Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Harlow
A lump forms in my throat, and a jolt of pain hits my chest as I watch and listen to Bree lay out her pain for me.
I hold my breath as I notice her bottom lip start to quiver.
“It took me weeks to track her down, and I had to steal Mrs. Yates's car. Boy, did I get my ass beat for that. I watched you all for days before I finally caught her alone. You were all at some fair, and I followed her into the bathrooms. But she told me to go home… I didn’t ask for much. Just a chance to get to know my mother and my little sisters, but she told me to leave.” Bree looks over at me, focusing her gaze on mine.
I feel like she’s staring straight into my soul; as if she’s trying to show me a glimpse of the pain she experienced when she was younger, and how it felt when our mother rejected her. I can only imagine how heartbreaking it was.
“You know, when she told me to leave, she also said that I wasn’t her daughter, only his. That she wanted nothing to do with me. I followed all of you for four weeks. Four weeks. Only for her to tell me to go home because she couldn’t stand to look at me.”
I understand why our mom did it. Bree is the product of her rape. All Bree wanted was to be loved and accepted by our mother, but not every woman can love the physical representation of the trauma they went through. In this case, they are both victims.
I don’t understand what’s happening now, though. Bree sounds devastated, and her eyes are filled with tears. She looks sad, but the corners of her lips keep twitching, as if she is barely holding back a grin.
“You were there that day, weren’t you? The day of the accident?” My eyes widen as the realization hits me. Was it even an accident? Bree has already crossed a line by stealing me away from my mates, but who knows how far she was willing to go back then, after our mother hurt her so badly.
Bree nods her head. “Not my proudest moment, but I had watched for weeks as she doted over the two of you. I watched her act like the mother I always wanted, the mother I wished she would have been to me…” She stops and looks down at her hands.
For some reason, it feels like she is checking her hands to see if they are covered in blood. Is she about to confess that she had something to do with our mother’s death?
“After the months I spent pestering her, Mrs. Yates finally told me who my mother was. Dad had always refused. He said I was better off not knowing. And he was right.” Bree pauses, sucking in a deep breath.
“Mrs. Yates gave me her name and an old picture of her, so I slept with the Dean's son at my school to use their photo recognition program to track her down. Her face popped up on a security camera at some hotel, and it wasn’t hard to find her from there. I knocked on some doors, and a woman told me she saw her car at a camp ground. So, I went there, watched you all leave, and I followed you.”
“Is that why you’re doing this?” I question Bree, unsure if I even want to know. I’m terrified of what else she might have in store for me.
“What?” Her eyes snap up to me. “No, I just want Talon back. He’s the only person who has ever wanted me. Ever loved me. I was just too blind to see it.”
No matter how much Bree denies it, I don’t think I can believe her. Her actions don’t align with her words.
“Ah, girl hug!” Vadum taunts from the driver’s seat.
Bree snarls and kicks his seat again. “Shut up, fuckwit!”
Vadum snickers, but I pay him no mind. He is the least important person in this situation, no matter how annoying or dangerous he might be.
Instead of giving him the attention he obviously wants, I focus on getting as much information as I can from Bree.
Once the car stops, I’m more than ready to run for my life.
I will force the shift to break these restraints and get away from these sickos.
A sudden question pops into my mind. I don’t bother to consider if asking it will be a good idea, I just voice it. “And you think Talon will be okay with this? That he’ll just leave with you after he finds out the price of his freedom?”
“I’m doing this for him!” Bree screams as if I just insulted her in the worst possible way.
“Are you, though?” I press. It might cost me to anger her, but I’m willing to keep pushing her buttons. “Or are you doing this to get back at our mother? To get back at me for receiving the love she never gave you?”
Bree’s eyes widen in shock as she frantically shakes her head and raises her hands in denial. “What? No! I would never! I have nothing against you, Harlow. Or Zara. Nothing! I just wanted to get to know you! Why do you think I pulled you both from that car?”
I blink at her, utterly shocked at the sudden confession. I was mentally prepared for Bree to say something about causing the accident, but I never would have guessed that she saved Zara and me from dying with our parents.
As the wheels in my mind start turning, another, somewhat unexpected realization hits me. “It was you. You were the one who drove us off the road. You were the one who forced us into that ditch!”
Bree looks away and presses her lips together. My mind takes me back to that awful day. The smell of gas. The sound of my mother’s screams as the car caught fire, and she was engulfed in the flames.
Zara and I were hanging upside down in the backseat.
My father, who was driving, died on impact.
Yet, I heard my mother’s screams as she burned alive before my eyes.
I can still smell the scent of their burning flesh.
My father’s seat was pushed back against my legs, trapping me in the car.
I thought Zara was dead. Half of her face was hanging off.
I passed out before the flames reached us.
I can remember waking up and looking around, wondering how we got out of the car.
The next thing I remember is waking up again to the paramedics working on us.
I kept falling in and out of consciousness, and I spent the next few days drugged up on painkillers before we were taken to the facility.
“When I hit the back of your car, I was just hoping that you’d have to pull over, and she would explain to you both who I was. But your car spun out of control. It smashed through the barrier and down the hill before rolling into that ditch,” Bree whispers, pulling me out of my dreadful memories.
“By the time I drove down there, the car was already on fire. I tried to get to her, but… there was nothing I could do, so I pulled Zara out first. I was barely able to get you out after her because your legs were trapped. I dragged you both up to the road and called for help.”
“Then you ran. You killed my family, destroyed my life, and then fled the scene,” I spit at her. She might have saved our lives, but she is the one responsible for all of it. Bree is the one who took everything from us.
“And she destroyed mine!” Bree snarls.
Tears prick my eyes as I recall the small fragments I have of the accident.
Zara remembers the day at the fair, but she doesn’t remember anything from the accident.
I never told her that Mom was alive. That I watched her burn.
Her screams haunted me until, eventually, they became a distant memory.
Until I was able to pretend that the screams that woke me every night for months weren’t my mother’s.
I can’t stand to look at Bree anymore, so I turn my gaze back out the window. So much for her claim of not being a monster. She is worse than that.