Page 32 of Bound By Blood and Lies

“You wanted the truth, daughter. I just gave it to you…” Fisher groans as he tries to wipe the blood from his nose onto his shoulder.

A sharp gasp escapes me before I can stop it as the meaning of his words finally sinks in.

Just like Fae.

I feel the heat drain from my face as Robyn turns slowly toward me. Her eyes are no longer wet and desperate the way they were a moment ago. They’ve hardened into something colder as her gaze moves between Fisher and me, searching our faces like she’s trying to piece together a truth she was never meant to see.

“What… what does he mean by that?” she whispers.

“You can find your mum at The Compound, baby girl,” he mocks cruelly. “With all my other baby mums.”

She’s a swallow.

Robyn stares at him, her brows pulling together as confusion flickers across her face. The confidence she had seconds ago falters, replaced by a fragile uncertainty that makes my stomach drop.

“What?” she whispers.

“You thought you were the only one? I have loads of you stupid bitches as my offspring,” he lets out a laugh, “and the best thing… I get a new pussy every. Single. Year.” He ends his sentence on a growl and his lip pulls up in a sneer. “You all come from Swallows.”

Robyn shatters. I see the exact moment it happens. The confusion drains from her face, replaced by a sharp and terrible rage. It is as if every fragile piece of her understanding has just been crushed beneath the weight of what he’s said. One second she’s staring at him like she’s still trying to make sense of it, and the next her arm moves so fast my eyes struggle to follow. The steel flashes as the knife drives forward. It sinks into hischest with a sickening, wet force that makes Fisher’s body jerk violently against the restraints. His scream tears through the room, echoing off the concrete walls as blood splashes across Robyn’s hands.

But she doesn’t stop.

Each strike lands harder than the last, a frantic rhythm letting years of anger, confusion and humiliation finally erupt out of her. She starts sobbing, but it doesn’t slow her down. If anything, it makes the blows harsher and more desperate as every thrust of the knife carries the weight of every unanswered question she’s had her entire life.

“You fucking monster!” she cries, and I stand frozen to the spot as red splashes across the room like some twisted art project.

I wanted to kill him. God, I wanted to.

I imagined it a hundred different ways during the endless nights he kept us chained to that wall, staring at the same patch of concrete whilst he decided what piece of us he would take next. In every version of that fantasy it was my hands that ended him, my anger that finally put a stop to the nightmare he built around us. But the look on Robyn’s face stops me. There’s something raw in it, something far deeper than rage.

It’s grief.

It’s betrayal.

It’s the sound of a lifetime of unanswered questions finally collapsing under the weight of the truth he just spat at her feet. I see it in the way her shoulders shake, in the way her hand tightens around the knife like it’s the only thing keeping her upright.

And suddenly this moment isn’t mine anymore.

It belongs to her.

She chose to love me long before any of this happened. She held me together when I was breaking. She shared every piece ofpain this place tried to carve into us. Robyn is my sister in every way that matters, and I would give her everything.

“This is for Fae!” Robyn cries as the knife plunges down.

“This is for my mum!” Another strike.

“This is for my siblings!” Again.

“This is for their mums!” Blood spatters across her hands.

“This is for me!” Her arm shakes, but she keeps going.

“This is for my BEST FUCKING FRIEND!”

The knife drives down again. And again. And again.

“You fucking monster!”