CHAPTER 13 – THE REVELATION #2
I pace again, bare feet slapping the floor. My body is a live wire, buzzing with grief and rage and something I don’t want to name.
Memories crash into me, sharp and fast, like a dozen TVs all blaring at once.
I see the blue bowl, the yellow kitchen, the man with the cartoon cat mug.
I see my own face, younger, furious, screaming.
Then another flash: a party, plastic cups everywhere, someone’s hands on my waist, a male voice in my ear.
“That’s it. There you go.” Then water, cold and endless, and the sound of sirens, the sharp stink of burning metal and blood.
I grab the edge of the shelf and double over, gasping.
“Breathe,” Hunter says, coming closer. “Just breathe, Daisy—Tara—fuck, I don’t care what you want me to call you, just don’t do this, don’t—”
“Don’t what?” I gasp, air coming in ragged, ugly bursts. “Don’t lose my mind? Don’t remember?”
He’s there, arms half-extended, desperate to touch but afraid to.
I choke on my own spit, tears streaming. “Tell me. Tell me what happened to me.”
He swallows, then perches on the edge of the desk, hands flat, eyes fixed on the floor.
“You were in a car accident,” he says. “You were talking on the phone while driving, and lost control of the car.” He stops, throat working. “You hit the bridge on 35. They pulled you out and you were—” His voice breaks. “You didn’t know your name. You didn’t know anything.”
He looks at me, and I see real fear there, as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear right in front of him.
“But then you wandered off, and we couldn’t find you.
They said you likely wandered the city for hours, stumbling and dazed.
They said it was dissociative fugue. Trauma-induced.
I came upon you late that night, and you called yourself Daisy.
When you were Tara, you worked at a cafe called the Daisy Cafe.
I think you got your new name from your old employer. ”
I stare at him, trembling.
“What else?”
“You know what happens then. I took you to the hospital, but you balked. Then, I decided to take you to Sanctum so that you could rest. I told our family that you were fine. That you were just exhausted from working too hard, and needed a break. I told them that you were staying with me in the meantime, and that you were safe.”
The world tilts again, but some things start to click. I remember rain, and a scream, and a dark so deep it swallowed me whole.
I want to collapse, but my body won’t let me. Instead, I slide down the wall, knees to my chest, and cry into the crook of my arm.
Hunter kneels beside me, not touching, just waiting.
“You found me on the street,” I say, voice barely above a whisper.
He nods.
“You knew the whole time?”
He doesn’t answer. I look up, and his eyes are red, his face wet.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I say, the question sharper than a blade. “Why didn’t you ever tell me who I am, really?”
He shakes his head, jaw clenched so hard I hear his teeth grind. “I was an opportunist,” he admits. He lets out a long, ragged breath. “I wanted to keep you, even if it was just for a little while.”
A new wave of disbelief rises, hotter than before. “So you let me think I was nobody? You let me—” The tears choke me off.
He bows his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I was so fucking selfish.”
I shove at him, weakly, fists pounding his chest. “You’re a monster,” I sob. “You’re no better than any other rich asshole who mistreats women.” My throat is shredded, but I can’t stop. “You’re worse, because you knew the whole time. You knew who I was.”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t defend himself.
I collapse again, every muscle shot, skin clammy and cold. My heart is thudding so hard I think it’ll break through my ribs.
The memory fragments come faster now, a strobe light of my old life: Eliza, giggling in the back of a classroom; my dad, standing at the grill, yelling about the Packers; Hunter, older, in a suit, handing me a glass of wine at a family reunion, his eyes not leaving mine.
I clutch my head, digging my nails into my scalp, trying to hold all the pieces together.
“I don’t know who I am,” I say, voice trembling. “I don’t know if I ever did.”
Hunter is quiet for a long time. When he finally speaks, the words are raw, stripped of all artifice.
“You’re my sister,” he says. “And you’re the only thing I’ve ever really wanted.”
I lift my head, hair wild, tears still running. “Is that why you bought me? Because the world would never condone our relationship, and so you used the period of amnesia to hide me from the world?”
He nods, shame etched deep.
I want to hurt him, but I’m too tired.
Instead, I just sob, pulling my knees tighter, letting the grief wreck me from the inside out.
I stay that way for a long time.
When the tears run dry, I wipe my face, stand, and face him.
“I hate you,” I state in a flat tone, although I really don’t.
Hunter doesn’t hesitate. “I love you, Tara. I have for a long time.”
And I believe him.
Because now I have nothing left to lose.
I can’t stop shaking. My hands feel like they belong to someone else, tingling at the tips, and my legs threaten to fold beneath me every other breath. The study is suffocating, the walls closing in, but I refuse to leave until I have what I came for.
The truth. The ugly, inside-out version. I need to hear it, again and again.
Hunter sits on the edge of the desk, elbows on knees, his face a haunted ruin. He doesn’t look at me, not even when I square my shoulders and plant myself directly in front of him.
“Why?” I say. My voice is a whisper, but the sound is a blade. “Why buy me at auction? Why not just tell me the truth? Why do any of this?”
He sucks in a breath, jaw working like he’s chewing rocks.
“You want the answer?” he says, voice low.
I nod, slow, deliberate.
He closes his eyes, rubs both palms over his face. When he opens them, they’re bloodshot and hollowed out.
“I wanted you, Daisy,” he says, and the words hang there, rotten and undeniable. “To claim you as my own, but we’re step-siblings. I couldn’t do it in the open. So I did it when the world wasn’t looking.”
“And when I wasn’t aware of my true identity,” I add in a flat tone.
He nods, shame boiling beneath his skin.
“When did your attraction to me start?”
He thinks for a long time, jaw tense, then says: “A while ago. Maybe when you were eighteen? You were living at home still, and you’d swim laps in the backyard pool. I’d tell myself I was just looking out for you, just being a good brother. But it wasn’t that. It was never that, and I knew it.”
The words burn, but I don’t flinch.
“Why not just tell me who I was though?” I press.
He laughs, hollow and desperate. “Would you have believed me? Would you have stayed?”
I think about it. The answer is obvious. No. I would have gone straight back home. That’s what any normal person would do.
“My attraction to you is wrong,” he says.
“I always knew it was wrong. Our parents—hell, the whole world would see me as a monster. I tried to force myself to stop, but then I saw you wandering on the street and—” He shakes his head, broken.
“It was like a sign. You didn’t know me.
You didn’t know anything. I thought maybe . ..”
“Maybe what?” I ask in a flat tone.
Hunter looks up at me, blue eyes anguished.
“Maybe nothing. I took advantage of your amnesia,” he says. “I bought you, and I kept you. And I’ve been enjoying every inch of you ever since, like a total bastard.”
He stands, pacing now, hands digging furrows through his hair.
“The only thing I haven’t done,” he rasps, “is take your virginity, Tara. I thought—some fucked-up part of me thought that if I left that intact, I’d be honoring you. That I’d be less of a monster if I didn’t break this last piece of you.”
The words hit like a fist. I stagger, almost laugh, but it’s a sharp, bitter sound.
“That’s how you honor me?” I say, voice going sharp. “By leaving my pussy cherry intact, but enjoying my asshole nonstop? By lying? By using me while you know we’re family?”
He collapses into the chair, face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I never meant to hurt you.”
But he did. Over and over.
My chest is a vise, squeezing tighter with every second.
“You could have told me,” I say, “but you wanted me like this. You wanted me blank and needy, so you could be my whole world.”
He nods, shame pouring off him.
I want to hurt him, but I want to hurt myself more. Because even now, with everything exposed, I can’t stop wanting him.
He looks up, pleading. “Tell me what to do, Daisy. Tell me how to make it right.”
I don’t have an answer. Not now, maybe not ever.
I stare at the ceiling, trying to keep from sobbing again, and wonder if anyone could ever make this right.
But if he’s going to steal my past, I’ll be damned if he keeps the rest from me.
“If you really wanted to honor me,” I say, voice a dead thing, “you would have told me the truth. You would have let me choose.”
He bows his head, silent.
In the new quiet, something inside me snaps.
And what comes next is up to me.
There’s a silence, the kind that rings in your teeth.
My knuckles ache from clenching, but every muscle is taut, every nerve flayed.
Hunter’s sitting with zero expression on his rugged features, a man in free-fall.
I take in the arc of his broad back, the slope of his shoulders, and I want to rip him open and crawl inside, just to feel what it’s like to be whole.
Instead, I slap him. Hard, across the jaw. The crack echoes, loud enough to set my ears ringing.
He looks up, stunned, blue eyes flashing.
I don’t give him time to recover. I lunge, grab his shirt with both fists, and yank him up so our faces are almost touching. I’m crying again, snotty and wild, but I don’t care. I want to see if I can hurt him more than he’s hurt me.
“You fucking monster,” I snarl, and then I kiss him.