Chapter 49 #2
His expression isn’t even angry. It’s focused. He lunges, and I stumble. He slams us into the sink. My shoulder hits the sharp edge of the mirror, and I cry out, but it’s far from the worst pain today.
“Why are you doing this?” I beg, fighting as his hands come to grip my shoulders.
His eyes darken. His words come from behind tight lips as he fights me back toward the tub. “Because. She. Deserves. To. See. Her. World. Burn.”
I jerk my knee up, slamming it between his legs, and he doubles over in pain. I shove him back and tear open the door, darting forward. His hand catches my ankle, and I drop to the ground, my chin connecting with the concrete. Blood coats my tongue, my teeth.
I turn over, losing my towel as I struggle to get away from him. His grip tightens, both of us on the floor.
“Who are you talking about?” I demand, kicking to free my leg.
He tosses the towel out of his way, pushing up to his knees. “Your bitch of a mother.” There is venom in every syllable.
The world crumbles around me.
“My mom?” The words stop time. I still, staring at him in disbelief. “What does my mom have to do with anything? You don’t even know my mom.”
His laugh is sharp and hollow. “Turns out knowing someone isn’t a prerequisite to ruining their life. Their family.”
Understanding creeps in, slow and horrifying. I realize what’s happening, even before he spells it out. Mom’s confession replays in my ears once again.
“Ruth.” Her name is a hard, painful lump in my throat.
His face turns to stone, but he doesn’t say a word.
Silence hangs between us.
“She was your mom.” Ruth had a child. A son. He was older than us. That was all I knew. “George is your…dad.”
He moves forward, still crawling, eyes searching. I push backward, keeping a steady distance between us.
“She told me what happened,” I say softly. “About—”
“The affair? Yeah.” His lips set in a hard line. “She couldn’t stay away from him. She ruined everything.” His eyes blaze with something dark.
My back connects with the door to my bedroom. I push up to stand, grabbing the doorknob, but he’s too fast. He slams it closed, boxing me in.
Then I remember something else my mom told me. “You’re the one who told her.” My eyes skim across his. “Ruth.”
He gives a sharp, hollow nod. “I found letters from your mom, and my dad admitted it was why they’d gotten a divorce.
He left to prove to Betty he was still in love with her.
That he never fell out of love with her.
He couldn’t look at my mom the same way after they met, no matter how hard he tried.
I thought she deserved to know the truth.
” He takes a small step back, his eyes washing over me as if, for the first time, he’s realizing where he is.
What he’s doing. “All my life I thought she left because of me. I never knew it was his fault. I thought she abandoned us. I never…”
“Did you hurt her?” I demand, the similarities between what just happened to me and how Ruth died pounding in my chest, my head.
Banks’s face whips back to mine like I’ve said the worst thing.
“Fuck you. I would never hurt my own mother. I wanted her to know the truth. That it was his fault. Your mom’s fault.
Never hers. Never mine—” He cuts himself off.
Tears blur my vision. “After I found out what she did, that she…that she was gone, I promised myself there was only one person to blame, and I’d make her pay. ”
The words drop like stones between us.
“I’d make her feel what it’s like to lose everything.”
The room tilts, but we remain standing still. I’m the only one who can feel it.
“I didn’t know,” I swear to him. “Not until today. My mom loved your mom. Your mom was…she was everything to me—”
“She ruined her life!” he bellows, maroon blotches painting his skin. “That’s not love.” He grabs hold of the lamp on my nightstand and hurls it at me. It slams into the door, and I duck just in time. Glass shatters in every direction, nicking the skin on my cheek, my shoulder, my arm.
He rushes forward before I can do anything, pieces cracking under his shoes.
His hand goes to my throat, squeezing. “And when I realized who you were…the coincidence of it all…” He laughs under his breath.
“It’s kind of poetic, don’t you think? All that time together back then, and we had no idea how important we’d be to each other someday.
” His lips twitch, eyes go dark. “So, here’s the thing, Opal.
Here’s where you’re going to help me. It’s, uh, not really a volunteer position, though I know you’re fond of those.
I’m going to take every person she’s ever cared about, one by one, until she knows what it feels like.
And you? All you have to do is die.” His fingers tighten again, but they don’t fully close around my throat.
He wants me to respond. He’s barely left an airway to draw in a breath.
His words flash in my head. One by one. Margie.
“You pushed her,” I utter, forcing breath from my lips. I grasp his hands, trying to pry his fingers loose.
I’m still struggling to make sense of the man I’ve known for so long turning into this monster, even as his hands crush the breath from my lungs. I don’t want it to be true.
A flicker of satisfaction reaches his eyes. “Her best friend. And soon her daughter. Then Will and his brother. One by one.”
Rage flares through my fear. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. “Margie was innocent,” I bellow.
He slams my head into the door. “So was my mother.” Pain bursts in my vision. “Now you get my frustration.” My hands lose grip, my vision speckling.
He releases me and steps back, and for a moment I think it’s out of horror over what he’s done, but no. It’s more like he’s examining his work. Like he’s proud of himself.
I stumble sideways, pulse pounding in my temples. Broken glass slices the soles of my feet. I run into my nightstand without meaning to, sending books and cords crashing to the floor.
“Please don’t do this,” I cry, searching for something. Anything. I grab my phone from my bed, trying to call for help, but he slaps it away from me. He raises his hand and slams it across my cheek so hard I fall back onto the bed.
“Oh, you’re going to beg, huh? Margie didn’t beg. That old bitch fought back. Guess none of that fire passed on to you.”
He grabs my wrist and drags me forward onto the floor, so I’m on my hands and knees in front of him, shivering as icy drops of water drip from my hair and trail down my bare body.
“You’re insane,” I snarl, thinking of Margie. She didn’t deserve this. I have to survive so everyone will know the truth. I have to fight back. “And you’re alone. And none of this fixes that.”
He slaps me again. Stars explode in my head.
I have to get out of this room. I have to find something to use against him.
When he looks away for the briefest moment, I stand and dart to the side, ignoring the pain in my feet as I cross the broken glass again. He reaches for me, but I’m too quick this time. I pull the door open.
I’m out. Closer to the exit.
His fingers lock around my wrist just as I cross the threshold. He whips my arm around, slamming me against the wall in the kitchen. The island is just in front of me, but I can’t reach it.
Looking farther across the room, I weigh my options. Knives. Pans. If I can just get to them.
His hands come to my throat again, squeezing harder than before. There’s no room for air this time. “I may be alone, Opal. But you’ll be dead soon. So I think I win.”
My hand skates over the wall in a desperate search. I hit a frame, and it falls, cracking against my skull. New spots blur my eyes. I reach for another one. He’s so laser-focused, his gaze drilling into mine as the edges of my vision turn to smoke, that he hardly notices.
My hand connects with a wooden frame.
It’s my only hope.
I swing it forward with all my might. The corner connects with the soft flesh of his face. It slashes his cheek. Red blood weeps from the gash.
He rears back, his hand over the wound, but before I can move, he throws himself forward with a roar and tackles me.
We slam into the floor.
His fist connects with my face once, twice.
My ears ring.
Margie’s face flashes in my mind. Ruth’s. Mom’s. Will’s.
I don’t stop fighting, not for a second.
I twist and warp my body, screaming for anyone—no one—to hear me. I claw his face, his neck, his eyes.
He roars at me, clamping down with his teeth over the tender flesh of my breast. Pain cracks through me, bright and nauseating.
I twist and jerk my knee between his legs again.
This time, he hardly seems to feel it, too fueled by adrenaline. I try to slip out from under him, but I can’t move.
I grab hold of the barstool next to the island and bring it down over top of us. It strikes the back of his head.
He falters, stunned, and I shove him off me, scrambling out from under him and to the front door.
He grabs my ankle, and I fall, face-first. Pain ricochets through me, white-hot lightning bolts in every direction. Everything hurts. Everything screams. I can’t focus on any one thing, just the overwhelming waves crashing into me, pain so sharp I’m dizzy.
I close my eyes, thinking. Thinking.
I have to move. I have to do something.
In front of me, the door swings open. Impossible, but true.
I know those shoes.
I love those shoes.
“Opal?”
Will.
Warmth washes over me like a tide at the sound of his voice.
Behind me, Banks freezes. For a millisecond, no one moves.
I drag my gaze up, and Will is taking in the scene. The water everywhere. My bloody face. My bruised body. Banks.