Page 83 of Perfect Sin
I shove my hand in my hair. I’m nervous around her, which makes me feel like clawing at my own skin. “How are you otherwise?”
“You mean hearing my father likely doesn’t see me the way a father should look at his daughter? I’m fucking fantastic.”
“What can I do?”
She shrugs, and the lost look on her face is like a spear to my side. I know what it’s like to feel the filth sliding over your skin, how hard it is to be touched when all you know is abuse.
“Putting him behind bars isn’t going to work. There’s an entire society out there who will cater to his whims as long as he breathes,” she says. Her voice is flat, and I don’t want to see the fire dim inside of her.
“I know, princess.”
She licks her lips. They’re chapped from crying and breathing in the fumes from the bleach. “Why do you call me that?”
I know what she’s thinking. Do I call her that because of her mother? It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw her. At the time I thought it was pejorative, because she was the daughter of my tormentor, but now I am sure it has nothing to do with him.
“I remember the story your mother told us tonight. I’d repressed it for the most part, and when I did think of it, I’d thought it was something from before I was taken. Most of the details escaped me until she reminded me of that moment. I’d never seen anything as pure and lovely as you were. She caught me watching you and smiled at me. It’s still not totally concrete, but I remember thinking the world couldn’t be all bad if you were in it.”
“Why would she do that? Trust a little kid to take care of her child? Why would she put that on you?”
I sit down on the bed. The heaviness of the past few days weighs me down. “She couldn’t have been much older than you are now. When you are nothing more than a thing to the person who controls your entire life, you search for help wherever you can find it. I’d like to think she saw what the future held for us, but it was probably just her effort to hang on to some scrap of hope.”
Raven sighs and sits next to me on the bed. The tightness eases in my chest with her proximity. “She was right, though. You have saved me. Not just physically. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I pull her close to my side, take the towel from her hair, and kiss the top of her head. “It’s mutual. I was a shell of a man without you.”
“We’ve still got a lot to work through,” she reminds me.
“We do. I am sorry for letting my insecurities get the best of me. I do trust you, it’s my own worth I’m struggling with.”
Her wet hair falls around her shoulders. I lift a strand and see the ends have turned a yellowish orange. She takes the strand from me and looks at it with disgust.
“I figured it was ruined.”
“You could cut it,” I suggest.
“I think I’ll color it. Something bold. I don’t want to be the same Raven I was yesterday,” she mumbles.
“There’s nothing wrong with who you are, yesterday or today.”
“I feel like I’m covered in dirt that I’ll never be able to wash off.”
“I know that feeling well.” Telling her it’s they who are the filthy ones won’t make the feeling go away. It won’t erase the memory of unwanted touches or the self loathing that comes with being the object of that kind of desire.
“I know you do,” she whispers.
“We will survive this. Day by day, or minute by minute if we have to, but we will be the ones left standing.”
“You plan to kill him, don’t you?” she asks me.
“Would you like me not to?” For her I’d set my need for vengeance aside, but I’d be lying if I said it would be easy. I’ve harbored fantasies of putting a bullet in Damien Blackthorne’s head from the first moment he put a gun in my hands. It seems only fitting he should be the last one to stand on the wrong side of my barrel.
“No, I want him dead. What does that say about me?”
I stare into her searching blue eyes. I don’t have an answer for her, because this is another area we are alike. “Whatever it says about you it says about me as well. This world will be a better place without him in it.”
“Just make sure you get away with it,” she insists. “You can’t leave me.”
“I promise.” I’ve thought of all the ways to kill Damien Blackthorne and get away with it over the years. He’s taught me to kill without a trace. Taking me was the worst mistake he’s ever made, but it brought me Raven. Still, he will pay for his crimes with the very weapon he forged.