25. 25

25

Ethan

I couldn’t believe Em was doing all this to protect me, especially after what happened last night. I’d fucked up her life, just like she’d done to me. It wasn’t out of revenge or something though. It was purely about me not being able to hold back. Those impulses and urges I had now, they weren’t a part of me before, I was almost certain of it. If they were, I'd clearly had the control and the morals to keep them at bay, but losing everything does weird shit to your mind.

I watched Em facing off with her family, for me, to protect her rapist, and I couldn’t let it happen.

“Em, put the blade down,” I hissed, keeping my eyes firmly on her, because she was all that mattered in this situation.

She was frowning down at me.

“Ethan, they’ll hurt you.”

“Actually, we were thinking more along the lines of killing him in the most painful way possible. It’s been a while since I’ve watched someone expire, but I think I still know how,” Dory said, sounding so much like Gray that I stared at him now in shock, seeing just how much insanity was in him, in all of them. Her entire family was fucking insane, off their rockers, a few slices short of a loaf, all the analogies.

“They’re killers, Ethan. I can’t let them hurt you.” They all started speaking at once, but I pushed up from the floor, clutching my ribs, which felt bruised at the very least.

“Let them, Em. You know I hurt you last night. I forced you, and I deserve to fucking die for it. Good men don’t do that. Monsters do that. Only monsters.”

Someone grabbed me from behind, and dragged me back, a knife instantly at my throat, and I didn’t fight him. I lowered my arms and waited to die. Ember was screaming at him, begging him to release me, but I knew I was done for. These men were killers, and I’d just admitted to forcing their loved one into sex. Their vulnerable, sweet as fuck, loved one.

“He fucking raped you?” Blaze snapped, stomping over to her, and snatching the blade she no longer held at her throat.

She slapped his face, the sound sharp and shocking in the sudden silence.

“Like you’re one to talk! All of you! You know you’re all capable of worse, and for the record, he didn’t rape me! He did what I asked him to do. Do you have any idea what it’s like being me? DO YOU?”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘I’m one to talk’,” Blaze demanded, checking the razor blade’s sharpness and shaking his head. “Anneka loves me. We love each other. We made a fucking life together. There’s nothing wrong with our relationship, fuck you very much.”

Jesus Christ. They were all worse than insane. Monsters. Psychos. Fucking sociopaths. Which one is it where they know they’re hurting people, and don’t care? I can’t remember in all the fucking terror.

“Wait, what’s this about? Are you people seriously attacking me for doing something you’ve all done before? How hypocritical can you-” My words choked off when the knife pressed tight against my jugular. One fucking move of that blade, and I’d bleed to death while they watched. Probably getting off on it. Crazy fucking people. How the hell was I in this situation?

“Blaze, eavesdropping is a family fucking trait, and you know that. You don’t think I’ve overheard some messed up crap in my life? Why do you think I went off at them in therapy? They’re depraved and twisted, and so are you. And thanks to all of you, so am I. And Ash. Maybe even Phoenix. Only Cole might get out before he’s completely fucked up. Dad, release Ethan. He didn’t rape me, so unless you’re disappointed he didn’t join the psycho club, you have no reason to threaten him.”

Gray didn’t release me, and his grip didn’t loosen even a little, but I knew something about him that he probably thought I hadn’t noticed. I locked both hands around his left arm, squeezing down on the area he obsessively rubbed at, the one with the really nasty burn damage I’d seen the one time he’d had short sleeves on. He hissed out a curse, and that arm weakened enough, that I could slam an elbow back and hit him in the chest, making the knife hit the floor.

“You motherfucker!” He yelled, holding his arm with his other hand, as he gritted his teeth against the pain. I didn’t necessarily want to hurt anyone, but I was a little less ready to die, now I knew these people were even worse than me. I’m the monster? Really?

From what I was hearing, these fuckers were all more twisted than I’d become. Maybe it was inevitable that I’d end up like this, surrounded by their depravity, like somehow it had seeped into my pores, and tainted me from the inside out.

Dory was so busy checking on Gray that neither of them were able to stop me from snatching up the knife, and I dodged around Blaze to get behind Em, whispering an apology to her as I dragged her back against me, the knife now at her throat. She was tense, but I knew she knew I wouldn’t hurt her. I just had to pray that those fuckers wouldn’t be so sure, or at least wouldn’t willingly risk her safety.

“Wow, you really want to die, don’t you?” Dory said, shaking his head as he caught Gray’s arm before he could come at me.

Blaze was still playing with that damn razor blade, but when Em moved slightly to put herself between me and him, I realised what she was telling me. He was the biggest threat to my life right now.

“You’re really going to use a teenage girl as a fucking shield? You fucking pussy,” Gray muttered, shaking free of Dory.

Blaze hissed and lifted his bleeding thumb from that razor blade, licking it and grinning at me with bloody teeth.

“Ah… it’s tasted blood now. It’ll never be satisfied unless it kills. Hmm… now who can I kill in here?”

“Blaze, shut up, you fucking psycho!” Em yelled, backing further into me. Was she afraid of her own brother? Was she afraid of any of them? All of them?

“Okay, this ends now,” I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. “I’m not going to hurt her, as long as you all leave right now.”

“And if we don’t, Former Teach… you gonna carve up our baby girl right in front of us?” Gray called my bluff, and I groaned, passing the knife to Em.

“I don’t want to hurt her at all, but I’m losing every last semblance of who I was. Bringing her here was wrong, I know that. I tried to find the keys for the car, but I needed daylight for that, and Jesus, I’m sorry. Kill me or don’t, whatever, but I’m not forcing her to stay with me.”

“Fucking right, you’re not forcing her to do a damn thing,” Gray yelled, but Dory rested a hand on his arm, hushing him for a moment.

“Tell us what happened.” The way he said it left no room for disagreement, and I was completely exhausted at this point, willing to say anything to get rid of them, all of them. Even Ember, because she was at risk here with me, and we all knew it.

“Why don’t I make some coffee? This could take a while.”

They sat down, but Blaze was still playing with that blade, and Gray had taken his knife back from Ember, when she came to help me with coffee.

“You can’t tell them, Ethan. They truly will kill you. I don’t want you to die, dammit.”

I picked up their three mugs and gestured to her to grab the others.

“Look, you should want me to die, Em. You put your trust in me, and I abused it. I’m a fucking monster, just like your family apparently. Maybe that’s why you trusted me, because you could see it even when I couldn’t.”

“You’re not a fucking monster!”

“ Language .”

I ignored her grumblings and set the coffees down for everyone, my shoes crunching on broken glass from last night. Fuck. We were making a real mess of this house I was supposed to be keeping safe for my cousins.

“Sit, and fucking talk. Enough stalling. We need to update Wilma soon, or she’ll be on our cases too.”

I dragged a chair from the small dining area and sat on that, putting distance between me and all of the Cross family.

“I should start,” Ember said, but Dory shushed her.

“I want to hear it from him. He’s the one in the wrong here, and sure, none of us here are necessarily angels, but none of us kidnapped my fucking daughter, yeah?”

I ran a hand over my hair, trying to smooth it down.

“I had everything, you know. Great job, a nice house, good salary, a car, friends, neighbours, a life. A future.”

“Yeah yeah, let me grab my fucking violin,” Gray muttered, rolling his eyes at me.

“Dad, please, let him talk. You guys wanted this, so at least shut up and listen.” At least my little protégé had the balls to tell him, right?

“I lost it all, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you guys that losing everything is a fast track to losing your fucking mind, because I’m a pariah now. The teacher who abused his student, the teacher who couldn’t keep it in his pants. The teacher who took advantage of a vulnerable teen. Never mind the fact that I never did a fucking thing!”

“Calm down, Former Teach. Continue before I get bored,” Gray said, clearly the fucking voice of these assholes. The mouth piece. Mouthy -piece.

“Ember turned up at my place, and I was in a fucking mess, okay? Stuff happened, and we needed to get away from there. I brought her here, trapped her with me, scared the hell out of her, forced her into sex, and acted like a complete unhinged asshole. The end .”

Ember groaned, catching Blaze by the hand when he tried to get up from beside her. He froze, staring down at her hand touching his.

“Whoa,” he said quietly, noticing she didn’t back off. Yeah, it took me a moment to remember that her family hadn’t touched her in years. Knew to stay clear, knew she wouldn’t reach out like this. I’d grown so used to her touch by now, to touching her, that I’d forgotten this was out of character for her.

“Em, this feels like a milestone here,” Blaze said, his face as shocked as both of their dads’.

“I have something to say too, so I need you to sit back down please. Yes, I went to Ethan’s, but not for the first time. No, stop, listen. It’s not like that. I wanted it to be. I wanted to be with him, but he kept pushing me away, saying it wasn’t right. I kept drawing these explicit pictures or pictures of him, and left some for him, even pushing one through his door, keeping some of them, so that I could look at them. I was… I guess, kinda obsessed, so when his neighbour looked like she wanted to get with him, I warned her off.”

“Is that what you’re calling it? You were about to kill her when I showed up, Em.”

Why did her dads look fucking impressed by that statement? No wonder they were all so fucked up.

“I meant the first time,” she said sheepishly, and that was a shocking reminder that when I caught her with Suzy, she’d told me she’d warned her off before.

“I can’t believe you did that.”

“Me either, nice one, sis.” Dammit. If they encouraged this kind of behaviour, well… haven’t I already thought it enough times? These people were next level fucked up, and I’d fallen for one of them.