I reached behind me and pulled the knife from my back pocket. Placing it in her hands, I repeated, “Ask me again.”
Melissa sat up. She looked at the knife in her hand. When she looked back at me, she asked, “Does Val know you’re hurting yourself?”
“No.”
I heard Val gasp. I heard the chair scrape against the floor. My eyes stayed locked on Melissa, but from the corner I could see Bane holding on to her. Keeping her from moving to me.
“Let me go, asshole.”
“How do you think Val would feel if she knew?” Melissa asked.
“Sad. Angry. Disappointed.”
“Kytten, no,” Val cried. I couldn’t look at her. If I saw her face, I would lose what little courage was holding me together right now.
“Can you tell me why you hurt yourself?”
“The monsters needed to scream.”
“Why did the monsters need to scream, Kytten?”
Tears ran down my cheeks. Cash rested his chin on my shoulder, and his arms held on to me tightly. Finally, I had the courage to look around the room, first at Val, tears falling as Bane held her back. Then Arsyn, with a curious look on her face, shadowed by something dark.
Magyk looked confused. And Harmony was sad. But Lucky was the one that surprised me. She looked angry. Like she knew what was coming.
It was only when I looked at Syrena and saw the fear in her eyes, the panic that said she knew what I was about to say, that I felt like I could speak the words.
“Because I couldn’t.”
“Why couldn’t you scream, Kytten?”
“No one was there to hear it. They were always busy helping others. I didn’t want to take away from the people who really needed help.”
“What did you need, Kytten?” Melissa asked.
“I needed to cry; I needed to yell and throw things and be angry. But I couldn’t. They expected me to be happy. The smiling Kytten who had never experienced anything bad. Except that mywhole life had been bad. From the beginning, no one knew we existed. We were hidden away like a dirty secret. Then he took our mother away.”
I let go of Melissa and turned to my brother. “She tried to fight. She scratched at him and kicked, but he wouldn’t let her go. Then he hit her. Over and over until she didn’t get up.” Thorne stared at me as I told him everything about the day our mother was taken. “He picked her up and put her in the car. I don’t even know if she was still alive. She wouldn’t have told him about you.”
“You didn’t tell me,” he said. “You didn’t tell me any of that.”
“You were so angry. When you left, I thought you’d left me. I thought you weren’t coming back because you didn’t want me anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Rose. I tried to come back. I tried to get away.”
“I know. Now we both know the truth.”
“Rose, he needs to know all of it. So does Val,” Cash said. I nodded and turned back around.
I took a deep breath, and I told them everything. Everything I told Cash and Dr. Dunaway, I told Val and everyone in that room.
Cash held me in his arms as I lay in bed. When I told everyone my secrets, the room was quiet. Until I got to what Syrena had done to me, and then the room exploded.
Cash picked me up and brought me upstairs. I didn’t know what happened after that. I cried into his chest until I fell asleep. I didn’t know where Syrena was or if she was still alive.
I wasn’t sure I cared. She had already had a front-row seat in my life. It was time she was ejected so space could be made for people who loved me the way I deserved to be loved.
“How are you feeling, Rose?”
