The entire world is submerged underwater, and I’m swimming through it. I’m convinced the storm got so bad that it drowned us out, and my vision just hasn’t caught up yet.
Or maybe that’s not true. My eyeballs are definitely swimming.
Enzo carries me into the room—or rather, drags me—and those revolting feelings in my stomach churn like it always does when I think of Kev.
Miss me, pipsqueak? I’ve missed you…
“Does touching me make you feel even more disturbed than usual?” I ask, bitterness staining my words. “Now that you know my brother liked to touch me, too?”
“Sawyer,” he snaps, spinning me around to face him. But my vision also spins, and all he accomplishes is sending me teetering on two left feet. I think I feel sick, too. My entire body is full of alcohol, and everything inside me is sloshing around in it like they don’t have assigned seating.
I giggle, imagining myself telling all my organs to go back to their seats or else extra homework for them.
Then I frown, my brows knitting. Maybe they need the extra homework. It’s going to be a lot of work to get them functioning correctly again.
“Look at me,” he demands, but it’s dark in here. Only the moonlight cutting through the dirty glass allows me to see the outline of his face and shadowed eyes.
Even then, the torrential downpour is skewing most of the light.
“I can’t,” I tell him. Hot breath fans across my lips as he brings me in closer.
“Don’t ever think of yourself that way. And don’t ever think that I will, too. You’re so much more than the people who have hurt you.”
My face twists, not believing that for a second.
“I will make you see that,” he vows. “What happened to you does not define you. It only forged a new path that will take you to a different version of yourself. But no one can force you to walk that road; only you can determine who you will be once you get there. It’s your choice who you become, Sawyer.”
I think there are tears in my eyes, and I’m blanketed by that familiar sadness. Even the alcohol can’t dilute it.
For so long, I had convinced myself that it was clinging to me, despite my desperate attempts to escape it. But now I realize it’s me that’s been holding on, like a child with their favorite teddy bear.
“No more running, baby. I want him to come looking for you just so I can have the privilege of ending his life for touching what’s mine.”
My stomach clenches, and as much as I’d like to say it’s the effect of the alcohol, I know better.
“I wasn’t yours then. You didn’t even know me.”
The pad of his thumb brushes across my cheek, but it’s far from loving. It feels like the placating touch of a killer right before he ends your life.
“You were always destined to be mine,” he says.
His words make no sense. So hot and cold… and as much as I want what he’s saying to be true, it could never happen.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s dead or alive, he’ll always haunt me,” I rasp, sadness ringing from the truth.
“Then I will haunt you worse.”
Just when it seems like he’s going to kiss me, he pulls away.
“Let’s get you to bed.”
A crack of lightning pierces the air, causing me to jolt in his arms and send my heart skyrocketing. Right when I turn toward the window, another strike hits the water, washing the world in a bright glow long enough to see a massive wave hurdling straight toward us.
“Oh my God,” I gasp, stumbling back into Enzo’s chest as it crashes into the side of the lighthouse.
Even as the water drowns out the glass for several seconds, the building holds firm. It doesn’t even creak beneath the power of the wave.
“That… That is a strong window,” I breathe, heart still thundering. Another wave is already swelling, the massive shadow prevalent in the darkness.
“Lighthouses are built for situations like this. Get in bed,” he orders. If I’m not mistaken, his tone isn’t as harsh as it usually is. But I also could just be drunk.
“Hey, Enzo?” I call as he helps me into bed.
“Hmm?” he hums.
“Try to hide the judgment, okay? Kev always used to tell me that no one would believe me, and well… he was right. No one ever did. And I think I prefer that now. It’s better if you think I’m a liar.”
“I won’t judge you,” he says softly.
“That’s good,” I nod, flopping into the bed ungracefully. The room is spinning, and I would like it to stop now.
“Maybe I will stay here forever,” I sigh whimsically. “Live on in the cave with the glowworms and Sylvester as my neighbor. At least then I won’t have to hurt people anymore.”
Whatever Enzo says—if he says anything at all—is lost to me. Darkness already has a hold of my brain, and I’m more than happy to let it take over.
Someone is crying.
My brows pinch, the odd noise filtering past the fog in my ears and the dream that clutches onto my subconscious like a frightened cat.
I stir, my body jerking, finally plunging me back into reality. The muffled crying becomes clearer, though I can’t place where it’s coming from exactly.
“Do you hear that?” Enzo asks quietly.
Turns out, my world is still spinning on its axis just as much as it was when I passed out. I’m not sure I slept off even half of the alcohol.
“What is that?” I mutter, sitting upright and attempting to gain clarity over my surroundings.
Almost as if they could hear my question, the sobbing quietens, and the silence that ensues is loud.
“Non lo so,” he mutters.
“Another ghost?”
Enzo doesn’t answer, prompting me to turn and look at him. The moonlight spears through the glass at a sharp enough angle to highlight his face. He’s staring straight up at the ceiling, the muscle in his jaw pulsing.
I don’t know what possesses me—maybe the ghosts in this place—but I reach out and poke his forehead.
He blinks rapidly at me for a moment, turning his stunned gaze to me.
“Are you noticing similarities between the wood on the ceiling and the stick up your ass? I’m sure they have comparable textures.”
“What is wrong with you?” he mutters, turning his glare back to said wood.
I shrug, then flop back down on the mattress, rolling to the side and facing the window. It’s still storming, the rain pattering against the glass. “You now have extensive knowledge of that question, I believe.” That reminder positively causes the toxic chemicals in my stomach to churn. “Anyway, whatever it was, it’s gone now, and I have a lot more alcohol to sleep off.”
“Then shut up and go back to bed,” he says stiffly.
I’m too drunk to let his attitude bother me at this very moment. Tomorrow, I’ll be contrite again.
But when I lay back down and close my eyes, sleep doesn’t come for me. I beg and plea with it to take me away to some neverland, even if it’s riddled with fairytale monsters, but it persists in its absence.
“Enzo?” I ask.
He’s quiet for so long I’ve convinced myself he’s fallen asleep. But then he sighs, “What, Sawyer?”
“Did you ever see your mom again?”
Again, with the weighted silence.
“No.”
“Did you ever look for her?” I ask, feeling the thickening tension radiating off him.
“Why are you asking?” he deflects.
I struggle for words, feeling the familiar tide of fear rise up my throat anytime I think of my dearest twin brother. Rolling toward Enzo, I tuck my hands under my head. He’s still staring up at the ceiling.
“I guess I just want to know if it’s possible to let someone go that doesn’t want to be found.”
He sighs again and trains his gaze on me.
“I’m capable of deducing, and I get that you do what you do so he can’t find you,” he says slowly, as if offering his understanding and empathy to someone is new, uncharted territory.
“Have you tried—”
“Yes,” I cut him off. “I’ve gone to my parents, and I’ve gone to the authorities when we were sixteen. Kev was always really good at manipulating people. So charming and charismatic, he would give you the shirt off his back without having to ask type. They just said, ‘I know Kevin Bennett. He would never do such a thing.’ But he did.”
I hadn’t realized I started crying until a hot tear was burning a vengeful path across the bridge of my nose and onto the bed sheets. Thankfully, Enzo won’t look at me long enough to notice.
“You went to the authorities, and they still allowed him to be a cop?”
I shrug pitifully. “It’s not like they let me file a report. There was no record of my accusation.”
There’s something insidious mixing with the tension seeping into the air around us. Something dark and violent. It takes a moment to realize that Enzo is angry.
Which isn’t anything out of the ordinary by any means, but this time is different. He’s angry on my behalf.
“Lead him to me,” he says, his voice hushed and deep with malice. The request is similar to his declaration earlier, and even in my drunk-addled mind, I remember him claiming me as his. My heart stops, then restarts, stuttering and tripping over itself in a syncopated rhythm. Butterflies sprout in my stomach, and I decide they’re fucking drunk, too.
“Why would you want to hurt him?”
He faces me and lightly brushes his fingers through my curls, eliciting a shiver that racks through my entire body. The feel of his skin brushing against my temple has my lashes fluttering, a blaze of fire left in his wake. It’s anything but a sweet and tender moment, though. Rather, it feels like a predator playing with its food before taking a massive bite out of it.
“He’s forced you to strip people of their identities, so I will do the same to him,” he murmurs darkly. I swallow, the saliva lodging in my throat as his implication settles.
Enzo wouldn’t be stealing the identity of a cop. He’d be snuffing it instead.
And God help me, but the thought impels a deep throb between my legs. I clench my thighs tight in an effort to abate the need, but it’s hopeless when his fingers trail into my hair again, getting lost in the waves as his precious boat did. And for a moment, I wonder if someone a hundred years from now will happen across his vessel, deeming it another tragedy that succumbed to nature’s most unforgiving creation.
“Why would you do that for me?” I whisper, suppressing another shudder when his hand tightens, fisting my hair until the strands hold taut. I hiss between my teeth as sharp pinpricks bloom across my scalp.
He lifts up, resting on his forearm as he crowds over me, the heat of his body pressing into my front. I struggle to hold on to a coherent thought while my heart rate elevates dangerously.
His breath fans across the shell of my ear, and I both want to shrink away from him and notch my jaw up toward him, daring him to come closer.
“Because I want to be the only thing that keeps you up at night, bella ladra,” he growls. “And if anyone is going to hurt you, it’s going to be me.”
I shake my head, uncaring of the way it tugs painfully at my hair.
More than anything, I want him to. And that scares me. Enzo can’t save me from my fate, and I will never ask him to. Whatever this is, it will never work. We’ve caused each other too much pain, and even still, I know he’s struggling to forgive me. Another thing I could never ask of him.
The familiar bone-deep urge to run arises. I have nowhere to go, so the only thing I can think to do is make him go.
“I will survive you, Enzo, just as I have survived him. And I will do no different than I’ve done before.” He’s silent as I exhale slowly, then whisper, “I will do what I must.”
He releases me but doesn’t retreat. Ice so cold descends over us, and I know I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.
And that’s just heartbreaking.
“I never found my mother,” he tells me quietly. “I did search for her, but I didn’t search for long. You know why?”
There’s a foreboding feeling replacing the electricity crackling in the air.
“Why?” I ask, though I don’t think I want to know.
“Because she let her sadness transform her into a miserable human being, capable of hurting others just to save herself. She wasn’t worthy of my forgiveness.”
Just like you.
He doesn’t say it, but the words slither over my skin and needle beneath like tiny little parasites. I bite my tongue while he pulls away.
I asked for that, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
“Bring him to me, Sawyer. I’ll take care of him. I won’t let you get away as she did.”
I shake my head, frustrated that this man can’t let me go.
“She was lucky then,” I whisper, hoping my words were as sharp as his. He doesn’t deign to give me a response, but he does turn away, and I know they were. I can feel it.
Did that hurt, baby?
