Chapter 13

I rock in the corner of the dark wardrobe with my hands over my ears. I rock and rock, begging for the screaming and crying to stop.

Salty tears stream down my cheeks, but it doesn’t matter how hard I press on my ears, I still hear Mom’s cries. She won’t stop.

When I can’t take it anymore, I lower my hands and crawl forward, careful not to knock over shoeboxes. She made me promise to stay in here—and I will—but I just want to peek.

As I peer through the slats, I hold my breath in case they can hear my shaky exhale. I spot my sobbing dad first, a gun digging into his temple, forcing him to watch the bad man on top of Mommy.

I bring my trembling, clammy palms to my mouth. Mommy is naked and hurt, and a big monster holds her down on the bloodied bed.

With his pants and underwear halfway down his hairy legs, he grunts and makes noises like a big bear.

A scary bear.

Daddy roars, and the man next to him whips him with the gun. I muffle a scream and scamper back into the shadows before slowly creeping forward again. Blood is pouring from Daddy’s eyebrow.

Mommy made me promise to hide, but Daddy needs me. I look at the bad men. They’re all big and scary and carry weapons.

Daddy owns a collection. I’m not allowed in his office, but I’ve caught glimpses.

The men who come to our house remind me of these big, scary men with cold eyes and scars. Some wear expensive suits like Daddy, and those men are the scariest.

Why is Mommy bleeding? I don’t like to see her hurt.

I shake all over as fear ripples through me, and my teeth chatter violently.

The bad man climbs off Mommy and pulls his pants up. “Your wife’s cunt felt amazing, Delacroix. Tight and warm, like a high-end whore’s. I appreciate your hospitality. You don’t mind if my men have fun, too, right? It’s Reckoning night, after all.” He gestures with his gun for one of his masked friends to step forward. Mommy soon stops crying and stares at the ceiling while the man does to her what the other man did.

Bad, bad things.

The scary man turns to Daddy. “I’m disappointed. I expected more from ‘the mighty Delacroix.’” He extends his arm and fires his gun.

Mommy panics again. She screams and fights, slapping and kicking. But the man is stronger, and so is the other one who joins in.

Daddy stares right at me as blood trickles from a big hole in his forehead.

I wake with a gasp, drenched in sweat.

What the fuck is happening to me? The nightmares are growing more intense and vivid by the day, transporting me back to the worst night of my life.

I swipe my arm over my sweaty forehead and check the time on the nightstand before throwing off the quilt and placing my feet on the floor.

My mind races, and I dig my fingers into my eyeballs in a feeble attempt to erase the memories. Nothing works; the echo of my mother’s fearful screams ripples through my tormented mind.

If only I could take a pickaxe to my skull and chip away at the sound.

Bunching my fist, I whack my head. “Shut up!”

What will it take to forget? What the fuck do I need to do to move on? I went to extreme lengths to get my revenge—kidnapped the man responsible for my parents’ demise, locked him up, and left him to rot while I searched for his wife and daughter. Now that I have his daughter in my clutches, the dreams should stop, but they’re intensifying instead.

Pulling open the bedside drawer, I remove my mother’s necklace, cinching it in my palm. Why am I not feeling better? Why is nothing working?

After carefully placing the necklace back inside the drawer and sliding on a pair of joggers, I grab my gun from the bedside table and leave the room.

The old house groans in the night breeze outside as I make a beeline for the cellar.

Cecilia’s father should be left to wither away in the dark, but I can’t rest until I get answers. All these years, I’ve bided my time while waiting for him to confess, but it ends now. I’m done waiting.

As I enter the cellar, a familiar scent of decay settles in my nose. The temperature drops and the air becomes humid. I doubt I’ll ever get used to how chilly and damp it is here.

Descending the spiral stone steps, I focus on the feel of the gun in my hand. I should shoot him in the head like he shot my father, have him put down like a rabid dog, or line him up against the wall and taunt him with execution until he pisses himself. Though after so many years locked up in a dank cell, death would be a mercy, and he is the last person deserving of forgiveness.

“Let’s cut the crap,” I say as I walk up to this cell and slam the gun against the rusty metal bars. “I’m done playing your games.”

It’s too dark to see, so I light up the torch on the wall with the tools I leave down here for such occasions.

His grimy cheeks and weathered, wrinkled skin come into view, and he watches me wearily from the corner of his cell, legs drawn up close to his body, his bare feet so dirty they almost look black. Shadows from the dancing flame flicker over his features while he watches me pace in circles and restlessly tap the gun against my thigh.

“I can’t sleep,” I say after what feels like an eternity. “I dream of that night over and over and over again.”

He remains silent, which pisses me off more.

I hate that even now, locked in a tiny cell, he remains calm and in control. Meanwhile, I’m falling apart on the inside.

I aim the gun at him. “The memories haunt me. They fucking haunt me, and it’s your fault. I should finally kill you.”

“You should,” he agrees in his croaky, unused voice. “You should set me free.”

The gun trembles in my hand. “Set you free? You would love that, wouldn’t you?” I shake my head, and a bitter chuckle cuts through the thick silence, my lip curling over my teeth in a sneer as I tighten my grip on the gun. “You don’t deserve freedom.”

We watch each other in the ensuing silence, the lone torch casting elongating shadows on the stone walls. It would be so easy to kill him. One bullet is all it would take to end this nightmare, but his death won’t bring me answers.

I lower the gun. “What happened to my mother that night? How did she die? Who killed her?”

“Your mother is gone, and she’s not coming back?—”

“Shut up!” I roar, surging forward and slamming the weapon against the bars. Van der Meer watches me calmly as I unravel before him, layer by layer, until nothing remains but fury.

I point the gun at him again, clutching it like I might disappear if I don’t end him right here and now. “What did you do to my mother after you dragged her out of the house? Where did you take her?”

“You already know the answer.”

The Exodus party.

“How did she die?”

He doesn’t grace me with an answer, so I tighten my grip on the gun, determined to pull the trigger. “Answer the fucking question.”

“Pull the trigger, son.”

“I’m not your son. You murdered my father in cold blood.”

“End this.”

“No,” I bite out, pulling back on the hammer. “You don’t deserve to die.”

“Kill me.”

My eyes burn with unshed tears as he shuffles forward on the dirty stone floor. An ugly feeling sits on my chest, heavy and suffocating, and I bare my teeth as he presses his grimy face against the bars.

“Kill me, Delacroix. Don’t you want revenge?” His lips peel back to reveal yellowed, rotten teeth that haven’t seen a toothbrush in ten years. His gums have receded, and now the roots are visible. “Can’t you taste it in the stale air?” Pretending to taste the air, he then levels his eyes on me. “Shoot me.”

“Fuck you,” I sneer, and he rolls his forehead over the bars as he snickers under his breath.

“You can’t do it, can you, Delacroix? You’re pathetic.” His smile turns cruel. “Just like your father. He was weak, too. He didn’t even try to save your mom, did he?”

“He had a gun to his head.”

“So instead, he slumped in defeat while we took turns with his wife.” He tuts, pressing his mouth through the rusty bars. “A real man fights back.”

“You were four against one. He was injured.”

“Weak,” he taunts, then retreats back into the shadows. “You’re just as weak as your father. You were too scared to save your mom then, and you’re still scared.”

My finger itches on the trigger, but I lower the weapon. I won’t kill him. Not today. Not until I have my answers.

“You want to die?” I ask, stepping closer to the bars.

The stench of ammonia thickens the air the closer I get to his cell.

“You want me to set you free, van der Meer?” Removing the bullets from the chamber, I make a show of dropping them to the floor, one by one.

You won’t get to escape your prison any time soon.

“You’re not deserving of death.”