My scaly skin and precious lies, do they not tempt your velvet lips?
Does the sharpness of my claws cause pain when I grasp your fragile hips?
Let you learn you’re too soon to trust, too easy to deceive with these words that let me in
The disguise of evil, oh child, oh love, you found your haven buried within my sin.”
Her words are so crypticallydark and wounded, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued—fascinated, in love with this side of her. “And there is your darkness coming to the light, huh?” I ask, brushing a stray piece of hair from her face.
“It’s all I know to write. The only way it won’t consume me is to get it out, and words—unspoken words—it’s the only way I can do it without it killing me.”
I drag her face to mine and kiss her. The moment I pull away I can see it all over her face. She’s gone there. She has tripped and fallen into that deep abyss where all those memories live, constantly attempting to claw their way up the slippery walls. “Ava?” I say.
“What makes someone do something like that?”
“I don’t know.”
“What makes someone want to hurt a child like that? How can someone do that to them? It’s sick and fucked up and I hate him. I hate him so much it nearly consumes me at times.”
And I want to fucking kill this man, whoever he is for taking that innocence from her. If I can find him, I will, and I will fucking relish in it. I’ll bathe in his motherfucking blood. Taking her by the shoulders, I pull her to me and hold her. “Tell me his name. Please, tell me his name.”
“It was my uncle…” There’s a long pause. I can see her fighting with it. “His name was Johnny,” she whispers into my neck, and my entire body ripples in shock.
Time seems to slow, possibly fucking halt as my mind reverses back to the moment I beat that man’s skull in with a hammer. Blood, it’s all I can see in my head and everything in the universe has just clicked into place.Fate.Sheismy fate and I am hers and I can never fucking deny that as long as I live now.
“He’s dead. Someone murdered him,” she says. “And you know what? When I found out he was dead, I balled for hours. I cried like a baby because someone I didn’t even know saved me when I couldn’t save myself and then, when I was able to stop the tears, I smiled. I thanked God because that meant I was safe.”
I swallow. My heart slams against my ribs like a caged beast trying to break loose from its jail. “Johnny Donovan?” The hatred oozes from my tone.
She nods.Do I tell her?Do I tell her how bound to one another we truly are? “I believe in fate now,” I say. “I believe we are fated together.”
She pushes away from me, her gaze curiously narrowing. “Why?”
“That man raped my sister and I killed him. When I was sixteen, I fucking murdered him.”
Her face grows pale, her lip trembling. It seems like an hour passes before her mouth moves to form words, but even then, not one sound comes out. This is a hard thing for her to digest, I’m sure. The man she believes she loves just confessed to murdering her rapist uncle, one who ruined her…but how should she feel?
“So even before you knew me, you saved me.” And her lips press over mine, tears trickling down her face as she grabs onto me in a hold that would be enough to rip the fucking devil from his throne and have him begging at her knees. “You’ve always saved me.”
I have found within her something unmatched by anything else. Our demons are the same, and even though I know deep down inside that this is not fair to her, I am selfish. Very selfish, and how bad can it be for a person to live a lie they don’t even know exists?
* * *
Ican’t sleep. I toss and turn, eaten up by remorse. Once we leave tomorrow, there is no turning back. And is what I’m doing truly best for her? Fuck myself. Is it best forher?
My mind drifts to Lila, to her lifeless eyes fixed on the ceiling of that mansion. Finally, I understand those men, even though I wish I didn’t. While Ava lies sleeping in my arms, completely vulnerable, completely mine, I realize that this feeling—well, I think very few people ever experience this.
It is human nature to be strong, to put on a front. People want to be something they aren’t. They try to impress, to outdo, to protect their hearts and pride. The women that left that house—they were without those things. They were bare. They were open and freed of expectations. In a sense, completely pure, even though they were the most impure of the impure. Having had all of the societal bullshit taken away, they were made to love.
And above all else, love is pure…it is without judgment and open, and those traits are rare. So rare because of how entitled we have become, how almighty and prideful. Those women, they were built to know nothing but love and that is worth more than money can buy, sadly. I see that now because that very thing is resting on my chest.
I am no better. I am no stronger because I want totakethis. I want to run with it and never let it go. I’d take this lie in a fucking heartbeat, but the thing is, she loves me because she knows no better, she loves me because I have manipulated her—I love her because I was meant to. And what a fucked up reality is this? To know the woman you should love, loves you based on broken will.
And so I decide I will save her. I will save her even though I wish I was too selfish to do it.
* * *
We leftaround six in the evening to avoid the work traffic and use darkness to help hide us. It’s nearly eleven now, and she hasn’t noticed we’re going the wrong direction, or if she has, she hasn’t mentioned it to me. But she has been awfully quiet.
