Chapter 36 Deirdre #2
My breath hitches, but I force myself to meet his gaze. “You see, Trevor, that’s why I am here.”
The silence stretches between us. Trevor leans forward again, his smirk gone, his face hard. “We’ll see about that.”
For the first time, Trevor’s cruelty doesn’t make me shrink. It makes me burn.
Trevor rises from the chair in one smooth movement and takes a step toward me.
“Don’t kid yourself,” he murmurs, his voice low, poisonous. “You’re still the same girl who flinched every time I raised my voice. You can dress it up, hide behind him, but deep down? You’ll always fold.”
He closes the distance, close enough that I can feel the heat of him, smell the sour alcohol of his breath. His shadow swallows mine against the floor. My body screams to step back, to run.
But I don’t.
Kieran moves instantly, stepping forward, his restraint about to snap.
“Touch her, and I’ll end you where you stand.”
Trevor’s smirk splits across his face like a scar. He’s circling me with words, the same poison he’s always used—mocking, diminishing, trying to remind me of who I used to be under his thumb.
But Kieran has had enough.
It happens so fast, Trevor barely has time to react. Kieran’s fist snaps out, cracking against his jaw with a sound that vibrates through the floorboards. Trevor stumbles, clutching his face, his eyes wild with rage.
Before he can recover, Kieran seizes him by the collar and slams him into the wall. The pictures rattle, plaster dust raining down. Trevor snarls, spitting blood, but Kieran doesn’t let go. His voice is low, deadly calm, his face inches from Trevor’s.
“You won’t touch her again. You won’t speak her name again.”
Trevor spits back, “You think you can—”
But Kieran cuts him off, shoving him hard across the room. Trevor crashes into the couch, the cushions sinking under his weight, his body folding in on itself. He groans, clutching his ribs, his defiance cracking into fear.
Kieran towers over him, his chest rising and falling, fists still clenched. He could finish it right here. I see it in the set of his shoulders, the storm in his eyes. But then his gaze turns to me.
He steps back.
His voice is rough, dark, but calm. “He’s yours, Deirdre.”
My heart slams against my ribs. For a second, I can’t move. Trevor’s eyes find mine, wide, frantic now, the mask slipping. “Dee…wait. We don’t have to do this. We could—”
“You don’t get to call me that, Trevor,” I whisper, leaning over him, “and this time I get to finish it.”
The loose brick on the hearth catches my eye.
I cross the room slowly, my steps deliberate, my fingers curling around its jagged edge.
The weight is solid. I wrap it in the thin blanket that is draped on the back of my father’s chair, muffling the sharp corners, making it something I can hold steady.
“Deirdre,” he gasps, voice wet, desperate. “Stop. We don’t have to do this. We could…we could go back. Back to how it was before. I was yours. I’ll always be yours.”
The words scrape through me like broken glass. For years, he wanted me to believe that lie—that I belonged to him, that I was nothing without him. But not anymore.
“You were never mine.”
I crouch in front of him, tilting my head, studying the man who thought he could shape my life, who thought he could break me and still own me.
He once ruled my nightmares, now he’s bleeding, trembling, clutching at himself like he can hold everything inside.
The pathetic excuse of someone who thought he could take my life from me again.
Trevor’s body is already weak with wounds bleeding, bones aching, his breath ragged and shallow. He knows it’s the end, but I can see it in his eyes, that pathetic glimmer of hope clinging to life like a parasite.
“How does it feel?” I chirp, my voice calm, almost curious. “Knowing you’re about to die?”
My hand closes around the rough edge of the brick.
Trevor’s lips part, maybe to curse me, maybe to beg—but Kieran’s voice cuts through, low and lethal, from the other side of him. He crouches close, his eyes burning.
“No one’s coming to save you, Trevor. Just like you hoped no one would come for her that night.”
The words hit like a blade. For the first time, Trevor flinches.
I lift the brick, my muscles trembling from the effort, from the adrenaline flooding my veins. This is it.
“Wait—” Trevor chokes out, panic clawing at his voice.
But there is no waiting. No mercy.
The first hit shatters his nose, blood spurting in a hot spray across the floor. The second cracks against his temple, his body spasming violently. The third silences his scream, the sound dying in his throat as his head lolls to the side.
I keep going. Rage and fire and years of silence drive every blow until there’s nothing left of his smirk, nothing left of the monster that haunted me.
When at last my arms give out, Trevor is nothing more than a heap of blood-soaked skin and broken bones slumped against the couch.
I’m breathless. Trembling. But no longer weak or afraid.
For the first time…I’m free.
Kieran is beside me in an instant. He doesn’t stop me. He doesn’t tell me it’s too much. He only takes my hand, gently prying the brick from my fingers, the blanket slipping free as he tosses it aside like discarded trash.
His hand lifts to my face, brushing damp, bloodstained strands of hair back, his gaze dark and reverent.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs.
I exhale a ragged breath, chest heaving.
“I’m fine.” My lips twitch into something mischievous. “But I could use a shower.”
A low chuckle rumbles from his chest. He leans in, pressing a lingering kiss to my mouth, tasting of iron and victory.
His words vibrate against my lips.
“Then let’s get you cleaned up, Miss Ravencroft.”
The silence after is deafening. Trevor’s body slumps on the couch, twisted, lifeless. My arms ache, my breath ragged, but I don’t falter. Not this time.
Kieran’s hand presses to the small of my back.
“This house isn’t his anymore. It isn’t yours either.”
The words settle deep within me. He’s right. This place belongs to ghosts—and I’m not one of them.
Before we leave, we move as one, an unspoken understanding guiding us.
Kieran disappears into the kitchen and returns with bottles of liquor, matches, and old newspapers.
I strip the curtains from the windows, tear cushions from the chairs, and pile them around the body that used to haunt me.
The smell of alcohol saturates the room, clinging to every surface.
I stare at it all, the hearth where my father once lit fires in winter, the chair where he read to me, the walls that used to echo with safety. Those memories deserve to rest, not to be stained by Trevor.
Kieran strikes a match, the flame small but alive, then holds it out to me. His eyes are dark, unreadable, but his voice softens.
“Yours to finish.”
The firelight dances across my fingertips as I take it. My chest tightens, but my hand is steady.
I lower the flame to the soaked blankets and whisper, “This ends with you.”
The fire roars to life instantly, racing over fabric, devouring wood, climbing higher and higher. Heat swells, greedy and relentless, swallowing the man who thought he owned me, swallowing the house that kept his shadow.
We step out onto the porch and slowly descend the steps that lead to the gravel driveway.
The night air is cool against the sweat on my skin.
Together, Kieran and I watch as the fire consumes it all.
The windows shatter, flames billowing outward in waves of orange and gold.
Smoke pours into the sky, thick and endless, carrying every memory that chained me here.
I feel Kieran’s arm slip around me, pulling me close. His lips brush the side of my hair, roughened with ash and salt.
“It’s over,” he murmurs.
But I know it’s more than that. The fire isn’t just erasing him. It’s marking something new, our beginning.
The house groans once before collapsing inward, sparks scattering like stars across the dark. I lean into Kieran’s chest, breathing in the smoke, the salt, the promise of him.
We don’t need vows, or witnesses, or words etched in stone.
Tonight, we drew our names in ashes and called it forever.