28. The Shadow

THE SHADOW

N obody was supposed to know I was living in the mansion next door to Ava. So when the doorbell rang and an insistent banging sounded at the front door, I went on full alert.

I held my biggest knife in my hand, one that I named Dundee, the weight of it reassuring, as I peered through the peephole.

I didn’t know who I expected. Well-armed shadowy henchmen. A single masked assassin.

But then again, they’d hardly knock.

Perhaps, a bill collector for Mr. Peterson. Or an ex-wife pissed that he’d stopped paying alimony.

I didn’t expect Ava.

Banging the knocker over and over, a determined look on her face.

I sheathed the knife and swung open the door.

The minute we locked eyes, her features cracked apart. “I remember.”

My stomach twisted, sickness tying up my guts .

Fuck. My nightmare had come true.

I didn’t want her to remember. Tried so hard to stop her from remembering, knowing it would only cause her pain.

It had been a blessing when I realized she’d forgotten all about it.

I remembered the first time I saw her again, standing there on her first day on campus. I had been so damn excited, my heart pounding with something like hope.

I’d found her—after all those years, I’d traced her all the way to the other side of the country, to Dublin.

There she was. Ava.

But she didn’t remember me. Didn’t remember us .

She’d forgotten about everything .

She’d forgotten all about my father and his abuse.

Something had clicked. Maybe this was a blessing.

She didn’t have to remember. The past, the hurt, the scars—it was all buried. She could be happy, free from the darkness that had consumed us.

Even if it meant she’d never remember me, never know what we’d been through, it was better this way. Better for her.

And that’s when I made my choice. I’d stay in the shadows, hidden from her life, a ghost. Her shadow.

I’d watch over her, protect her, even if she never knew who I was. It was enough to know she was safe, even if I had to live in the dark.

But I knew that those missing pieces were like heavy chains waiting to drag her back into the darkness.

One day, they’d coil around her and never let go.

And when she started investigating Liath’s disappearance—a girl with secrets too dark and too similar to her own—I knew it was only a matter of time before her digging uncovered her own buried pain. Truths that were best left forgotten.

Looked like that day had finally come.

I cast a quick glance out into the street, scanning for any sign that someone might’ve followed her, before pulling her inside the mansion.

My movements were robotic, almost numb, as I led her to the massive white marble kitchen. Without thinking, I hoisted her up onto the counter, her legs dangling like a child’s. She didn’t resist, just stared at me, broken.

Maybe it was the Irish in me, but I turned on the kettle, my hands moving on autopilot as I rummaged around for tea, trying to fill the silence. Something normal in the face of all this chaos.

“Scáth…” Her voice cracked, soft and trembling, and it broke something inside me. “Did you know your father was hurting me? Please… just tell me the truth.”

The truth.

The truth was that it was all my fault.

I clenched my jaw, gripping the edge of the counter until my knuckles turned white.

The fucking truth was that I should have stopped it sooner. But I hadn’t. I’d let her suffer because I’d been too stupid to realize what was happening.

Down the long dark hallway, I inched toward the cracked door even though I knew it was wrong. My father would kill me if he ever caught me.

My fingertips pressed gently against the door and I aligned just one single eye with the tall strip of yellow light coming from within his personal library .

I saw Ava laid across the couch as usual, her hair damp tonight. She wore her little white nightgown, which fluttered from the slight breeze coming in through the open windows. The lamplight beside her made the gauzy material translucent.

I got hard at the outline of her body naked beneath.

My father was there. Sitting beside her on the couch, his broad back to me. His nightly glass of whiskey finished and set aside on the side table atop an open illustrated copy of Alice in Wonderland .

He would start to undress her. He would lift her and kiss her throat.

And she would let him.

I would burn with jealousy, with desire. With hatred.

Because she was supposed to be mine.

Not his .

But something was different that night.

When my father tugged at the little pale-blue ribbon at the high neck of her nightgown, her eyes widened with fear.

His heavy panting filled the library as he began to drag the gown over her limp arms as if he didn’t hear her panicked whimpers.

But I did.

My father pulled Ava naked to his chest, but this time she pushed against him, moaning, “No.”

I thought she was complicit.

That she wanted it.

My father had a way of charming people, and I thought she’d fallen into his grasp. Willingly.

Because why else would she just let him? Why else wouldn’t she protest ?

She never fought back, never screamed, and I let myself believe that was her choice.

I convinced myself of that because the alternative… the truth… was too horrifying.

But her silence took on a new face that night—a nasty, disgusting, vile mask.

I realized too late. She wasn’t complicit.

She was paralyzed.

She had been drugged with one of my father’s vile potions.

My father had been abusing her. Using her.

And I had let it happen.

I had watched.

I had touched myself thinking of it.

The guilt hit me like a wrecking ball, ripping through every excuse I’d ever made for myself. It defined me. Every choice I’d made up until then, every time I’d turned my back, it all came crashing down. I let it happen. I let her suffer.

I couldn’t live with that.

That was the moment I knew I had to stop it. I had to put an end to it—no matter the cost, no matter what it took. Protecting her became my mission, the only thing that mattered anymore.

I made the decision to save her, to shield her from the monster that was my father. And I did it the only way I knew how.

By becoming a monster myself.

Back in the kitchen, I stepped between Ava’s legs as they dangled off the counter and handed her a steaming mug of milky, sugary tea .

She held it between us like a shield.

I took a sip of my own tea, burning my mouth, trying to delay the inevitable.

All too soon there was no more tea.

Nothing left to do but confess.

I swallowed down the guilt lumped like a rock in my throat.

“I didn’t realize at first what he was doing. I thought… I thought you wanted it. Wanted him .”

She sucked in a gasp, realization crossing her eyes like she just put two and two together. “That’s why you hated me.”

God, she looked so small sitting there, curled around her mug of tea, her eyes shimmering with wetness.

I wanted to protect her. Wanted to curl around her and never let her go.

But there were things that even I couldn’t protect her from. No matter how much I wanted to.

“I realized too late that my own father was drugging you.”

The words slipped from my mouth like a venomous hiss, the guilt sinking into my veins like poison, spreading through every inch of me. It consumed me, tainted everything I was.

My guilt had twisted me, warped me into something darker. It clung to my soul like a curse, burning through my veins until there was nothing left but shame and self-loathing.

I had let it define me. It had changed me. Turned me into the monster I am now.

I could never stop paying for it .

No matter how many times I saved her, no matter how many demons I fought to protect her, it would never be enough.

Because nothing— nothing —could make up for those nights when I should have saved her but didn’t.

The nights when I just watched instead of stopping the nightmare she was trapped in.

I’d never stop paying for that.

Ava set aside her tea and hugged herself.

“So you… you killed your father because he was…” her voice trailed off, as if she couldn’t stand to say the words out loud.

I let out a sigh and rubbed my face. God, I suddenly felt so tired. Like I’d been carrying around this secret for years and it was so heavy.

I hadn’t wanted to share this with Ava.

Hadn’t wanted to burden her with it.

But now that she knew, there was a part of me that felt relieved that I would no longer have to carry this alone.

“Yes,” I admitted, my voice sticky with self-hatred. “ I killed him.”

But the other piece of the story, the thing she couldn’t know, I slid that back into the recesses of my memory, guilt tasting bitter on my tongue.

“To protect me,” she injected, setting her mug aside and sliding her hands around my cheeks.

I nodded, leaning into her soft palms.

I’d do anything to protect her. Keep secrets from her. Kill for her.

Kill my own father.

“I only wish I had done it sooner,” I admitted, my vicious words juxtaposed against the tenderness at which I leaned my forehead against hers. “I wish he’d suffered more when he died.”

Perhaps I’d wanted to scare her. Perhaps if I showed her the darkness inside of me, she’d finally turn away from me. She’d run and never stop running. She’d be safe.

But she didn’t.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and drew in closer. “I don’t care. You did it to protect me. You killed him to protect me.”

I closed my mouth on hers, swallowing her protests, tasting her gasps. Need raced through me in an almost blinding surge.

But I stopped myself from losing control.

I promised myself I’d never lose control around Ava.

I deepened the kiss, grinding against her soft core as I pushed up her skirt to her hips. The moans she fed me could have sustained me for life.

I slipped a hand between us, finding her panties wet. I wasted no time, pushing them aside and spreading her wetness before slipping two fingers into her hot, wet pussy.

She moaned into my ear, her muscles tightening around me.

Fuck. I needed to be inside her. Now.

I unzipped myself, my fingers shaking from impatience and I lined up with her pussy entrance, the urge to just thrust almost overwhelming.

I pushed in, inch by inch, splitting her open.

I let out a groan. “My sweet girl.”

She tensed, her fingers gripping hard into my back .

Then I realized what I’d said. Hateful poisoned words. I hadn’t meant to.

Sweet girl. Sweet, sweet girl. That’s what he called her.

I pulled back. “Ava?”

I pulled out completely, my erection forgotten, panic rushing through me. I pushed back her damp hair from her forehead and turned her face to mine with gentle fingers on her chin. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes were glassy, unfocused. Her skin had gone pale and clammy.

“Baby, please,” I whispered. “Talk to me.”

Then life sparked in her eyes and she shoved me back. “Get off me. Don’t fucking touch me.”

She might as well have stabbed me through the heart. But I took it. I took the pain like a penance. Because I deserved it. That and whatever else she chose to punish me with.

I held up my hands in surrender, stepping back to let the frigid air rush between us.

She glared at me, breaths huffing through her flared nostrils.

Or more like, she glared through me.

“Ava?”

A shudder went through her and all of a sudden, her fury shattered.

Her features collapsed and she curled into herself as sobs racked her body. “Oh my God…”

Her pain ripped through me, tearing at my chest like claws. I could feel every sob, every broken sound she made as if it were my own.

Without thinking, I pulled her into my arms, letting her fists pound against my chest. I didn’t flinch, didn’t try to stop her.

She needed this release, even if it broke me in the process.

When she stopped hitting me, I carried her over to the living room, settling us both into the armchair with her curled up on my lap.

She trembled against me, her body shaking as she buried her face in my chest, and all I could do was hold her.

My hand brushed over her back, my fingers tracing soothing circles, but the truth was, I had no idea how to fix this.

Silent tears rolled down my own cheeks as I sat with her through the storm.

This—this was exactly what I’d feared.

What good was knowing? What good was digging up the past, tearing open wounds that had only just started to heal? She was better off not remembering. Better off left in the dark, where the weight of what happened couldn’t touch her.

But now the floodgates were open, and I was terrified that the memories wouldn’t stop, that they would keep coming, pulling her deeper into the darkness I’d tried so hard to keep her from.

Slowly, her crying softened, then faded altogether, leaving only the soft sound of her hiccups.

I brushed my thumb under her eyes, wiping away the tears still clinging to her skin. I stroked her cheeks, my heart aching with every touch.

She was so damn beautiful, even when she cried .

I hated seeing her like this, broken and hurting. Couldn’t stop feeling the weight of my guilt, my shame.

Because no matter how hard I tried to save her, I couldn’t erase the nights I hadn’t.

“You remembered something,” I said, a statement rather than a question.

Her glossy eyes finally focused on me. “I remembered that h-he… he…”

I tucked her against my chest as I shushed her. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

I didn’t want her to talk. I feared her words would dislodge more pieces of her past like sharp rocks from a mountain above, ready to crush her under its weight.

Knowing was one thing.

But now she was starting to remember what he did to her.

If I had only managed to convince her to stop investigating, she might never have started. She could have kept going, ignorant and happy.

I curled my arms around her, willing my love to shield her from any more pain, from more memories of my father. Even as hopelessness weighed heavy in my bones.

I had to protect her from any more memories. From any more pain.

But I didn’t know how.

A new wave of fear surged through me. There were still pieces missing, fragments of the nightmare I’d kept hidden from her.

And if she ever remembered all of it… if she ever realized just how deep it went, I didn’t know what that would do to her .

I held her tighter, my hand trembling slightly as I stroked her back.

The floodgates had only just cracked open. How much longer until everything came pouring out? Until she uncovered the things I had tried so hard to shield her from?

And what would she do when she found out what I was still hiding?

Because she still hadn’t remembered everything.