Chapter 26
Hell—present day
The way her feet stalled behind me for a moment, told me she knew I wasn’t Woodrow.
Her bare feet kicked up grass. The sparkly pink that she'd just dressed her toenails in reflected in the sun. She was giving me alone time, but the light smudge on her little toe spoke of how her thoughts weren’t on the job she was doing to keep herself busy.
She stopped directly behind me, her hands on the ropes of the swing, not invading mine because they were balled in my lap, even as my feet pushed me into a slight swing.
She didn't talk for a moment, but the squawking of birds flying above in the dusking sky interrupted the silence I'd been enjoying.
I gazed at them as they fluttered by me in front of the dark cloud that always seemed to float above me, no matter the weather.
Her voice finally joined with the noise of the birds. “I know he’s stressed, and I’ve given him time. But he can't just disappear in the middle of that kind of conversation.”
“Tell that to him.”
“I will. Push him to the front.”
I didn't answer. The only sound was the squeaking of my sneaker, pushing into the ground to swing myself a little higher.
“I know you can. You did it in that restroom. You stepped down. Do it now.”
I bit my tongue, literally. I needed to cause pain.
And the tone of her voice told me she was in enough.
Jolie
Hell was giving me nothing. Unresponsive with words and actions, and I hated it. I gazed over the expanse of the land I now owned, and the urge to run shot from my heart to my bare toes as they wiggled into the soil.
I didn't run. My dodgy leg wouldn't allow me to outrun my thoughts anyway. The pain would quickly catch up.
I needed an escape, and I knew my daydreams and un-whimsical fantasies wouldn't remain uninterrupted by the worries in my head. I was low on options. The last one being, the tragic love story masquerading as a dark romance that was yet to make it a third of the way into on my Kindle.
“Where is my Kindle?” My words were a demand, and I almost felt I should stomp my foot for more of a reaction.
Hell swung on the swing again, still content to ignore me. He clearly didn't like me having the leverage of knowing he wasn't well. Knowing he was dying. And if I had my way, I'd give him what he wanted and forget all about it.
I stepped in front of him, interrupting his long legs from pushing him into swing.
His somber expression, so different to the hate usually etched all over his handsome face, softened my mood.
My body slumped, shoulders sagging in defeat.
A lonely tear rushed from my eyes, eager to get out of me where all my pain was trapped.
A gentle breeze picked up, and I rubbed at my arms before using my hand to pluck the strands of Hell's fringe that had fallen into his eyes.
He clasped around my wrist, stopping me. My eyes shot to his, his stare hard again.
“Do not touch me,” he threatened.
I pulled back, confused by his actions. He'd never given me a warning. He usually taunted, happy to allow me any punishments without reprieve whenever I pissed him off.
“How do you know I know?” I wondered, my fingers rubbing away his touch when he let go of my wrist. “Where’s your diary?”
“You’re not supposed to read someone’s diary.”
“Woodrow gave me permission years ago.”
“I didn’t.”
“Take it up with him.”
He rolled his eyes at the idea of it.
“It burned in the fire,” he said, pulling something from his pocket and placing it between his lips.
Disease-inducing ingredients were wrapped in thin paper, and hanging from his full pout as he pulled out a lighter the same color as his eyes, flicked the lid, and lit up.
“What the fuck are you doing!” I fumed, as a smog of smoke surrounded us.
I pulled the cancer stick from his mouth and dropped it into the grass. A tiny fear spread through me. . . fear of fire, a repeat of history, when people died on this land, burned by flames and choked by smoke.
The sole of Hell's sneaker prevented that from happening.
I released the breath that I certainly knew I was holding, sucking in the fresh air. I wondered what it felt like for him, to breathe using his lungs, cancer tainting each breath.
“For a while, we used scraps of paper, the prison walls, anything. Anything to pass messages to each other. Getting out, it got easier. Now we use this.”
Hell tapped at his pocket and the giant cell phone that filled it.
“You write notes to each other on a phone?”
“It's easier. It's always with us. Though we are internally closer now, as we’ve only had each other for so long.”
“Do you talk?”
“We listen.”
I nodded.
“Do you want to talk to me?”
“I'm not the one you want to talk to. I'm not your golden boy. Realistically speaking, you’d rather me be dead. . . if that didn’t mean Woodrow would be gone, too.”
“I can talk to you all.” I took a step forward, and with a dipped head, I whispered, “I wouldn’t want you to die.”
He rolled his eyes, so hard, the pretty silver flecks were lost for a second. And when they returned, they dug through my soul searching for lies.
He wouldn't find any.
“It wasn't so long ago you were telling us you hated us, wishing us dead.”
“Because I was angry. Scared. You did awful things to me. You put me in a cage; you knew what that would do to me. You shaved my hair!” My voice broke over the memories I'd so easily forgotten when Woodrow reminded me of the love inside him, the sadness catching up with all my other mental afflictions. “You raped me, again.”
“Just think, soon, you'll be free.”
“No. I'll never be free of you. You fucking haunt me. Even while you’re still here. You already haunt me.”
“Believe me, I'll be haunting you. So, don’t be thinking of bringing any other men into my fucking bed. I wouldn’t think twice about killing you both.”
He pulled out another cigarette, but before he could light this one, I pulled it from his lips and scrunched it in my hand.
A silver flame burned in his wild eyes, anger and something else brewing in the depths. . . sadness.
He pulled me against him, and I fell onto his lap. The chilling conversation couldn't rival his enjoyment of dominance. I shifted to get away from his swelling crotch, only to edge closer to him.
“I know you're scared. I know you,” I whispered.
“I know all your actions, all your life, were derived through fear. To keep Woodrow safe. You’re his protector.
I get that. What you never got was, he didn't need protecting from me.
And you can't protect him from this. . .
and that scares you most. It scares me, too. "
“I don’t want to fucking hear this!” He stood, pushing me from him.
I fell to the floor, my dress ruined by the dirt.
I found his eyes again; they watched as another tear escaped mine.
“I'm here to listen. I have time. Tell me what you need.”
“I don’t have time. We don't have time.” The realization hit him. Hard. He fell back to the swing seat. His mind somewhere other than this yard.
I took in his words . . .and his face and all the fear on it, exposed to me.
“Your Kindle is in the trunk.”
I got to my knees and put a finger to his lips, silencing him.
He'd broken me. . . finally. Not Ville. Him. And without meaning to. He wanted to live and he couldn't.
And without Woodrow, I couldn't, either.
My lips found his just as he was about to spit more venom. A spontaneous kiss told him not to be hateful.
"Don't.” He pulled back. “I hate a liar, and you've made your feelings clear. Don't pretend to care because I’m dying. I’m not him."
“I know.” I slumped down, my ass flush to my feet. “You’re not him. You’re not my Woodrow. You’re a completely different person, who I have tried to help, tried to care for. But you've never wanted to be my friend, Hell. I would have been yours."
A villainous laugh slipped through his lips, creating another puff of smoke around us.
He was cold, too cold. The breeze didn't bring much of a chill, that wasn't the reason his body couldn't hold on to heat.
And neither was the lack of clothing because he was no longer in nothing but sweatpants.
He sat in a pair of jean pants and a leatherette jacket that spoke of its newness by crunching whenever he moved.
“I never wanted to be your friend, Jolie. You really don't get it, do you? You've never understood. You're so in love with Woodrow. Where does that leave the rest of us! When we all feel some kind of way for you?”
“The only thing you ever felt was hate!”
The lowering of his gray eyes told me I was wrong. So wrong.
“You were supposed to be mine. Supposed to be there for me to take out my frustrations on. . . and all you did was frustrate me more. . . because it was constantly him you wanted. They didn’t buy you for him.
They bought you for me!” he raged. “My father convinced me long before you came that you'd belong to me.
Me, not Woodrow. He would never have approved of my father's plan.”
“Your father's plan to buy a trafficked teenager, so you could abuse, because the power would attract you to that lifestyle?”
“He told me that you'd hate me, and he proved that to be true. . . by you running from me that very first day. He didn’t tell me that I'd want and desire you, in ways I couldn’t understand.”
“You told me to run.”
“You could have objected. You did about so many other things. But you chose to run, and it angered me. I saw you like them—my parents. Another person to hurt me. . . hurt Woodrow, who was already fucking smitten with you, and who I was hell-bent on protecting, so I beat you to it. I stopped seeing you as a person. I saw you as property. Mine.” Hell laughed again, but he didn't sound like a villain this time.
He sounded like a victim. . . a survivor of the same abuse I'd suffered—life with his parents.
“I shared you with Woodrow because you cared for each other, and you chose him.
You forgave him for my actions but not me.
Never me. And he turned on me because of you.
I could feel a distance, like he didn't want me around anymore because all he wanted was you, but he was all I had.
And then, when all that stuff happened in the kitchen, I felt him shutting down, like he was letting me back in.
I heard all his plans, and there you were, on the table, waiting for him.
Waiting for me. And you didn't run this time. You welcomed me. And it changed everything. . . you were more than property from that moment. But you were still mine. And then everything turned to shit again when I saw that recording.”
The recording played through my head. I'd only seen it in my nightmares, but I knew exactly how it played out.
“I struggled with you wanting Woodrow, but I understood it. I couldn't get over the idea of you bringing that disgusting prick pleasure and enjoying it. You fucking moaned for him. My fucking father, and I fucking heard it. And it’s been stuck in my head ever since.” He stopped, digesting the anger. “And you only ever cried for me.”
"I didn't.” I sat up higher, rising to my feet. “I didn't moan for him.” I shook my head until I was dizzy.
Hell's legs pushed him back and he swung. His eyes dismissed me, turning to look at anything other than my face.
“It was your mother. She was down there, too. He abused me, and she watched, and she was the one making noises because she. . .” I couldn't even finish that sentence.
I couldn't let Wynter back into my head. I still needed her memory to not exist. Her hands never bruised me, but she hurt me the most. “I swear I never. I hated your father. And I hated what he did that last day because you were different then. Like you’re different now. You cared about me. For whatever reason, you did. And he got into your head, and he changed that.”
Hell blinked twice, feeling the truth through all the lies he’d ever been told. “I should never have let him do that. I should have killed him there and then.”
“I wish you did.”
“Fuck, me, too. But I can’t change the past.” His eyebrows pulled down, his lips becoming a thin line.
“Just the present.”
Hell would have nodded if he could.
“Woodrow wants me to make peace with you. He wants you to love him completely. Him, me, Woody, and whoever fucking else,” Hell reputed, with a sardonic smile curling his lips. “You were told we were delusional.”
“No, you're not. Not when it comes to this. I can love you. In some way, I always did. . . because you’re part of him, and I—”
He cut me off, pulling out his phone. He clicked the note app in the center of the screen, and nine-hundred and forty-eight notes appeared in a list.
“Take it inside. Read as many as you want. Sleep on it, maybe. Come back when you’re done, and then make your decision on how you feel. I don’t want meaningless words, Jolie. Lies don’t taste nice on your tongue.”
I nodded, and I closed my fingers around the phone. The lock screen wallpaper, blank, with a lack of expression, stared up at me as I looked down at the device.
And I continued looking at it as I walked away, only glancing back to see Hell still facing away from me, slumping—something he never ever did—as he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.