My fingers hover on the engine’s button.
I can’t.
No, I can.
This is what I’ve lived all my life for. This is my mission in life, the reason I exist.
The shadow of the girl on my shoulder is begging me to go on, to step harder on the accelerator. I need to go, I need to—
“Char…lotte… Ronan…” Edric mumbles from beside me. His foot kicks forward but soon falls down.
“Shut up.” I release the steering wheel and grasp the needle. “You don’t get to play the victim game with me. You don’t get to use Charlotte or Ronan.”
He’s staring at me, but there’s no fear or franticness in his eyes as I expected. He’s not even pretending to have any acceptance. If anything, he appears sad, mortified, even.
“…w-write s-something to h-her…”
“Why would you get to say your goodbyes? Knox and I didn’t. We couldn’t. We had to run away so you would never come near me again.”
“N-No…not me…”
“You won’t even admit to it?” My voice rises. “The curtains have fallen, Edric. There’s no one to save you.”
Or me.
I’ve already picked my path. I don’t get to change my mind.
A banging sounds on the door and I startle. Shit. No one is supposed to come this far out.
I hit the ignition and spring into action.
“Teal!” Ronan’s voice comes through the window, muffled but strong.
My shoulder blades snap together.
What is he doing here? How did he find me? He’s not supposed to find me.
Don’t look at him.
Don’t you dare look at him.
I slowly close my eyes. If I look at him, I won’t be able to go through with this.
If I look at him, I’ll be tempted to abandon everything and run into his arms, but that will only destroy me in the long run.
“Teal!” He bangs on the window. “Open up.”
I don’t.
I won’t.
“Ma belle…please look at me.” His voice softens, and something inside me breaks. It breaks at his nickname for me and the way he’s calling me his beauty.
Tears stream down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them even if I wanted to. I held them hostage for so long, and now they’re breaking out.
I hit the button, and the lowering sound of the window echoes in the silence of the morning. However, I don’t look at him. I feel like if I do, I’ll break down in sobs, and I can’t have that.
“Teal,” Ronan coaxes. “Can you shut off the engine?”
“No.” My voice trembles around the word.
“Hey…I know the amount of pain you’re in. I won’t pretend I understand it all, but I understand some. However, you’re making a huge mistake, Teal. It’s not my father.”
This time I do look at him, my veins nearly popping out of my neck with tension.
How dare he say it’s a mistake?
Just because it’s his father doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.
I regret lifting my head immediately. Ronan is holding up a half-conscious Eduard, his face nearly unrecognisable. Blood drips down his temples, his chin, and his ugly red suit.
“It was this fucker.” Ronan’s jaw clenches. “He’s the only paedophile in our family.”
My jaw drops open as Ronan tells me the story of how his uncle used to go to Birmingham and how Charlotte was sick at the time so Edric never left her side, not even for a minute.
I can’t concentrate. For a second too long, I’m just staring ahead as the pieces fall together.
That’s why Eduard seemed familiar when he was talking to Ronan in his room that day…the tenor of his voice, his back. I gasp as the rest of Ronan’s words register.
The only paedophile in our family.
He’s the man who molested Ronan, isn’t he?
Why had I thought the secret was that Eduard was Ronan’s biological father? He couldn’t be; the similarities between Edric and Ronan are undeniable. I was only trying any method possible to stop relating the source of my pain to the source of my happiness.
My gaze bounces between Eduard and Edric, whose eyes are rimmed with tears. He figured it out, too.
I kill the engine. My own eyes won’t stop fucking leaking, and I don’t have the will to wipe the tears away.
“E-Edric…” Eduard begs. “Stop your son’s madness.”
My skin prickles with all the emotions I’ve been directing at the wrong person.
This arsehole has been hiding in plain sight all this time. I’ve been plotting Edric’s demise when he didn’t do a thing.
God, what have I done?
“I-I’m g-going to k-kill you, Eduard,” Edric manages to get out past a clenched jaw.
His brother’s face pales at that. The realisation of what he’s done sets in. He knows, he just knows his fate at Edric’s hands will be worse than anything else that could be done to him.
“Edric…you believe this nonsense?” Eduard’s voice shakes. It literally shakes.
“Kill. You,” Edric mutters.
“I was abused too,” Eduard pleads, that tremor still there. “I-I…my first stepfather used to do things to me, Edric. Your father saved me. You think I want to be this way? You think I like it?”
“But you acted on it.” Ronan shakes him as if he’s a sack of potatoes. “Does being traumatised give you the right to traumatise others?”
“I’ll make you regret the day you were born.” Edric’s voice is clearer now, the drug’s effect barely noticeable. “I’ll shun you, break you until you choose to put a bullet in your head.”
“Edric…” Eduard’s voice catches. “You can’t do that. I’m your only brother.”
“I have no brother.”
That sets Eduard off.
His features contort, and with the blood, it looks as if someone smeared it all over his face and he’s now transforming into a monster.
Or rather, he’s revealing the monster that’s been inside him all along.
“If you want someone to blame, blame your pretty little child.” His gaze slides to Ronan and he grins. “You were the forbidden fruit I could never have because of that fucking Lars, so do you know what I did, my dear nephew?”
“Shut up,” Ronan commands while gritting his teeth.
“No, it’s truth time, so let’s do it.” He laughs, showing his bloodied mouth. “I’ve fantasised about your entire body, about your little hands and small penis. I jerked off to your picture more times than I could count, my lovely little nephew. So when I couldn’t have you, I found other little hands who resembled yours, and I made sure I could mark their skin. They didn’t bite and hit like you, so I did it for them. They cried, though — except for this one.” He motions at me but never takes his attention off Ronan. “I remember her — of course I do. She was one of the quiet ones, the ones who didn’t speak a word. I didn’t tarnish you, my little boy. Aren’t I a good uncle?”
“You fucking—”
Eduard cuts Ronan off. “If you want to blame someone, blame yourself. You’re the reason for all their trauma. If you had let me touch you, I wouldn’t have ruined other children. You’re to blame Ronan — only you. When you’re holding your beautiful fiancée, I want you to remember I came all over her cunt because I couldn’t have you.”
Ronan growls and drags Eduard to the cliff. I’m opening the door and running after him before I even realise it.
He holds his uncle by the collar on the edge. “Say goodbye, Eduard.”
“You’re going to kill me and then what?” Eduard laughs like an insane man out of a psych ward. “Can you live with the fact that you’re behind all those children’s misery?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan roars.
“It’s you, my little nephew. It’s all because of you.”
“It’s not.” My voice is thick with emotions as I stop a small distance away, afraid of triggering Ronan if I get closer. “It’s not you, Ronan. It’s him. You’re not responsible for his choices and his actions. You’re the victim, he’s the assailant.”
Ronan breathes harshly, his chest rising and falling so fast I’m afraid something will happen to him.
“It’s not you,” I repeat, inching towards him.
My arm finds his and he lets me touch him. He doesn’t flinch or shove me away.
A warmth expands in my chest as I slowly stand beside him, my heart beating loud and fast.
Ronan’s fingers start to uncurl from around Eduard’s, and I release a slow breath. It’s not that I’m worried about that bastard; I just won’t allow Ronan to become a murderer because of him.
I’m good with becoming one, but Ronan can’t. He’s prim and proper and…light. He’s my light, and I won’t let any darkness wrench him away from me.
The door of the car opens, and Edric slowly pulls himself out.
The slight disturbance of the scene distracts me for a second too long.
It’s enough for everything to end.
It’s enough for my world to be flipped upside down.
“You know what? If I can’t have you, why should anyone?” Eduard throws his tied hands around Ronan’s neck from behind. “Till death do us part, my little nephew.”
And then he pulls Ronan with him over the cliff.
