“That’s not what this is. It’s not who I am.”

“Who are you, Ryder? Who the f**k are you, because you’re not the hero.”

“I’m your magic shield, Ella.” We fit together so perfectly, bonded by dark pasts. She swallowed hard, nodding slightly as she visibly relaxed, understanding that our bond was special.

“I made a mistake. I was young, and I did something that I could never have understood the consequences for.” My hands dropped to my sides as I relived the horrible, tragic nightmare of my father’s death.

* *

“Ryder, I’m with a customer.”

“I figured out the chorus for ‘Behind Blue Eyes.’” I was beyond excited at how my skills on the guitar had progressed, but my father blew me off, turning his attention back to the young blonde who owned the car on which he had just replaced the front brakes.

He put his hand on her shoulder to guide her out of the garage, his fingers lingering on her bare skin as she laughed flirtatiously. He leaned closer, whispering something in her ear, and she smacked him playfully on the chest.

“Finish up that wheel, Ryder,” he called behind him as they slipped outside into the darkness. I propped my guitar in the corner of the garage and went to the front passenger side of the car. I kicked the cotter key across the garage floor, muttering curse words under my breath as I bent down to finish securing the tire. I’d spent all day helping him replace the front brakes just to get a moment to show him what I’d learned. Fuck this car. Fuck him.

The consequences of my anger didn’t become relevant until a few days later, when that tire flew off, causing them to lose control and wreck due to the missing pin.

* *

“What did you do?”

My attention snapped back to Ella, her lips quivering as she struggled to understand.

“I killed my father and his girlfriend.”

Her hand went over her mouth as she gasped audibly.

“I was a child. I was careless, and losing him destroyed my entire life, but that doesn’t make me any less responsible. I knew the proper way to put the wheel back on. My father drilled it into me over and over again. I didn’t do it right. I just never thought something would ever happen.” The only thing that kept me grounded was Katie. She was gravity, a force strong enough to help me suppress the anger inside me.

“Was Katie an accident too?”

“I never hurt her. I…loved her. You have to believe me.” Another blow, a stabbing pain directly in my heart. I wondered if that is how my victims felt. If the betrayal was worse than the actual mercy of death. I should have paid better attention to what my father taught me and he and that woman would be alive. Had I been there for Katie I could have saved her. Even if I didn’t mean to cause them harm, their blood was on my hands.

“Why? Why does it matter what I think of you?”

“Because I need you to know I wouldn’t do anything to you. I could never hurt you.”

“You are hurting me. I trusted you. I told you things I’ve never said to anyone.”

I closed my eyes, struggling to silence the voices, the onslaught of memories. “I’m trying to help you, Ella. If I’d been there for Katie when she needed me, had I not gone after Bryce…”

“Bryce?” Her eyes widened, and I could see she was hopeful he was dead, her heart disagreeing with her mind.

“A little hypocritical, don’t you think?”

Her eyes went back to the car as she wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know what to think.” She shook her head, the wheels inside her mind spinning as she struggled to admit she was no different from me. I did what she couldn’t. I ended the nightmares for her.

“I don’t need to kill, I want to. I wanted to kill your father more than anything for hurting you.”

“Is that any better?” Her face was wrought with confusion.

“Some people are born this way, unable to control the urge. I was created. I became this on purpose. And it all led to you. Don’t you see that? You’re the butterfly. You flapped your wings, and the entire universe set us into motion. It was an unstoppable force. I became this for you, before I ever knew you existed,” I pleaded with her to understand.

“The butterfly effect,” she mumbled under her breath. “You never have to be scared again. I’ll keep you safe,” I promised.

“My magic shield,” she whispered, and her eyes met mine. I walked toward her slowly, desperate to close the gap between us, to feel that electrical force that pulled us together before she knew what I really was. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to your father. He should have made sure it was done right, Ryder. No one should have let you carry that guilt for all of these years.”

“Bryce isn’t dead.” I swallowed back the rage that boiled inside me whenever I thought of him. “What happens to him is up to you.”

“What?”

“I’ll walk away for you, Ella. Just please don’t walk away from me.”

“After what he did to Katie? After what he did…” Her voice trailed off.

“After what? Tell me. You don’t have to carry around that pain by yourself.”

She walked around me, blowing out a long breath as she sat down in the old kitchen chair in the corner of the garage.

Deserve

Chapter 28—Ella

Deserve: to do something or have or show qualities worthy of reward or punishment

“I moved in with the Alexanders when I was fifteen. At first it was…amazing. They treated me like they loved me before they even knew me. It didn’t take long to figure out why.”

I smiled nervously as Ryder clenched his jaw, struggling to keep the emotions from showing on his face.

“I wore her clothes, slept in her bed. Her picture, like the picture in your wallet, hung in my room.”

“Christ.” Ryder shook his head as he began to pace the floor.

“Bryce didn’t live at home. Home.” The word sounded so wrong. Home was supposed to be a sanctuary, a place to feel safe in a dangerous world. “He started coming by several times a week. He was friendly.”

Ryder sneered as he put his palms down on the hood of the old car, struggling to keep his composure. The clapping sound of his hands against the metal startled me.

“Then he started coming by when my…when the adults would leave for work or to run errands. I tried to fight him off, but he was twice my size. Sometimes I think he would let me get away just so he could chase me. He got some sort of sick thrill from my fear.”

* *

“You wear that dress just for me?” Bryce’s eyes traveled up my legs as his hands ran over the growing bulge in his jeans.

“I hate these dresses. They were what she liked, not me.” I took a few steps backward to create some distance between us as I glanced down at the pale-yellow eyelet dress.

“Want to know what I like?” He cocked his head to the side, a sickening smirk on his lips as he ran his tongue over his top row of teeth. My heart was racing, and I wished I could lock Bryce away in my father’s closet. But the monsters didn’t always stay hidden away.

He lurched forward, grabbing my wrist painfully tight, laughing as I struggled against his grip.

“Fight me,” he goaded as I pounded the side of my fist against his chest. “Fight me!” He grabbed my shoulder and shoved me backward, hard. It felt like my tailbone broke when I hit the wooden floor. My agonizing screams only made him want me more. We’d been doing this for months. I struggled to not fight him because I knew it was what he liked, but it only caused him to get more creative with his abuse. The latest cuts from the razor hadn’t even healed as he hovered over me, digging his thumb into the wound.

I bit back my scream, my teeth digging into my lower lip until the taste of copper flooded my tongue. “Just kill me already and get it over with.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Katie.”

“My name is not Katie!” I untangled my hand from his shirt and slapped him as hard as I could across the face. His body stilled over me before his eyes met mine.

“You stupid f**king bitch!” His fist came down hard against my cheek, the back of my head slamming off the floor.

My eyes closed for what felt like a fraction of a second, and when I awoke, I was blinded by neon lighting, the low hum of the bulbs causing my head to ache.

* *

“He raped you.”

“More times than I can count.”

Ryder crossed the garage and sank down in front of me, his hands on my knees. Raising his hand slowly, he wiped away a tear with the pad of his thumb. His other hand gripped me tightly as he struggled to keep his composure.

“The last time”—I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat—“I woke up in a hospital, cuts all over my stomach and thighs. I didn’t even recognize myself in a mirror for weeks.”

His grip tightened on my knee, and I placed my palm over it, causing him to relax immediately.

“I was wrong.” He pushed to his feet faster than before and paced the floor as he plotted. “I need to kill him, Ella.” He stopped in front of me again and dipped down to eye level. “I have to make him suffer.”

I swallowed hard, knowing my opinion could sway him, but I didn’t have the strength to stop him, because what was right was to make Bryce pay for the abuse I’d endured.

“He deserves it.” I paused between each word, making sure to annunciate them clearly, so he understood we were on the same page.

“Tell me, Ella.” His eyes searched mine, excited, as if I had told a child he could open his Christmas presents early. “Tell me you want me to kill him.”

“I want you to kill him.”

Sliding his hand into my hair, he pulled me toward him, pressing his lips hard against mine. The bond we shared ran deeper than secrets. If I was the butterfly, he was the storm, the justice that would wash away my past so I could start again. We’d finish this together, heal each other.

Sanctuary

Chapter 29—Rellik

Sanctuary: a place of refuge or safety

“I want to take you somewhere.” I stood, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet before motioning toward the car.

I needed Ella to see that I wasn’t anything like her father, needed her to understand what brought us both to this point.

I drove us to the one place I swore I’d never go again.

It felt like I had never left that small wooded area where I ran for sanctuary and eventually found immeasurable heartbreak. The area looked like she had never stepped foot there, never whispered her secrets to me, never took her last breath among its roots. The blood had long ago been absorbed into the earth, and she was now a part of this place. If I closed my eyes, I swore I could almost feel my heart start to quicken, like it had when we were together.

I fell to my knees, the damp grass soaking through my jeans. Could one really get closure if he didn’t want to forget?

The rustling of footsteps jarred me from my morbid memories.

“Is this where it happened?” I glanced over my shoulder at Ella before looking back to the ground, struggling to convince myself that she was real, that life had given Katie back to me.

“This is it. This is where I fell in love.”

“Tell me what happened.”

I closed my eyes, not knowing where to begin. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

Ella placed her hand on my shoulder, her thumb gently gliding back and forth against my shirt. “I want to understand what happened to me, and I can’t without her story.”

“If you’re looking for a reason, something that could have been changed, you’re just going to drive yourself crazy.”

“I just need to understand.”

I swallowed hard, my throat dry as I struggled to come up with the words, to allow myself to slip wholly into the memories that tortured me. “Katie was there for me when I lost my father. She had no reason to be, and had she not shown me kindness, she’d still be alive.”

Ella sank down beside me and crossed her legs in front of her as I continued to stare off at the trees, letting my vision blur.

“We would come here, sneak out to see each other whenever we could.”

“Why did you sneak around?”

Shrugging, I picked up a leaf and began to pull it apart, separating the veins. “After my dad died, I kind of lost it for a while. I got in a lot of fights. Katie was the only person who could calm me down.”

“She was good for you.”

“I was bad for her.” Shaking my head, I sank back on my heels as I breathed in the smell of the trees.

“How long were you together?”

“Four years. We were sixteen when she…” I let my words die in my throat. “Katie was having trouble at home. Her stepbrother wouldn’t leave her alone. I got mad. I couldn’t just let him get away with what he was doing to her. She begged me not to do anything.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have.”

“Had I left him alone, she’d still be alive. Her death is my fault.”

“Had you left her alone, he would have continued hurting her.”

“Instead, he hurt you.” My eyes met hers, my chest tightening with regret.

“You couldn’t have known. You can’t blame yourself for what others have done.”

“You blamed me.”

“I blamed everyone. It didn’t seem like I ever had a chance.” We stared off in silence for a moment as I thought that over. Were we all just victims of fate, an unstable force?