As I spoke the words, I realized I couldn’t have prevented this from happening, either.

I couldn’t shoulder the responsibility, because I’d tried to protect my son with the ferocity of a thousand blazing suns. I knew that, because I, myself, had been abused.

In a very different way, but nonetheless.

“The best thing we can do for him is pretend it never happened, that you still don’t know. Allow him his dignity, Em. It’s the most important thing a young man can have. Now, let’s go home and leave the two lovebirds to clean up their own mess. We’re due back to see his exhibition, anyway.”

I picked her up and took her home.

My trophy.

My girl.

My heart.

My everything.

The entire courtyard was full of them.

Posters of my uncle, Harry Fairhurst, smiling, with the caption: “Rip me if I hurt you.”

The idea was to let people speak up without expecting them to come forward and admit to something still considered shameful and weak in our society. To me, admitting you’d been sexually abused was brave, but I understood it wasn’t my place to judge how people handled their personal tragedies.

I’d printed out one hundred fifty copies of the posters and hung them all over Carlisle Prep. By the next morning, many of the posters had been ripped apart. Some stomped on. Some now included a Hitler moustache, horns, or acne on his face.

I’d spent all night putting these posters up. At sunrise, I’d marched downtown on foot, picked up a coffee and a pastry, and gone back to the castle. That’s when I saw what they’d done to the posters.

I poked my head into classes, went down to the cellar, and threw office doors open on the main staff floor.

Harry Fairhurst was nowhere to be found.

Neither was Vaughn Spencer.

My heart galloped against my ribcage. I rounded the corner to Harry’s office, even though he’d missed the class he was supposed to teach, and was about to open his door when fingers curled around my shoulder. I looked back exactly at the same time I was shoved into his empty office. The door slammed behind me. It was Arabella, and she was still wearing her pajamas, her hair a mess.

“Hi, trash,” she greeted with her fake, cheery voice.

She’d chosen the wrong place and wrong time to mess with me. I was on edge, at war with my father, worried sick for Vaughn and what he’d done, and burning with rage about my uncle. She’d just added fuel to the fire already blazing high and dangerously out of control inside me.

“Thought it was a good opportunity to tell you I decided to leave before that stupid exhibition started. Raphael bores me to death, your dad sucks in bed, and Vaughn is MIA—” She was about to finish the sentence, but I didn’t let her.

I pounced on her like an untamed feline, claws first, pushing her to the floor. She fell with a thud, a scream ripping from her plump lips. I straddled her, like Vaughn had done to me so many times when he wanted to disarm me. She reached for my face, and I jammed both her wrists to her sides. I couldn’t believe what I was doing as I was doing it. I’d never gotten into a fight (if you don’t count the showdown with Arabella herself). I could only imagine what my parents would think about such thing.

But your parents aren’t here to judge you. They’ve been out of the picture for a while.

Mum was dead, and Papa turned out to be someone I had no desire to impress. Plus, it’d been a long time coming. Arabella had taunted and bullied me every step of the way for the past year and a half.

I leaned down and breathed into her face, trying—and succeeding—to sound crazy. Perhaps I’d always been dancing on the invisible line between insanity and despair. “Scream, and I’ll make you sorry you were born with a mouth.”

She spat in my face. I could feel her warm, thick saliva running from my chin down to my neck. I let go of her wrists, curling my fingers around her neck and straightening my spine, leaning back so her hands couldn’t reach my face or neck.

I squeezed her throat, adrenaline swimming in my bloodstream like a drug.

“Everyone snaps, Arabella. Even—and especially—aggravated vampires. Now tell me, why do you hate me so much?”

She opened her mouth, but all I could hear were muffled gurgles. Her face was red, her eyes watery. I wanted to stop choking her, but I couldn’t. Suddenly, I understood just how hotly Vaughn had hated Uncle Harry. I couldn’t blame him for what he wanted to do to the man who’d ripped the innocence from him when he was only a wee boy.

“Answer me!” I slammed Arabella’s head against the floor.

She’d hit me before. I never retaliated. Never fought back. Not really. I just sassed and made her feel intellectually inferior. As if she cared. That didn’t do me any good.

Arabella desperately tried to pry my fingers off of her neck now. Finally, I let go, pinning her hands to the floor again. Her neck was marred with purple and black Dalmatian dots. My fingertips. I swallowed, refusing to dwell on what I’d done to her.

“Why!” she screamed in my face, twisting like a snake behind me, trying to break free. “Because your asshole father had an affair with my mom, and now my family’s falling apart, and we’re about to lose everything! That’s why! Because one day he came into our house to drop Poppy off, and he never got out of there. My mom is suicidal. My dad is MIA. My sister has no one. All because of you and your stupid family. You should’ve stayed in England!” she roared, throwing her head back and bursting into a sob.

Too shocked to decipher exactly what she was saying, I let her slip from my grasp. My body slacked, and she took advantage of my surprise, pushing me back.

She shook her head. “You are so fucking gross. Like I would ever touch your dad. But I want you and Poppy to burn in hell. You came in with your stupid accent and clothes and bullshit and torched everything I knew and loved. You tore my family apart. Poppy stole Knight. You have Vaughn. What was I left with?” She pushed my chest again, harder. “Nothing!”

“So you and my dad…?” I tried to make sense of what she was saying, let it all sink in.

“Nothing,” she ground out, throwing her arms in the air. “Your dad and I are nothing. But my work here is done. He is miserable. You are going crazy. Poppy lost Knight, the only thing she cared about in America. As for Vaughn? You’re crazy to think he won’t dump you, if he hasn’t already. He’s wired differently.”

I watched her scramble to her feet from my spot on the floor. She wiped her face clean, patting her neck and wincing as she felt the bruises.

“I’m sorry your family is falling apart, Arabella.” Genuinely, I was. Compassion didn’t cost a penny. I knew what it felt like when my family collapsed and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I didn’t wish it upon anyone else—not even my enemies.

So many things collided together in a burst of realization and understanding.

Papa hadn’t touched Arabella.

He had moved on from Mum, eventually, and had an affair.

And the truth behind Arabella’s declaration that Vaughn was different from other boys, that he would leave me. Frankly, he already had.

“Whatever, Lenny. I don’t need your pity.” She flipped her hair, as she did when she was pretending not to be upset, huffing.