26

26

KADE

Idrop my head and keep my eyes closed, focusing on the one thing keeping me stable, keeping me on this side of the fucking world of sanity.

Revenge.

My dad thinks he’s a hero for swapping with me, but he’s wrong. Bernadette is evil and vile, though her connections are worse. His emotions have been carefully learned over years of studying and therapy, so he can just shut them off. He won’t follow her rules or allow her to abuse him like she did me.

He won’t hesitate to snap her neck if she tries to force him into anything. Maybe he already has and that’s why she’s been a ghost?

He’ll survive through violence, not the pressure of keeping his family safe, because he isn’t wired that way. He’s impulsive and dangerous. Un-fucking-hinged.

In the end, I survived because I kept holding on for her, even when I didn’t realise it – promising myself I’d get back to Stacey as the same eighteen-year-old kid who fell in love with her.

But I didn’t survive. I might be free, but I’m still there. At least mentally. I hear the voices. The laughter. Feel the pain, the unwanted touches, the warmth of my own blood leaking out of my body.

Even now I can barely open my eyes without feeling the walls closing in, hearing so many different voices from past clients, and feeling their hands all over me.

I tried to burn my palms on a hotplate to get rid of the feeling, the dirtiness, the invisible blood, but Mum stopped me. Hence the doctor she called in and how many meds are in my system right now.

I was in a dark-as-fuck place when we were in the lodge, and although I feel like I’m slowly climbing out of the void, something is trying to drag me back down. Its claws are deep in my soul, and I’m barely holding on.

I know Stacey was there with me most of the time. I could hear her talking, even when I was disconnecting, battling with reality. Her fingers were brushing through my hair while she talked about everything we used to do when we were normal. Just two eighteen-year-old kids getting to know each other.

She doesn’t know me now, and I’m not sure I want her to.

The joint burns between my fingers with each harsh inhalation, and the smoke dissipates above me in a cloud as I blow out. I nearly drop it given how ridiculous my hand-to-mouth coordination is.

I hear a radio beeping faintly to my right as a guard walks by during his patrol. I sigh and rest my elbows on my knees. When my eyes lift to the kitchen, which has a large window that looks onto the back of the grounds, I see Stacey filling a glass with juice. The view is blocked mostly by the trees that circle the pool house, but there’s just enough of a gap that I can watch her gulp down the liquid and wipe the back of her hand across her mouth.

My chest aches with how beautiful she is. How, after everything I’ve put her through, she’s still here. Still fighting for me. Fighting for us. Not to be in a relationship, because we’re both too fucked for that, but to find level ground.

She should kick me to the kerb and tell me never to speak to her again after I pushed her out of my life for two years. After I shot her. The wound is almost healed, but will definitely scar, and I stare at it every time I see her.

I want to go to her, to kiss her and touch her and ask her to love me, but I can’t.

I was in a bad place those first few days after I got away from Bernadette. I couldn’t even take a piss without freaking out. But what happened in that lodge kicked me back into reality. Well, a little. There are parts of me that are still struggling, but I’m zeroed in on Bernadette, her husband wasting away in my basement and how much I’m going to make them regret even looking in my direction.

Stacey leans her palms on the kitchen unit and closes her eyes. When she drops her forehead to the counter, I wonder what she’s thinking about. What’s making her so upset?

Could be several things.

Her dead brother. My dead brother. My soon-to-be-dead father. Or me. Her vile ex who can’t even look at her without feeling his hands tremble and hiding his face like she’d judge him. I’ve kept my distance, and I intend to keep doing so.

Maybe she’s just tired. Tired of all this bullshit. I know I am.

I miss her. I miss her infectious giggle. The dimple that dents when she smiles at me after I kiss her. Her snarky texts. The way she always wants to laze around and watch TV with the dogs. I miss watching her dance, deep in a routine, or watching her unravel with my tongue inside her…

I get a flash of what I did to her in front of her stepbrother and feel myself recoil, a painful twist in my chest. Something we haven’t spoken about. Something we shouldn’t have done. Something I can barely remember.

Being like this sucks. I keep either dissociating or going completely blank. Sometimes I seize; sometimes I just stare at nothingness, trapped in my own mind, yelling for someone to help me. Most of the time I don’t realise it’s happening.

I never truly knew what it was like inside my dad’s head, but I think I do now. It’s fucking scary and lonely, and I get so damn angry all the time.

Stacey disappears from my view, and I lower my head again, running my middle finger across my lips to feel how dry they are, flinching when I feel rough skin at the corner.

I wear the face covering less, but when I’m around her, I make sure it stays in place. She looks at it when it’s accidentally in view, like everyone else, and her expression turns to pity.

I don’t want pity.

I want everyone to leave me the fuck alone and let me focus on getting Bernadette six feet under after months of torturing the sadistic bitch. I want her to see how much I can ruin her husband.

There’s an abandoned dog shelter I now own that I can take her to. I’ll stuff her into a crate and watch her suffer. My dad did the same thing before he was arrested twenty-three years ago, and it only seems fitting that I follow in his footsteps.

Barry located the eroding building with the plaque outside for my aunt Gabriella – a remembrance. She was killed there by Dad’s lunatic friend, but that’s an entirely different story.

There’s a team up there now securing the place. There are cameras, computers and a room they’ve reconstructed into a shiny new cell for one. I’ll make her watch me ripping her husband to shreds, then I’ll strangle her with his intestines.

With over two hundred client names on file, and hundreds more she has connections with, I have enough evidence to take down most of them. But that family deserves more than fame as criminals. They deserve death, over and over again.

If I can save my dad in the process, then it’s another win, but I won’t hold my breath.

As soon as Dad is introduced to that world, he’ll be gone. He was suicidal his entire life until he met my mother, and it got even worse when he was locked up with only small pockets of time with her. Now, he doesn’t have his meds, so he won’t last long in the underworld.

Or he’ll fit right in and revel in how twisted it is, who the fuck knows? Either way, I’ll have lost him.

Once my joint is done, I flick it aside and pull out a cigarette and light it. I’ve smoked so much green over the years I barely feel the calm. It’s frustrating.

Movement to my left catches my attention, and my heart stops when I see Stacey walking towards me. I take a drag of the smoke and watch her as she comes straight to me, sitting down beside me on the edge of the pool.

My throat bobs as she takes the cigarette from between my lips and puts it between hers. “My name is Stacey,” she says, smiling and making my lungs stutter. “I joined Luciella’s dance class a few months ago.”

My eyes stay on her as she takes a long inhale and blows smoke out above us. I think I might be having a heart attack. My heart hurts, it’s beating so hard.

Her green eyes twinkle beneath the moonlight, her freckles dusting her cheeks and nose, and her jawline is as impeccable as ever. I want to touch her, but I can’t. I’d hurt her. I don’t know how to be gentle.

I was the luckiest guy in the world once upon a time. She was mine, and I lost her.

In the same place we met properly when we were fifteen, I shake my head at the déjà vu.

“You should’ve taken my heads-up and stayed away from me.” I gulp, gripping the edge of the pool with both hands until my knuckles turn white. “You’d be in a much better position now if you had.”

She tilts her head, leaning back on her hand. “Falling in love with you didn’t ruin my life, Kade. Chris did. Without you, he would’ve locked me away and called me his pet forever.”

Can I resurrect a dead man and kill him all over again? Another death I barely remember. That pisses me off.

I look away. “You wouldn’t have known the world Bernadette dragged me into.”

“No, I wouldn’t have. But I still don’t regret anything.”

I pick at the paint on the pool’s edge. “You should.”

“Shut up,” she says with a tut, still puffing away on my cigarette. “Milo and Hopper are looking for you. They keep pacing around the sitting room and jumping up on the window ledges.”

“I’ll go and see them. It might be best if I put them in protection. A safe house.” I sigh. “Bernadette knows what they mean to me, and I can’t have her doing something to them.” I chew my lip and glance at her. “I doubt you’d go to a safe house if I asked you to.”

“No.”

“Yeah. Thought not.”

“How are the meds?” she asks, shifting to cross her legs and face me. “You haven’t spoken a word to me. I want to know you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” I lie.

She huffs, knowing I’m talking shit.

I change the subject before it gets awkward. “Barry’s going home. If he hasn’t spoken to you already.”

Everything goes warm, butterflies deep within as she smiles. “He deserves it. Wait until you meet Eva. I miss her so much. She’s so full of energy and life and has the most adorable smile.”

I won’t ever meet Eva. What good would that do? Oh, hey, kid. This guy here is a fuck-up and is basically dead inside. He has no idea where his soul is, and his heart is practically upside down and inside out. You see his face? Hideous. He’s killed hundreds and regrets only half of those deaths. He’s the monster that hides under your bed.

“Hey.”

Stacey pulls me out of my head, but I start blinking rapidly again. I screw my eyes shut when I struggle to stop.

“I’m here with you.”

“Y-You should get some sleep.”

“Let me help you, Kade. We don’t need to talk – just let me be here with you.”

She moves closer, and I stiffen. “I love you, Stacey, but I’m not ready for any of this,” I say, getting to my feet, her eyes lifting to follow my movements. “I’m sorry.”

Her gaze drops. “I just want to help you.”

“I know you do.”

She takes my hand when I offer it to her, helping her to stand. The touch is electrifying, and it takes me everything not to yank her into my chest and kiss her.

I’m not sure how to feel about it. I’m in no position to offer her anything.

Why is this shit so confusing?

While I follow her inside, my gaze lowers to the sway of her hips in front of me, her wavy hair flipping side to side. The need to grab her gets worse, but I fist my hands.

At least I know my dick still exists. I feel the twitch and hate myself.

I walk her to the room my mother has given her, right next to Luciella’s. She stops outside the door and nibbles on her lip as she turns to me.

Is she nervous? I’m nervous.

Do I fuck my own inner turmoil and kiss her anyway?

No. She’ll feel my scar and I’ll probably pass out. I already feel faint thinking about potentially hurting her.

“I know you need your space to normalise with everything again, and I’m going to give you as much as you need. But I want you to know that I’m here.”

I stare at her for a beat then drop my gaze. “You can do better than me, Stacey. I’m not the same person I was before. That version of me doesn’t exist anymore.”

I don’t think this version does either.

“I changed too.” She hugs herself, and I hate that I’ve made her feel anxious around me. “I want to help you. I want to be with you. However long it takes for you to get better.” Her voice cracks, and I think something in my chest does too. “You said you still loved me.”

“I do,” I reply without hesitation. “I would die to get that time back with you. But I’ve no idea how to be in a relationship. Not anymore.”

“I understand. I don’t want that either. It’s not something either of us is ready for.” She chews her bottom lip, nods once and looks to the side. “I just… I don’t know what to do or how to act.”

I lower my voice. “I know.”

She tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear. I wish I could feel how soft it is between my fingers. I used to always play with her hair.

She was my anchor. I think she still is.

I run my thumb against the rough skin at the corner of my lips, and weirdly, I don’t feel the need to hide it from her. It’s been out in full show all night and she hasn’t once looked at it or let it grab her attention.

Or maybe I haven’t noticed because it hurts to look at her.

“Can I get your new number?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Us texting is fine, right?”

A warm feeling fills my chest when she smiles. It reaches her sad eyes. “Yeah. Type yours in and I’ll text you,” she replies, pulling her phone from her pyjama pocket and giving it to me.

As soon as I unlock the screen, I see her search bar is open. She’s been hunting on Google for any news on my dad.

She tilts her head at my pause.

“You were close with my dad.”

“Yeah. I visited him every day when I was in America.”

I hum, typing my number. “I’m glad you had someone. Barry said you were close with Lisa too. And sometimes gave him a heart attack when you’d slip security.”

She giggles, and my fingers freeze over the screen for a second.

“Aria said Archie is still alive. What are you going to do with him? Are you going to go after Bernadette?”

I ignore her, because I can only focus on one thing at a time, and my thumbs are shaking while I try to type my number into her phone. I’ve input it wrong twice already.

“Are you going to go after her?” she asks again, and I glance up to see the worry in her eyes.

Nodding, I hand her back the phone. “Yeah. I’m going after them all.”

The idea of getting on with my life without watching them burn makes me rage, and when she notices the shift in my mood, she stops asking questions.

I step back from Stacey when our fingers touch and her breath hitches. I move away enough that I can’t smell her shampoo. “Go to sleep,” I say. “Text me, but don’t feel like you need to.”

She wraps her arms around herself. “Goodnight, Kade.”

I don’t say anything back as I watch her slip into the room and close the door. The urge to open it and beg her for forgiveness smacks into me, but I can’t let myself drop the control I’ve cultivated.

I need to stay focused.

My phone vibrates in my pocket while I find the dogs and head to my room.

Unknown Number: Is it weird I’m all giddy as if I’ve just been on a first date?

Me: Were you nervous?

Stacey: Very…

Me: I’m sorry.

She types, deletes, types then deletes again. Then there’s nothing. Should I have pushed the conversation? Flirted with her? Admit that spending those ten minutes with her quietened the voices in my head?

I pull off my top and shorts then toss them at the basket and climb into the shower. The water scalds my skin as I press my forehead to the tiles.

The walls close in around me, and I struggle to breathe.

I want you to call me Stacey. Would that get you hard? Close your eyes and imagine I’m her. If you don’t get hard, Kade, I’ll go get Archie.

That’s it, such a good boy. Fuck her harder in front of all of us.

Now put a bullet in her head.

Good boy.

Good boy.

Good boy.

The tile cracks as I drive my fist into it.