.
Jude leans over her, dropping a kiss to her nose. “And you hold our leashes. Let us loose and we’ll take care of this.”
She slowly nods, her eyes darting to each one of us. “How?”
Ezra smirks. “A little birdie told us the cops are looking for a violent criminal who pays too much attention to you.”
So that’s what he was thinking.
Not as bloody as I would like, but I guess it will work.
Two birds and all that.
“Did you have fun with Summer?” I ask, joining Berlyn in the library.
When Ezra and Jude left this morning, it seemed like the perfect time to invite Summer over. Berlyn didn’t shut down again last night, but she did have more nightmares throughout the night.
All morning she’s been looking over her shoulder even though it was only me and her here.
Her friend provided the much needed distraction, and also gave her something none of us were able to last night. Berlyn didn’t have to explain why her father showing up was a bad idea.
Summer already knew.
The second Berlyn told her, her face was white as a ghost and was in instant fix it mode.
Even I can admit, it’s hard not to accept Summer into our circle when her first reaction was to ask for a kidney this time. She was as disappointed as I felt when Berlyn told her the actual plan. Murder is so much more fun than a frame job.
“I did,” she says, giving me a small smile over her shoulder. “Thank you for letting her come over.” I nod, and watch her carefully as she peruses the room. Summer and her didn’t spend their morning together laughing like they normally do.
They were quiet. Staring out the window. Every time I walked by to check on them, Summer was touching Berlyn in some way. Holding her hand, playing with hair, leaning her head on her shoulder. Some kind of touch.
I had thought Summer would be a distraction, get a full smile out of our girl. She gave her something infinitely more important. Something maybe we still need to learn. Space to process.
They talked at times, in low voices and half sentences. Like the echoes of a conversation they’ve had many times before.
Berlyn isn’t her normal self. How could she be? But she is steady. Standing on her own two feet.
Her fingers trail over the spines of the books on one of our most recent shelves. She turns around completely to face me, disbelief in her eyes. “You’ve read all these?”
One day she’ll stop being surprised by all of the things we’ve done for her. My smile is more than enough answer for her and she scoffs, shaking her head as she walks around the library we built for her, looking at all the books we’ve collected over the years.
She needed a break after the heaviness of her confession. There were plenty of tears, a little more sleep, and we even managed to get a little bit of food in her. Though she wasn’t very interested in the last part.
What better way to distract her then show her my favorite room in the house. Everything in here was planned with her in mind. A place for her to feel at home.
“This is insane, West,” she says, but there’s a sadness to her voice.
I walk up behind her, pointing out one of the books on the shelf she’s standing in front of.
“This one made you cry,” I whisper before finding another one two shelves higher.
“But this one had you laughing so hard you dropped your phone on your face.” She cringes, but her smile grows softer.
Not filled with a sadness I don’t understand.
“And this one,” I continue, “this one, you read chapter nineteen over and over and over again.”
I try to find the words to describe what it was like watching her read those passages. The expressions on her face changed every time she read it and I never could figure out what it was she was experiencing. “Like it was the first time words made sense to you.”
Berlyn is wearing a similar expression now as she stares up at me.
“It made me feel seen,” she explains, and I kind of get what she’s saying.
It’s how I feel every time Berlyn looks at me.
Every time I hear her talk about me. It was the jolt of lighting that hit me when she very first said my name all those years ago.
Being seen is more potent than any drug out there.
She giggles, leaning into my chest and I wrap my arms around her. “It’s like I’ve been in a book club all this time without knowing.”
I nod, rocking her with me as we look at all the different books she’s read.
“Why dark romance?” I ask the question that has always been in the back of my mind.
Berlyn has read a variety of different genres, pretty much everything.
But she always comes back to the darkest themes, reads those books over and over again.
Even when they make her sad. Sometimes especially when they make her sad.