Chapter 36

THIRTY-SIX

brOOKE

I wail like an animal just punched through with a hunter’s bullet.

“Oh my God!” Moira yelps at my scream, jumping out from underneath him. My— My father. “Brooke. I’m so embarrassed,” she says, yanking down the skirt of her tight school-girl outfit.

I stare at my father, still in the van. He’s just lazily tucked himself into his pants as he grins back at me with a smug smile carved in his face.

He’s prepared all this. I can’t even begin to imagine how. But he meant for me to run out just now and catch him. Either that or he’s been fucking Moira ever since the shelter while he waited for me to wake back up, knowing he’d stage this moment at some point. All the while wielding me as a weapon against Domhnall.

I’d finally been a bad girl too many times.

He told me the next time I tried to run away, he’d make good on his promise to hurt Donny in a way he’d never recover from this time. I saw in his eyes he meant it.

So I waited. I waited until my father was off guard, sure he thought he’d finally broken me into his soulless puppet.

And then I ran one last time. I told myself I could warn Donny before my father got to him. If I planned carefully enough, surely I could outwit my father in this last game of chess. Just this once .

But he was one move ahead of me the whole time, wasn’t he? Like always, he let me think I was winning until calling checkmate when I least expected it.

Father found me when I was getting close to Domhnall’s, and he smashed my head in. Then, while I was blinking, woozy with blood loss, he got in my face and hypnotized me into forgetting, just like always. Except this time, he didn’t just tell me to forget the night before. He told me to forget everything .

To forget.

Completely.

Until he woke me with his mentalist’s signal just now in the club. It flipped the switch back to her .

I never let him know she exists inside me, bearing the worst of his sadistic punishments and taking over on the days when I just couldn’t get out of bed or keep on keeping on. He thought it was all his mentalism skills and I let him think so. She never even gave herself a name. She was just the one who bore the darkness. She was the one who obeyed when I couldn’t.

And now here she and I stand, staring at the devil who made us as he grins in triumph.

His favorite game always was to torture me and Domhnall with our love for one another. He can’t understand love, so he poisons it with his evil. The same as he does when he comes across any pure thing. The same as he did to my mother.

“Oh my god,” Moira repeats, covering her face from me. She still has no clue what’s actually unfolding. To her, my father is just the handyman from the shelter, elicit only because she’s fucking him outside the club and her brother’s set rules for her. “Please don’t tell Domhn.”

“It’s alright, Moira,” I say, still glaring my father down. “But go back inside now or I will tell on you. Domhnall’s worried. You know how he gets when he’s worried.”

“Shit,” Moira says, turning away from us and back towards the club. She immediately starts running towards it as fast as her high-heels and tight bondage dress will allow, pulling a phone from I can’t imagine where and texting as she goes.

Assured she’s safe, I look back at my father .

“It’s taken you long enough, my little Mati,” he finally says, climbing out of the car. I back away from him, all my muscles rigid. “I trust you’ve destroyed him just like we planned?”

“I didn’t plan anything with you!” I spit. But even as I say it, I’m not sure if it’s true or not. Did she and him plan it?

When I was younger, she helped me survive. I see that now. She took on what I couldn’t bear. But in the process, just how far did he twist her mind? I’m not sure.

Especially when my father takes a slow step forward. “Yes you did, pumpkin. It was your idea, actually. You’ve missed Domhnall. He was your favorite doggy we ever had.”

“Shut up!” I hiss, rigid body shaking now. No. No! It’s not true. I’m frozen beyond the trembling, not able to move a muscle. “You’re lying.”

“You’ve been a good girl for such a long time now; I told you it was time for a treat. You asked for doggy Donny back. Who am I to deny my good girl anything? It’s been just you and Daddy, playing our little games together for all these years.”

My head swims with his words and suddenly I’m confused. A hand lifts to my head.

Did I actually try to escape my father and come to warn Domhn? Or… Or is what Daddy’s saying true? After all this time, did I stay so deep in my mind’s box that I let her just run free? Free to be a monster just like him ?

Was I just deluding myself this whole time that I’ve been the one in control?

I thought Domhnall and me were like matching pieces of a puzzle but turns out I’m just a jigsaw with pieces missing, ones from a different puzzle stapled into their place. I don’t know what’s mine and what’s not. What’s real? Am I Domhnall’s puzzle piece because that’s what she and my father made me?

“That’s my good girl,” my father coos, taking another step towards me as the light begins to dim at the edges of my vision. I start to feel dizzy. Like I’m in a dream, and I realize it’s a familiar feeling.

Oh shit, she’s back, and she wants control again.

All the light disappears when, reaching suddenly in front of my face, my father snaps his fingers. The world goes black. The last thing I feel is him catching me as I fall unconscious.