29. Ava

AVA

F or so long my memories were blank spaces in my mind. Like pictures that had been taken down off the wall and locked away in a long forgotten trunk in the attic.

But now the box that contained them all was cracking, splintering, jagged pieces falling out. One by one. Cutting me open.

Until they would drown me in my own screams.

“…Alice opened the bottle and drank a little of the liquid,” the professor read. “‘What a curious feeling!’ said Alice; ‘I must be shutting up like a telescope.’”

The professor peered at me over the top of the illustrated Alice in Wonderland book that he held in his weathered hand. “Do you want me to keep going, Ava?”

I wanted to beg him to keep going, to keep reading, but I couldn’t speak.

“Ava?”

A dangerous gleam shone from his beady eyes as he set down the book on the little side table and picked up his glass of whiskey .

Prickles swept through my small body as I slumped back on the couch, feeling heavy. So heavy.

He sipped at the amber liquid, never once taking his eyes off me.

Then he smacked his lips, set the glass aside, and parted his mustache over his thin lips with his fingers.

My throat was dry but I couldn’t even swallow.

I couldn’t reach for my mug of sweet hot chocolate which had enough of a sip left to soothe me.

Why couldn’t I move? Was I asleep? So why could I still see and feel everything?

He rose from the armchair and came to sit at the edge of the couch, a strange icky feeling coming over me as his eyes traveled over my paper-thin nightgown.

I couldn’t move as his thick fingers began to pull at the sweet little ribbon at my throat.

My stomach lurched, a sickening churn that grew with every button he undid.

But my arms wouldn’t work to push him away.

Cold oppressive air crushed against my bare chest as he opened the front of my nightgown.

“Sweet, sweet girl.”

I shook off this memory like it was a spider that crawled up into my clothes and I curled even further into Scáth’s chest as he held me in the armchair.

His touch was the only thing that soothed me.

Could make me stop hearing his sticky voice.

Sweet, sweet girl.

I wanted to scream until I couldn’t hear him anymore.

I didn’t want to remember anything else.

Didn’t want to see the same fragment over and over .

Didn’t want to feel myself about to get ripped open again and again.

A dangerous gleam shone from his beady eyes…

I pressed my hand into my eyes to rub out the image. I couldn’t stop seeing his fucking eyes. That fucking sick hungry stare that felt like raking fingernails over my sensitive skin.

“Make it stop, Ty,” I begged.

He froze, something dark flashing over his face.

“Where did you hear that name?” he asked in a hollow, hoarse voice.

I frowned.

“I saw articles about you… that you went to jail after you killed your father.”

He shook his head, his dark hair falling into his eyes.

“ Don’t call me Ty” he spat, his voice laced with bitterness. “Ty is dead.”

As I pieced together the fragments of the truth, a realization settled over me like a weight on my chest.

Scáth—no, Ty —had been hiding from more than just the world. He was hiding from himself.

I’d spent so much time wondering why he wouldn’t give me his real name, why he’d kept that part of him locked away like a secret too dark to speak. But now, it made sense.

Ty didn’t exist anymore—not in the way I remembered him. He had been destroyed, torn apart by the guilt that had broken him.

I could see it now, the cracks that ran through him, deep and jagged, too painful for him to face.

What he had done, what he had become— Scáth —wasn’t just a new identity. It was a way to bury the past, to bury Ty .

The name carried too much weight, too many memories he couldn’t bear to confront.

He hadn’t told me his name because Ty no longer lived inside him. That boy I’d once known, the boy I called Ty, was gone.

In his place was Scáth—a shadow, a version of him built from the wreckage of whatever horrors he had endured.

He didn’t want me to remember him as Ty because that person, the one I’d loved, no longer existed.

It wasn’t just about protecting me from the truth. It was about protecting himself.

Because if he had to face me as Ty, then he’d have to face everything that came with it. The guilt, the shame, the memories that had shattered him.

“We could go away,” he said as he straightened, a new energy lifting his voice.

I lifted my head from his chest. “What?”

“We could leave Dublin. Leave Ireland.” He shifted in the chair, his voice becoming animated as a lightness glowed within his eyes. “Think about it, Ava. We could just… leave.”

I shook my head, unable to understand what he was saying.

Just leave ?

God, if only I could just leave everything behind. If I could just forget again. Pretend none of this ever happened.

What a wonderful dream. But it was just that—a dream.

“But I don’t have a job,” I argued, “I don’t even have a degree yet. I don’t have my own money or—”

“I have enough.”

His voice was so serious that I straightened, wiping my eyes of tears .

“How?”

“My father’s inheritance,” he said bitterly. “It’s enough that neither of us ever have to work again.”

The possibility hung heavy in the silence between us. He was offering to look after me forever.

That was crazy. I barely knew him.

No, that wasn’t true. I knew him. And he knew me. He was my foster brother, my childhood best friend, and he’d been watching over me for years.

Hesitation still coiled in my limbs. “But… what about Ebony, Lisa, my studies?”

“You could study somewhere else if you wanted to. America. Australia. Somewhere far away. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

He smiled and the sight was glorious as he began to weave a colorful tapestry before my eyes.

“We could buy a house on the beach. We could get a golden retriever named Salt and we’d throw sticks for him every day. You could work in a little bookshop. Hell, I’ll buy you a bookshop.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as excitement bubbled up in me and I found my feet kicking. It was nice to dream a little. It made the darkness in my body fade, at least for a little bit.

“You could learn to garden,” I said.

He made a face like he’d sucked on a lemon.

I laughed as I smoothed out his frown. “Okay, no gardening. You could… work on cars.”

“Computers,” he corrected.

I nodded. “Right. With all your hacking computery knowledge. ”

He squeezed me. “We don’t need money though, remember? I’m rich as fuck.”

“Yeah, but you can’t just sit on the beach all day with me.”

His smile turned into a grin. “Watch me.”

I traced his cheekbones and imagined watching his face growing old and wrinkled alongside mine. A warmth bloomed inside me and it turned into an ache, a wanting.

“Fine,” I said. “You could set up one of those mobile computer help guy businesses. Go around to all the old folks’ homes and do it for them for free.”

“That’s it!” He rubbed his nose against mine and his voice grew soft. “We could do anything, Ava. Have anything. Together.”

My smile faded and I let out a sigh.

It was all too unreal. It was just play fantasy. We couldn’t have it for real, right?

Broken dolls couldn’t be put back together again.

I’d be walking out in the sunshine, pretending that darkness didn’t follow me like a shadow. I’d be weaving a pretty life around me when I knew that my core was damaged.

He seemed to sense my change of heart because his voice grew serious, the furrow between his brows returning.

“Ava, if you stay, if you keep digging, more of your past will reemerge.”

“I know,” I whispered, my voice hollowed out at my fate.

My memories had been triggered because I found out that Liath was being drugged and abused. I only had a tiny piece now, but…

There was more hidden underneath.

More dirty jagged pieces .

“Ava”—he tugged my face to his with his fingers on my jaw—“you don’t have to go through this. You don’t have to remember. You don’t have to stay .”

He was right. I could lock this box back up. Shove it back into the darkness.

I could leave my past behind me. Never look at it again.

God, it was so tempting.

“Right,” I said slowly as I turned over the idea in my mind. “I mean, Ebony will be pissed when I tell her but—”

“No,” he interrupted, his fingers flinching against me. “You can’t tell anyone where we’re going.”

“What? Why not?”

His voice lowered, his gaze darting around the room as if there might be someone listening. “Think about it, Ava. If you tell anyone where you’re going, whoever is after you will find out. They’ll come looking for you.”

My throat tightened, a lump lodged there, a painful knot of emotion that made it hard to speak, even to think clearly.

Liath’s abuser had killed her to keep her quiet.

He was trying to kill me to keep me from exposing him.

“If we leave,” Scáth said, “you have to cut all ties.”

I blinked slowly, the realization of what he was saying settling on me like cold flakes of snow.

No, he was right. I’d have to leave without telling anyone. At least initially.

My stomach flipped at the thought.

Ebony would freak out. She’d get the police commissioner himself on my case. Even if they did classify me as a runaway, she wouldn’t stop looking for me.

And Lisa. Once she found out, she’d be pissed. Beyond pissed. She’d invent new cuss words to chew me out with. She probably wouldn’t talk to me for weeks.

“Okay,” I said slowly, “you’re right. I’d only reach out to them a few months after everything’s blown over. They’d be pissed but—”

“ No .” Frustration flared in his eyes. I don’t think he realized it, but he was shaking me. “Never. You can never speak to them again.”

“W-what?” I flinched as his grip became painful. “You’re hurting me.”

“Shit.” His eyes flared open and his hands loosened instantly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Ava. It’s too dangerous.”

“But… I…”

“You don’t know how long this person might keep looking for you. And if I were them, looking for you? The first thing I’d do is bug Ebony’s phone in case you called her.”

Cut off all ties.

Lisa wouldn’t understand. She’d be devastated. I remembered Aisling when I met her at Poe’s Last Stand and imagined Lisa taking her place—her best friend vanished without a trace.

It would kill her. I couldn’t do that to her. She’d never forgive me. I’d never forgive myself.

Oh God, and Ebony. My heart squeezed when I imagined the police coming to her door and telling her they were sorry but there was no trace of me.

I’d have to go missing.

I’d have to become a missing girl. In order to prevent myself from becoming one .

“Think about it, Ava,” he whispered as he leaned his face into me. “You and me. Forever.”

He kissed me, his lips moving torturously slow.

My heart began to race, my body trembling all over for him as goosebumps broke out up and down my arms.

When he ran his hand over my ass and squeezed me onto his hard cock, I bit into my bottom lip.

His feathery touch left a trail of fire along my skin and I yearned for more. I knew what he was doing.

He was showing me what I could have.

What we could have.

Him.

This.

Us .

I could be free of my past. Leaving the horrors in the darkest corner of my mind, never to be opened again.

My eyes fluttered closed when he began to press kisses down my neck and down my cleavage.

He pushed open my top to expose my breast. “I’m leaving, Ava. Tomorrow.”

He swirled his tongue over my nipple and I let out a moan.

“Come with me.”

All I had to do was relent. Whisper a single word. Yes.

His arms snaked around me and held me tight as he breathed in the scent of my hair and ground himself against me. Skin buzzing, heart thudding, thighs clenching.

The heat of his body was an implicit promise: give up and he would take my body to new levels of pleasure. He would spend the rest of his life chasing away the darkness, bathing me with pleasure and happiness instead .

I could feel his love; he was ready to take me anywhere I wanted. All I had to do was say the word.

If I left with him, I could be safe. Safe and loved . The thought swirled around my head, so sweet, so tempting.

I pictured us walking in the sunlight, hand in hand. Maybe on a quiet beach, just like he said.

We’d have our own little world, away from all of this. We’d make love in the sand, in the water, in our warm, safe bed, far from danger, far from the darkness that had been consuming me.

We’d have dogs, babies—so many babies. We could fill our lives and hearts with all the love we never got as kids.

I could almost feel it, that perfect, peaceful life, free from the weight of everything that haunted me.

But then…

But then I’d have to lie. Lie to the people who mattered most.

I’d have to carve out pieces of my soul shaped like Lisa and Ebony.

They’d be devastated, crushed by not knowing where I’d gone, by thinking I was lost. Missing. Or worse.

The thought of them searching for me, hurting over me, twisted my insides.

It would be torture for them.

And I’d have to live with it. Live with the guilt that I had abandoned them, left them with no explanation, no closure.

I’d have to live with the fact that Liath’s disappearance—her murder—would go unsolved. Her killer, her abuser, would go unpunished.

And more girls would suffer because I wasn’t brave enough to stay and fight .

But if I stayed… if I kept digging, I wouldn’t be safe.

He was still out there, still after me.

I’d lose him— Scáth . My shadow. My protector. I’d lose the one person who had stood by me, the only one who knew the truth, all of it. I’d lose the chance at love, at happiness.

And I’d face the very real danger of remembering every vile, dark thing that had ever been done to me.

If I stayed, I might be broken. Alone. I might even end up dead.

But if I left, I’d be torn apart from the inside, my happiness poisoned by guilt.

Stay or go.

How could I choose?

What would I choose?