28. Chapter 28

Jade

6 Months Before

"Bruce liked to play games."

A sickening chill shudders through me, but I attempt to ignore it.

"Bruce was your mother's boyfriend?" Apollo asks, and I mutely nod. "When did that relationship start?"

"I was ten," I answer easily. "I don't know how long she knew him before that, but that's when he first turned up. He moved in a few days after we met."

"Okay," Apollo acknowledges, signaling for me to keep going.

"Right off the bat, he didn't like me, but honestly, I was kind of okay with that," I say, keeping my pace slow so that I can control my breathing. "It was better than Kim's whiplash. We'd have months where I thought she loved me and then even longer stretches where I couldn't convince myself that she wouldn't prefer I were dead."

It didn't matter how many times it happened, I would just keep soaking up any semblance of love or kindness she teased me with. There was no way I could fully let her go in my head, I couldn't have no one. I needed someone, even if she never needed or even wanted me.

"Bruce was mean," I tell Apollo, dropping my head against the shower door to look at the ceiling. I bring my knees up, wrapping my arms around my shins to hug myself into a more relaxed position. "He openly said he didn't like me, not to bother him, and so on and so on. It was rude, but it wasn't scary."

"At first," Apollo guesses, and I gulp.

"Yeah," I whisper. "At first."

"Like six months into him living with us, I turned eleven. Bruce said he was going to give me a ‘valuable life lesson' as a present. I figured that just meant he spent all of his last paycheck on beer and vodka and would drunkenly babble some kind of ‘back in my day' bullshit disguised as advice."

I was preparing all day to keep my face neutral during his spiel so he wouldn't have anything to get mad at me about.

"But after dinner came and went, and he still hadn't given me anything, I was pretty sure he just forgot to."

My naive little brain hoped, anyway.

"That night, I woke up because I couldn't breathe. There was this awful burning pressure in my chest, so horrible I wanted to claw myself open at the ribs just to get some air in. I couldn't move, though. My hands were bound down, and my ankles were too. I just kept thrashing and trying to suck in more air, but I was only making it worse for myself."

"It's a natural reaction," Apollo says, justifying my actions.

I know he's technically correct, but in the moment, there was nothing natural about that night.

"There was plastic covering my face," I continue. "I couldn't tell if it was a bag or what, but it was covering my mouth and nose, and there was no way for me to pull it off. Then my nose started to bleed, and all I could smell was metal."

The smell of blood still gives me stomach aches.

"The burning slowed, and every bit of me felt numb. But right before everything went dark, the plastic was removed, and I gasped."

It was the most painfully relieving gulp of air.

"That's when I realized it was Bruce. He'd been standing over me the whole time, watching me suffer and struggle. He started taunting me while I was recovering, panting for as much oxygen as I could possibly get."

"What did he say?"

Bile creeps up my throat.

"He asked if I liked my birthday present."

There's the slightest stiffening next to me, and I soften at the display, knowing that it means he cares. Even a little bit.

"The life lesson he wanted me to learn? How easily someone like me can be killed. Small, young, weak. Bruce wanted me to know that he allowed me to live, and he could take that away at any time." I swallow bile back, feeling disgust wash through me. "And that he would enjoy taking it away."

I knew he wasn't lying, I could see the pleased glint in his eye while he watched me become a fish out of water. He liked the struggle, and he loved that he caused it.

"When I started to cry, I heard Kim laughing. I thought I was hallucinating, but maybe I just wanted to be. I didn't want my mom to be able to laugh at me while I felt like I was dying. I wanted all of it to be a lie—a horrible nightmare I'd wake up from as soon as the sun started to rise."

But the sun never rose again, really.

Not until Dante held me, I think. Even though it was dark outside and I was still scared, the world didn't feel so cold anymore.

"Jade, did you tell anyone about this?"

I sniff, shaking my head and holding back the despair as best as I can. "The next day at school, I used a library computer to google the side effects of frequent oxygen loss, and it horrified me. Did you know it can cause permanent brain damage? Just one time long enough without breathing, and poof, it can happen right then."

"Yes," he answers. "I knew that."

"Well, when I found out, I went to our school counselor. We'd had assemblies before where they explained that he was a mandated reporter and there for the students who needed him."

"You told him what happened?"

A bitter laugh bubbles up my throat. "A fat lot of good that did me."

"He didn't believe you?"

"I don't know if he thought I was lying, but I know he didn't want to deal with me even if I wasn't," I answer, still feeling the same anger I felt that day. "He told me that I'm having a lot of strong emotions at this age and must have misinterpreted what happened. That I should take a few days to relax, and I'd realize how I was overreacting."

Yeah. The forty-year-old man chopped up the traumatized eleven-year-old in his office as a victim of no more than puberty.

I was done trying to reach out for help after that.

I don't watch Apollo's face, but I can feel the rage practically rolling off of him. He may know how to control the way he shows his emotions on his face, but his stiff demeanor says enough.

"When I got home, Bruce smiled at me, and I knew it was going to happen again. I didn't know why or how, but I knew it would. The games were different, but every goal was the same. Convince Jade that he can kill her and that there's nothing she can do about it."

Suffocation, knives held to my throat, no food for a week, even pouring water down my throat until I almost drowned. Anything he could do to me without leaving evidence behind, he tried it.

"And this went on for years?" The dark sound of Apollo's voice pulls me out of my memories, and I give him a trembling nod.

"That's why I got the chain for my door," I confess. "It kept him out when he was too drunk to break in, so thankfully, the frequency of the games wasn't too bad because of it sometimes."

"But he found ways around it?"

"He stopped just doing it while I was in bed," I mutter, shrugging. "Coming up behind me with a knife to my kidney while I was getting a glass of water. Implying he put rat poison in my dinner so I couldn't eat it. Jumping on me and tying a plastic bag around my head while I was walking around the house. He got creative."

Sometimes the anticipation was worse than the assault. Like walking around on eggshells constantly with no hope of reprieve.

"It was all horrible, and I genuinely did think he'd kill me one day. Accidentally or on purpose, I expect him to. He took advantage of my size and used his weight against me. I was never sure that I'd be able to fight back."

"But that changed recently?" Apollo guesses.

"He changed the game," I whisper, a stray tear leaking out of the corner of my eye. "He didn't want to just taunt me, he wanted to actually hunt me."

I take a few breaths and hug my legs tighter to myself.

"One night, he pulled me out of bed. He'd come in through my window just to pull me back through it. Before then, I could feel him actively holding back wherever he would touch me—avoiding making too many bruises, so I couldn't have proof. This time? Every touch hit like a punch."

The way his fingers dug into the flesh of my arms and legs, I knew something was different. Like the stakes had been risen, and no one prepared me for how high they could go.

"Bruce tossed me out of the window, and I hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. While I tried to scramble to my feet, he jumped down after me. He wasn't stumbling around, but he still stank like vodka, and I knew he'd been drinking, but less than normal. He wanted to have his head for whatever he was planning, that much was obvious."

My stomach churns, discomfort becoming unavoidable.

"I'd fallen asleep in my clothes the night before," I tell him. "I was actually trying to stay awake because it was safer, and I'd gotten into the habit of ditching class to sleep in the auditorium at school. Which is most of the reason that my grades are abysmal."

That and the lack of care. How was I supposed to give a fuck about studying for calculus or world history when I didn't know if I would be alive to take the test?

"My legs were pretty well covered by my jeans but my t-shirt wasn't enough to keep me from shivering and having bare feet didn't help. When I stood up, it was like they were already frozen to the muddy grass beneath them."

Luckily, they weren't actually stuck in place.

"Bruce told me to run and that when he caught me, he'd kill me. I could only keep breathing for another day if I made it until the sun came up. He said he wanted a good hunt, so he'd give me a two-minute head start. So I ran."

Tightly, he asks, "Where did you go?"

"The closest neighbor's house was toward the back, through the forest behind the house, and across this river that separates them. I ran that way, counting to sixty twice before I started screaming. I knew he'd hate it, but I didn't care. I knew he was going to kill me this time; there were already bruises blossoming on my arms, and he couldn't let anyone see them. They might believe me if they did."

Unfolding my legs, I look down and wince.

Slowly, I peel off my cotton socks, exposing the bottoms of my feet. The pale skin is polluted with scar after scar. Little knicks and big slashes, still angry and red but for the most part healed. They're still sore when I stand for too long, but they haven't bled since the hospital sealed them all up.

"The rocks, twigs, and branches scattered all around the woods really tore me up," I say, leaning back so that he can see the injuries. "I could smell that I was bleeding, and every step hurt worse than the last, but I just kept running and screaming as loud as I could."

Apollo's jaw ticks, the action being the only crack in his calm, cool, and collected facade. I want to ask him to hold my hand or something, but I can't figure out how.

"I was so scared, but more than that, I was furious," I admit. "My feet hurt so bad, and my lungs felt like they were actually on fire in my chest. So, I fought back. For real this time."

"Where did you find a knife?" Apollo asks.

"A knife?" I question, eyebrows dipping in.

"You stabbed him. Seventeen times according to Officer Brian."

"Oh," I murmur, shaking my head. "I didn't use a knife."

He tilts his head, curious.

"Kim locked up the knives in that house tighter than she locked up the food," I inform him, shoulders dipping in with each new embarrassing detail I reveal. As if being deprived of sustenance is somehow my fault when I know it's not. "I literally cut my food by ripping it up or using a spoon."

"Okay, no knife," he says. "What did you use, Jade?"

"People used to throw parties by the river that runs around that area, and I was so close to it that I could hear water rushing. I could barely see a thing, but I kept running that way. I had gotten some distance on him, and I knew it wouldn't last, so I couldn't slow down."

I can feel remnants of that adrenaline any time I think about it. My heart is already racing harder, making it more difficult to think clearly.

"When I was close enough to the river that I could actually get into it or cross it if I wanted to, I started looking. I was still screaming at first, hoping that the house just through the trees could hear me, but I had to stop. I could feel him getting closer, and I refused to lead him right to me."

I knew he was furious, and I refused to face that wrath unarmed.

"I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl to find something I could use. I have a knick on my knee from that, too. The hospital had to pull out a tiny rock from it, I guess."

I'm getting off track.

"Anyway, I was scanning my hand over the damp grass when I finally felt something sharp. I couldn't see it fully, only what little bit of it the moon above would show me, but I was running out of time, so I needed it to work."

I was ninety percent sure it was a broken wine bottle, maybe a large beer bottle, but either way, it was a lifeline. My only hope.

"I heard twigs snapping under heavy feet and saw little bursts of light flashing from behind trees, and I knew I was out of time. I took off my shirt and wrapped it around the duller end of the glass as many times as I could before I ran out of fabric.

As he got closer, I ducked behind a huge oak tree, using the shadow to disappear from the flashlight. When he walked past me, not even looking over his shoulder in the process, I just did it."

I'd never felt more strength rushing into me, or bravery coursing through me before. And thankfully, it was enough to fuel me for what I needed to do.

"I got him in the shoulder first," I mutter disappointedly. "I was aiming for his neck, but he moved before my arm swung down. I moved fast, though, pulling back as hard as I could to slam the glass back in again. I didn't care where it hit him as long as it did. He tripped over his feet while crying out from the pain, and I didn't let him get back up. I crowded him, stabbing where I could without getting caught."

Time seemed to blur in that moment. I couldn't tell whether it was going unusually fast or incredibly slow. But the awful smell of metal melted into the scent of the forest around us, and I could tell I was doing the damage I needed to do.

"While I was stabbing him, he was coughing up blood, and he kept trying to say these code words like it would make me stop. But I couldn't stop, not until he stopped moving and talking… and breathing."

"Code words?" Apollo asks, cutting in.

"Oh, yeah," I confirm, wondering how I haven't mentioned them yet. "He thought he could use mind control with code words to ‘unlock my brain'. Like he genuinely believed he could control me with some kind of conditioning? I don't know, he used code words like they were a lock and key to my brain, but none of it actually affected me."

"Mind control?" Apollo echoes.

"Yeah," I say, crinkling my nose. "A lot of the time, I just pretended that it worked. I could see how happy it made him when I followed commands, so much so that when I didn't, he got mad at himself. Like, I'd given him confirmation of his ability before, so clearly, he must have messed something up if I snapped out of his trance. It drove him so close to insanity, I swear. Sometimes his breakdowns were scarier than the games themselves."

"Why did he think he could control you? Did he say?"

Well, not entirely.

"Bruce would constantly keep talking about The Knights," I relay, shaking my head. "He thought he could control me because of what he learned with them? Like he thought he had words that would make me susceptible to his demands somehow."

I never understood it, but I didn't exactly have time to analyze him while I spent every waking moment trying to avoid him.

"The Knights don't know how talented I am, they don't know what they've lost letting me go, I'm too good for them and their little club," I add, imitating some of his common rants.

"The Knights?" Apollo asks, jaw tightening. "Are you sure?"

I nod firmly. "He talked about it all the time. Do you… do you know what he was talking about?"

"I have an idea," he says warily.

"The Knights are a real thing?" I ask, feeling nausea creep in. "I was hoping it was a drunken delusion, something he made up."

"They're real," he comments. "You don't need to worry about them though."

"I don't?"

"No."

I hesitate, finding that hard to believe. "Um, why not?"

"It'll be handled."

Ominous.

"What do you mean?" I ask cautiously. "If there's actually a group of people practicing mind control, why wouldn't I worry about that?"

Apollo looks at me. "Because the first thing I'm going to do when I leave this room is make damn sure The Knights aren't protecting Bruce. And then I'm going to make them pay for not killing him when he clearly failed to join them. That's all you need to know."

"Please don't," I plead, immediately latching my hand around his wrist. "Don't start some kind of war to avenge me. I just want it to be over. The last thing I want is for any of you to get hurt because of me."

Apollo lowers his gaze, eyes finding my hand shaking in a tight grip around his arm. The part of me that's desperate for his approval is screaming at me to let him go, to apologize for even touching him. But I can't. I can't let Apollo do something that could backfire on this whole family, not when I've just gotten them.

"K-kill Bruce and Kim if you have to," I say shakily. "They're just people, but I don't know what The Knights are capable of. Please don't?—"

"I do know what The Knights are capable of, Jade," Apollo interrupts, voice as steady as it has been this whole time. There isn't even a hint of worry on his face. "I know what they're capable of, and I know that I can crush them like an insignificant little bug."

"But—"

"Jade," he cuts me off again, voice firmer. "You're new here, I understand that. But when it comes to matters of The Outfit, you don't have a say. I'm sure that sounds unfair, but you should remember, just like you don't know about The Knights, you don't know about The Morettis."

I can't argue with that.

"But don't worry," he adds. "You'll know soon."