Roman pulls away once the bleary haze takes root in my bones, numbing me to my thoughts.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Where would I go? I wasn’t the one who left in the first place. I’m still caught in the web of our making, stuck under a roof where every breath feels like it could be used against me.
I barely register the feel of his lips pressed against my forehead before he leaves. I hardly hear the slap of boots hitting wood, leaving me to stare blankly at the line of scarlet splatter on the flyers stuck to the fridge.
It’s hard to think the fridge containing leftover dinner is in the same room as the man slaughtered by my childhood love. It doesn’t match the purge mask sitting in a pool of blood on the table, right next to yesterday’s newspaper, Millie’s cross-stitch supplies, and Greg’s severed fingers.
The dishes drying on the rack don’t match the body hanging from the beam in the living room. Mundane things surrounded by broken parts, which are all out of place. It’s just like my hollow heart.
There was never any hope in this house. No one here saw a future beyond these walls, or the hardware store Greg and Millie own—owned.
Marcus was always meant to suffer because of his own sick desires. Greg was always meant to die facing the consequences of his actions, whether drinking or sitting idle. And me? I was always meant to be broken by the boy who put me together.
It’s funny how life turns out.
Roman could hurt me a thousand ways, and he wouldn’t need to lay a hand on me; a single word, and I would be done for. The sight of his back as he walks away would be enough, and nothing would put me back together.
All the broken shards that made up my being would catch in the wind, and I’d never be complete. Not that I ever was. But he made me feel like I could have been one day.
Frantic movements pull me from the darkness, and it takes more energy than it should to turn my attention to Marcus, who’s wriggling and shuddering helplessly. I assume he knows how tonight will end.
The last meal he ate will be the overcooked chicken I prepared. The last person to lay their hands on him will be who I thought was my other half. But the last face he sees will be mine.
Little Isa.
Pretty Isabella.
Or his personal favorite: fucking slut.
His eyes plead with me as he cries, probably praying I will be the angel sent from above to save him. He’s right about one thing: I am an angel. But I wasn’t sent, I fell. I descended through the sky with burning wings, landing outside Eden in the land writhing with serpents. Because Roman pushed me out.
I don’t realize I’ve started walking until I’m in front of him, slowly tearing the tape so he feels every bit of it.
The second his thin lips are free, he gasps for air like it’s his first time breathing. “Isa, pl—you’ve gotta help me. You’ve gotta—he’s a fucking lunatic.” He blinks fast, swinging his petrified gaze between me, the stairs, and the knife block on the kitchen bench. I keep my eyes on his face, ignoring the blood draining from the hole where his appendage used to be and the liquid clumping in his bloodied chest hair. “There—the knife. Cut—’
“Did I look this pathetic?” I ask, emotionlessly.
Like a child sniffling as the tears mixed with sweat and snot? Was this me? Did I look so deserving of the torment too? Wide, innocent eyes so full of delusion that I thought someone might actually come to save me.
“What are you talking about? Just get the fucking—’
“No.”
Mouth agape, he pauses. “What did you just fuck—’
“Shut the fuck up,” I spit.
His eyes widen, and his face loses its color.
Good. He’s scared. He should be.
“You don’t get to speak to me like that anymore.” My voice shakes as I say it.
There’s something cathartic about seeing him like this, limited by a prison of someone else’s making. I’ve never squirmed away from a little bit of blood—I’ve seen Roman covered in it enough times. This is fucked up beyond comprehension.
Usually, I’d rather walk away than cause someone’s downfall. I wouldn’t call it being the bigger person; I’d just say it’s because I’ve had enough.
He hurt me. He made my life hell. He made me scared in my own home. He made me hate every second of my life.
Now, he’s at my mercy.
My fists tremble, wanting to be unleashed on something—anything. But the thought of touching Marcus again sickens me to my very core. He’s laid his filthy hands on me for years, and I guess life comes full circle; Roman, the man who used to keep Marcus at bay, will be the one who kills him.
I reach for the shelf and grab the first thing I can wrap my fingers around. Then I throw it at him with every bit of force I can muster. One right after the other, I keep throwing everything I can get my hands on. His participation trophies, bolts, tools, photo frames, ornaments, leaving red marks on his skin.
He buckles and screams, but I don’t stop throwing item after item, until I keel over and throw up again from the sight of the blood splashing across the room.
“You’re going to die tonight, you fucking pig,” I spit. “And after everything you did to me, I’m going to enjoy watching.” I take a step forward and point at him with a shaky finger. “You’re a pathetic piece of shit who preys on women, and you’re going to suffer for all the times you’ve assaulted me.”
“Are you seriously mad about that right now?” He swings as he jerks, flapping his feet in a fruitless attempt to reach the ground. “Grow up. Untie me.”
“I was a child,” I snap, then turn to Greg, shaking my head at the sight of him and the belt around his throat. It’s mortifying, yet the perfect form of justice. “I didn’t need to grow up.” I wanted my dead mother. I wanted my father, who didn’t want me. I wanted not just to be loved but to feel it too.
“Isa, get the fu—’
I slap the tape back over his mouth, silencing him. Sometimes when angels fall, the serpents devour them. Other times, they learn to live with them.
“I’d say rest in peace, but I hope you never find it.” It feels liberating to let it roll from my tongue.
The back of my neck prickles with awareness right before I hear Roman come down the stairs.
“He better not have said anything he shouldn’t have.” The rage in Roman’s voice is well hidden underneath his sinister veneer.
I don’t need to look at him to know he’s giving Marcus a smile that’s all teeth. Because my foster brother looks at me again, pleading with his eyes for my help. How the tables have turned.
Marcus never stopped when I asked him not to push or touch me. This household turned its back when I cried because his hand slipped beneath my shirt. There’s a certain peace in knowing that he will die realizing that no one will come to save him. That I will be part of his downfall.
Behind me, something drops to the floor, but I don’t want to risk looking at Roman to figure out what it is. I should be grateful that it sounds too heavy to be another body, so maybe it wasn’t a lie Millie is alive after all. Or perhaps she’s seconds away from joining her husband.
Roman’s shoulder brushes mine as he moves past me. I know he wouldn’t hurt me physically. But I’d rather have scars on my body than my soul.
He all but saunters to Marcus, twirling the switchblade between his fingers as if he were putting on a show. “You know where you went wrong?”
Marcus sobs, flicking his bloodshot eyes between me and the monster I helped create. I bite the inside of my cheek, feeling like I need to say something, but the words are nowhere to be found.
“You fucked with my girl.” Roman chuckles darkly, glancing at me before saying, “And you should never fuck with my girl.”
The tip of the blade digs into the corner of Marcus’s jaw, blooming red as it follows the path to his chin. His thrashing only makes the cut deeper, more vicious, a thorned rose rather than a smooth lily.
I edge back, tripping over my feet as I stumble to a wall for support. I can’t look away, but the sight of the gore makes me tip over to gasp for air.
“You’re lucky she’s here. If not—you and me—we would have been having fun all night long.”
A boulder lodges in my throat, scraping along the walls of my neck.
Roman hums a made-up tune as he continues carving all sorts of shapes into Marcus’s already deformed skin. Stars, hearts, circles, his own initials—that he promptly slices through—undeterred by Marcus’s squeals of pain muffled by tape. Roman watches his handiwork with intent eyes following each motion, his body leaning forward as if in a trance, like a child doodling in class. Each glide of his hand is purposeful, going deeper in certain areas while barely grazing the flesh in others. As if he’s trying to stop Marcus from bleeding out.
As if he’s tortured someone like this before.
I wipe my trembling hands along my bare thigh and cover my mouth to silence my sobs. Marcus keeps looking at me to help him. Some sick, twisted part of me wishes Greg was still alive to be a bystander in his son’s demise.
I don’t know what I feel. Guilt? Fear? Disgust? Anticipation? I feel all of it, yet none of it. Each swirl of emotion is so visceral but still so dull, as my mind refuses to comprehend the scene before me.
This is fucked up on every single level.
I know I should call for help. I need to stop Roman before he kills Marcus. I should have saved him when I had the chance.
But I can’t do anything, paralyzed in my spot, focused on trying not to pass out.
Roman pauses, looking up at Marcus with an eerie innocence that makes my stomach clench. “Do you want me to let you go?”
I stiffen and everything goes silent. He wouldn’t… would he? The Roman I knew would burn the entire city down before letting someone who hurt me walk free. But three years will change someone.
My foster brother nods slowly, sending me a questioning look. I swallow. Would Roman really let Marcus go? This is the question in both our heads, but I know for a fact that Marcus won’t be asking if Roman will let me go. He’s selfish. There’s no planet where he’d give a shit about what happens to me.
“It doesn’t seem like you want to be let go,” Roman practically sings, swirling the knife around Marcus’s cheek without breaking the skin.
Marcus swings his head from side to side violently, shaking his whole body. He doesn’t seem to care about the pain he’s causing himself because he doesn’t stop.
Worse, I can’t seem to care either.
“That’s better.” Roman smiles in the same way a tiger would before tearing through its dinner’s neck. He may like inflicting fear, but what he loves most is making them beg. “Apologize to my girl.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say, it’s fine. He doesn’t have to. But I want to hear him say it. I want him to beg for my forgiveness.
The duct tape is ripped from Marcus’s mouth for the second time tonight. But like the idiot he is, the first words out of his mouth are, “Please, let me go.”
The words earn him a knife to his stomach. I flinch back from the suckling sound combined with his howling. Whether from morbid fascination, a sense of responsibility, or some sick need for closure, I keep my eyes open, staring at the gruesome sight through new tears.
“Apologize,” Roman growls, twisting the knife.
My chest tightens. Watching this kind of thing on TV is different from seeing it happen to your foster brother. I wish I had the strength to hurt Marcus the way Roman is, not just for vengeance, but to prove to myself that I can take care of myself in every possible way.
Marcus screams. What if the neighbors hear? What if the police come? What if Marcus lives and tells the police that I was an accomplice, like I know he would?
Marcus’s lips quiver, spit and blood flying out as he looks at me. “I—I’m sorry.”
I grit my teeth. His apology doesn’t make me feel any better.
“You can do better than that,” Roman says.
“I’m sorry!” Marcus cries as Roman applies more pressure to the open wound. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “Please, just let me go.”
“Keep going,” Roman says.
I dig half-moons into my palms and watch Marcus beg. “Please. I swear—I swear I won’t tell anyone. Do whatever you want with that slut—’
I suck in a sharp breath as the blade rips through tendons and sinews before my tormentor can finish his sentence, but the damage is already done. The rage vibrating from Roman is a living, breathing thing I can taste in the back of my throat.
An endless stream of blood pours from the yawning slit across Marcus’s neck. The crimson waterfall soaks his chest and rushes down his legs before pooling onto the floor.
I start heaving, but nothing comes up.
Inch by agonizingly slow inch, Roman turns his head in my direction, and I’m frozen in my spot. Dark hair falls over his beautifully vicious face, covered in my foster family’s blood.
Electricity cracks in the space between us, and every cell in my body is a live wire under his stare. When his eyes snap up to mine, it’s like I’m finally looking at him and seeing him for the bloodthirsty beast he is. And he’s found his next kill.
Me.
Pure animalistic instinct takes over with the single-minded need to run from the apex predator. My foot slides backward as he steps forward. One foot back, another forward. Stalking me. Hunting me.
The all-consuming urge to run has nothing to do with his strong strides or the knife fisted at his side. No, it’s the glint in his eyes. He isn’t warning me not to run.
He’s hoping I will.
Reason left me a long time ago. Logic is still tucked away in my bed, oblivious to the chaos below.
You should never run. You can climb, and you might be able to hide, but you never run.
Yet, that’s precisely what I do.
I run.
