32. Nyssa

32

NYSSA

JUST YOU - JAMES WARBURTON AND JADE PYBUS

Theron's words render me speechless.

Five words that unload on me like an avalanche, striking me dumb, making the room spin. I sputter out a breath, then shake my head. My lips spread halfway into a disbelieving smile until I shake my head again as if I've just heard the most preposterous news imaginable.

I've just been told pigs fly. Fish can walk. Dogs can talk. And every other outlandish impossibility that can never be real.

Yet as Theron stands before me, solemn and patient, the real horror reveals itself.

The invisible inkling creeps up on me and whispers in my ear.

It's true.

"That… can't be true," I whisper finally, gathering the sheet to cover myself. I divert my gaze away from his, choosing to stare at the limestone wall instead of him. "You're lying. "

"We both know it's the truth, Nyssa. You have tears in your eyes."

"That's because… because you're fucked in the head!" I snap, anger returning to my voice. I draw my knees to my chest, the bedsheet like a shield that separates me from him. "You're so twisted you think you can manipulate me. You can make me… you can make me feel things and make me come and then what? I'm under your control? FUCK YOU!"

Theron gives no reaction. He barely blinks.

Somehow, his non-reaction is ten times worse. It feels patronizing and insulting.

As if my heart being shredded in half means nothing.

It's of no consequence to him in this fucked up game of secrets and revenge.

When I can't bear to let him look at me any longer, I cover my face with my hands. I hide behind them as tears ache for release. Could I be any more pathetic right now? About to cry my eyes out to my crim law professor that's told me a bigger truth than my own family has?

Aunt Brooklyn never bothered; she was content letting me believe she was my mother and I was seeking revenge in her name.

"If it's any consolation," Theron says after a stretch of awkward silence, "I didn't know about you. I never met you."

I sniffle, my face still covered. "That's real convenient for you. A real guilt eraser for fucking me."

He sighs, the sound tinged with something I can't place. Regret? Remorse?

"It wasn't until I was taken in for questioning that I realized what was going on," he says. "That you were her daughter. But of course you were—I was drawn to you from the moment I saw you. How could I not see it before?"

"Stop. Just stop." I wipe at my puffy eyes, still fighting back tears. "I don't want to hear about how in love and obsessed with my mother you were. In case you haven't figured it out, it's fucking disgusting. You disgust me."

"Your sweet little cunt didn't think so a few minutes ago."

"Stop. Stop. Stop!" I chant over and over again. My hands clap over my ears in hopes of tuning him out.

Yet when he speaks, I can still hear him. His calm, measured voice is inescapable. He himself is inescapable.

"It hurts now, Nyssa," he says. "But I can make sense of it all for you. If you'll listen. I can tell you everything. Every sordid, twisted, morbid detail."

The tears won't go away. My eyes sting blinking them back. My lungs struggle keeping up with my intakes of air. Rarely an emotional person, it's like years' worth of curiosity, confusion, and trauma have rushed me all at once.

I've grown up believing the lies Aunt Brooklyn told me.

She was my mother. Edward Oliver was my father.

We were ostracized by the Castlebury community in the wake of the Valentine Killer slayings.

I was ruthlessly bullied.

That wasn't fake. That was real. I lived it myself.

I have the childhood memories seared inside my head. The scars on my knees. The emotional hang ups from being taunted about my broke mommy and dead daddy.

But how could my memories be real when everything else wasn't?

My entire reality—my whole backstory—has been nothing but fiction told to me for ulterior motives.

What if what Theron says are more lies? How can I trust it's the truth?

Fat tears roll free, slipping down my cheeks. I dare myself to glance in Theron's direction. He hasn't budged an inch. He hasn't taken his eyes off me, like he's so enamored by me even now.

Even like this.

When I'm a sweaty, teary-eyed mess full of cum, clutching a fucking bedsheet.

I swallow against another rising tide of emotion and whisper hoarsely, "Tell me."

He slides fingers through his unruly dark hair, tousling it further. "I'm guessing you know about your mother—Josalyn Webber—becoming pregnant her freshman year at Castlebury."

"My aunt told me. She took a year to study abroad, but really it was to have the baby. No one had to know, and it was passed off as her older sister's."

"Brooklyn. Her older sister. I'd never met her… or even known her name. She'd only mentioned her sister in passing," he confirms with a nod. "I didn't meet Josalyn until several years later. She was a 1L and I was a 2L. She caught my eye as soon as I saw her crossing a courtyard. I'm sure it's no surprise to learn that I was a loner… even back then. I was quite fine being on my own. But that was only until she walked into the picture.

"She was… striking. In the same way you are. The kind of beauty and grace that stands out in a room. The kind of wit and cleverness that's addictive. I knew as soon as I saw her—certainly once I spoke to her—that I wanted her. More than wanted her. She became a compulsion I couldn't let go of. I was obsessed."

I'm not sure how to respond other than to blink at him. So many questions are trapped in my throat. Questions about my mother, Josalyn Webber. Questions about me and the extent of this obsession he's admitting to.

"But Josalyn had her own issues. You see, despite the fact that she had covered her pregnancy and hid it from the upper crust of Castlebury, there were other problems. Your mother was at the university on a scholarship. Something that already put her at a disadvantage in the eyes of many. And then there were… racial biases at play."

A scoff tears from my throat. I shake my head. "Why am I not surprised? So Aunt Brooklyn was correct."

"To an extent. But she didn't tell you the whole story. She told you the version that I'm sure she believed protected you… and her and her sister's lies. See, despite her disadvantages, Josalyn still flourished at Castlebury. At least initially. She made friends in Holly Bunton—now Holly Driscoll—and several other followers of hers. She believed she was finally gaining access to spaces that were long denied to her.

"Until rumors began. Rumors about where Josalyn Webber was sneaking off to at night. Unsavory rumors that sullied her reputation in the eyes of many," he says. "It was around this time that I became friends with her. She was being ostracized, and I sought to ease the pain. I wanted to make her feel special. Make her see everyone else was an imbecile for how they were treating her."

"Rumors?" I mutter, my brows drawing close. "What rumors?"

"Josalyn was in love," he says, almost begrudgingly. His eyes darken, face twisting in contempt. "But not with me. She was in love with her professor. A man by the name of Anton Vise. My mentor and someone Josalyn greatly admired herself. "

"Professor Anton Vise," I repeat in a whisper. "He was a criminal law professor here, wasn't he? I remember seeing his name in several of the newspapers I pulled from the school archives."

"Yes, he was brilliant. So brilliant, he charmed her. And many of the female students. But she was the only student he had eyes for."

"Wait…" I can't finish my sentence as my brain lurches to a halt and no new thoughts form. The little hairs on the back of my neck rise one by one. I meet Theron's gaze and I know . I understand where this is going…

"They had a relationship. Or as close to a relationship as you can call a nineteen-year-old freshman sleeping with her forty-nine-year-old professor."

"No," I say.

Theron's mouth shifts into a tight line of sympathy, his jaw clenched. "Yes, Nyssa, he got her pregnant."

My face falls back into my hands. I can't bring myself to give any other kind of response.

The revelation's enough to make me want to run away and never face any of this again. How could Brooklyn keep this from me?

"As soon as he found out she was pregnant, he demanded she abort it. She refused. That's when she went away to have the baby."

"Me?"

He sighs. "Yes. But that wasn't the end of their affair. They continued seeing each other on and off through the years. When I found out, I demanded she leave him. I told him if he ever touched her again…" he pauses, the tension in his jaw visible. "Professor Vise got worried he would be exposed. So what did he do? He exposed Josalyn first. He made it look like she was coming onto him .

"Back then, in those times, young women were rarely believed. They were often blamed. Even when the man involved was old enough to be their father. The rumors spread like wildfire. Josalyn was shunned and put up for expulsion by Dean Rothenberg Sr. Holly Bunton and the rest of their clique targeted her and made her life a living hell."

"And where were you ?" I ask accusatorially. "Why didn't you help her!?"

"I tried. I pleaded with my father to intervene with the board of trustees," Theron snaps, taking several steps toward me. "I threatened Vise. There were times I almost… I almost hurt him very badly. But then I discovered what Josalyn was doing. A spate of murders had started to rock the local community. All individuals linked to the university in some manner."

"Valentine."

"Valentine," he repeats. "No one knew who it was. Not even me. It sure as hell put the fear of god in everyone around campus. It seemed finally some retribution was coming their way, and they were shaking in their little designer boots. Josalyn and I laughed about it, though when I began to notice she was disappearing, I kept a close eye on her."

"You mean you stalked her."

He grits his teeth. "If that's what you want to call it. She had no idea I followed her. I kept such close tabs. One night, she drove into the forest, and I realized what she was doing—she was burying a body."

"No, she couldn't have been. There's no way she would. It was you! You were responsible! You're Valentine!"

I leap up out of the bed, still clinging to the sheet, and begin pacing. Manic energy has suddenly shot through me and made me jittery and scatterbrained. I can't process what Theron's saying, because none of it makes sense.

My mother might be dead, but I know she wasn't a killer.

She couldn't have been.

There's no way…

Theron blocks my path and grips my shoulders. "Look at me," he commands, "your mother was Valentine. She was jilted over what happened with Vise and facing expulsion, so she began exacting revenge against the community. She left the heart-shaped valentines as her calling card to instill fear in others. In Vise himself."

My eyes round. "You mean she was…"

"He was on the list."

"No, my mother didn't kill my father," I sputter out. "He's not even my father. He's not?—"

"Your name," he interrupts sharply. "Nyssa Oliver. What's your birth certificate say?"

A chill trickles down my spine. "I don't… I don't have a birth certificate. Not an official one. I was born out of the country, and Brooklyn said it wasn't registered. I was given a backdated letter of record instead?—"

"I'll tell you what it says," he cuts me off with passion blooming in his voice. His hold on me clenches tighter, almost painfully. Our faces are so close, our noses almost touch. "I know what it says because I went to the Castlebury Hall of Records myself and looked it up days ago. After being questioned at the police station. Rosalyn Vise."

"What? That's not my?—"

"Rosalyn Vise is your birth name, Nyssa. Your mother gave you his last name. She wanted you to have it as irrefutable proof. As a reminder to him the baby was his. But when she died, your aunt decided to change it. Rearrange the letters in Rosalyn Vise and what do you get?"

I wrench myself from his grip and stumble a few steps back. The letters appear in my mind's eye, shifting back and forth to spell out the two names.

Rosalyn Vise.

…and Nyssa Oliver.

Then I think back to the newspaper articles I've read. Dozens of them from twenty years ago when Valentine was wreaking havoc on Castlebury, and I remember the headline for Anton Vise.

"Interview with Amelia Vise, Widow of Valentine Victim Anton Vise: How She and Their 3-year-old Daughter Rosalyn will Seek Justice," I whisper the newspaper article title aloud. "That was me?"

"His wife didn't fight Brooklyn Webber for custody or legally changing your name. She was relieved to have you out of her hair. Evidence of her husband's infidelity and philandering ways. Brooklyn won custody easily, changed your names, and assumed the title of your mother."

I scrub at my face, dizzy by these revelations. "I'm the daughter of Anton Vise? My real name's Rosalyn Vise? That can't be true, Theron!"

"But it is true! Don't you see? It is all true!"

I ease back to put more space between us, but Theron advances. He cuts the distance I've sought and grabs me by the wrists to draw me back toward him.

His rumpled hair's messy and his eyes are crazed behind his glasses.

He holds onto me like he's desperate for me to understand.

It's then that I realize he hasn't told me everything.

There's more .

There's another revelation that's possibly more disturbing than the rest.

A shaky breath tumbles out of me. My throat aches enough that I can only speak in a whisper. "Theron," I say slowly, "what happened to my mother? If she was Valentine, then what happened to her? What did you do to her!?"

The passion fades from his face for a darker, more unsettling vacant look. "I tried to warn her. I tried to tell her."

"Theron… Theron… tell me you didn't! Tell me you didn't really do it!"

I tug and twist against him, trying to free myself. Panic rises, growing and expanding inside me the tighter he grips my wrists.

"LET GO!" I scream wildly. "LET ME GO!"

"I didn't," he says, dragging me closer. Bringing me right up against his chest, bedsheet and all. "Nyssa, you have to believe me when I say?—"

"How could you?" I cry. "How could you do it?"

"I didn't… I would never!"

"You killed her!"

"I KILLED HIM!" he barks in my face, effectively silencing me. He gives me a hard shake. "Don't you fucking get it? I killed him for killing her! She went against my warnings and went after him, but he overpowered her. He stabbed her right in the fucking heart. My heart. I felt it. The knife running through. He watched her bleed out and die like it was nothing.

"And when I came across the scene, I… I lost it. I blacked out. I slaughtered him. Tore his chest open. Ripped out his innards. I made him suffer. I kept him alive as long as possible 'til he couldn't stand anymore and his body gave out. Right inside this glass cage, his old office an d hidden study. But she was still gone. He had taken her from me. Because I failed to act sooner. I let my heart die."

He lets go of me. His fingers wrapped around my wrists are gone. He turns his back on me as if too pained to stand the conversation another second.

"The heart in the glass dome," he says, "is her heart. I preserved it all this time. As a reminder of what happens when I fall in love. It's best you stay away from me. You get the hell away while you have the chance. Leave."

I watch in stunned silence as he slides open the glass door.

He's letting me go.