Page 65 of Captive Souls

“It’s not that black and white,” I argued. “It’s more complicated. She loved him.”

“More than she loved her children?” he replied, his words coated in acid.

It seeped through skin and flesh and bone, right to the core of me.

“Yes,” I rubbed my eyes. “Yes, I think she loved him more than she loved us and hated herself even more than that.”

Having grace for my mother was hard, as I had longed for her to protect us, to have changed our lives. For her to be something different. Even if it was to just be strong enough to let our grandmother have us.

But it was never that simple.

“You, putting your hands on Daisy,” I continued, determined to bring this back full circle, to show him the gravity of what he’d done to me when his hands landed around my sister’s neck. Raging at him and calling him names was tempting, but I was attempting a softer route with the hardest, cruelest man I’d ever encountered. As if that would soften him to me.

“Not the same,” he ground out.

I tilted my head to eye him. “Isn’t it? Isn’t it that black and white? You had your justifications for what you did, just like I’m sure my father did. How can I be sure you won’t hurt her? Hurt me?”

It was the most vulnerable thing I’d said.

It was a plea.

Please don’t hurt us. I’m already too deep to wrench myself out. Please don’t turn me into my mother.

“I would put a knife through my heart before laying a hand on you in anger, Piper,” he vowed.

I rubbed my neck, the pulsating from his touch. Not with pain. With an electric awareness, a wanting that vaguely sickened me, given the violent gesture.

Knox’s eyes went there. “That wasn’t anger.”

“Then what was it?” I asked, my voice a low rasp.

He didn’t answer.

His gaze bore into me, scraped over my skin, ripping pieces of it away until I was nothing but a trembling pile of bones.

Then he walked into the forest, leaving me alone.

Was it smart, following the seething demon into the forest?

He’d stalked off there because he hadn’t wanted to be around me. Hadn’t wanted to be around the feelings we were drenched in when we were in each other’s presence.

Because he wanted to continue to hide his secrets and his true feelings.

No, it wasn’t smart, following him.

Maybe if I’d gone into the cabin and created some distance between us, it would’ve stayed there. The tension between us might have remained tension, coiled so it never released. Like a bomb, long buried, ready to explode but keeping the world tentatively safe under layers of soil and rock.

I had always made smart decisions when it came to men—Daisy had pointed that out earlier. Those smart decisions landed me here anyway. In the place I loved so much. With Knox. I couldn’t help but think that was the universe urging me toward him.

Or maybe it was the universe testing me, to see if I was like my mother.

I didn’t marinate too much on that thought.

Instead, I followed him into the forest.

If it was a test, I failed.

He wasn’t hard to find.