Page 25 of Kael

"Then it became every party." I swallowed hard. "Then it stopped being just parties. He started cheating. I kept catching him texting girls. Finding pictures. Lipstick on his shirts. Then he'd swear I was crazy."

Kael's jaw tightened, but he didn't interrupt.

"After that... he started hitting me for not knowing my place. The first time, he cried afterward. Bought flowers. Promised it'd never happen again." I smiled to myself. "I actually believed him. The cocaine changed, too. It stopped being something we did together. It became something I did by myself."

I stared at the water until it blurred.

"Every time he cheated... I'd use. Every time he hit me... I'd use. Every time I hated myself for staying... I'd use."

I wiped quickly at my eyes before the tears could fall. "It was the only time my head got quiet. For a little while, I couldn't feel embarrassed. I couldn't feel stupid. I couldn't feel ugly. I couldn't feel anything."

I laughed softly through my nose. "You know what's crazy? I don't even remember when I stopped getting high because I wanted to." I looked over at him. "I just remember getting high because I didn't want to be me anymore. It gets real easy to lose yourself when you don't know who you are yet."

A sob escaped my throat before I knew it was coming.

"I hurt so many people. My parents. Maya, my best friend. Sometimes I purposely drew her back into the dark with me so it wouldn't feel so lonely. What kind of person does that make me?"

"You fucked up, yeah," Kael said without sugarcoating it, and somehow that made me feel better.

A broken laugh slipped out of me. "Damn. Tell me how you really feel."

I wiped my wet face.

He watched me quietly for a moment before speaking again. "Okay. Since you need to hear it: it makes you selfish. It makes you weak sometimes. Manipulative. Cruel, even. Thosethings done because of your addiction don't magically erase the damage you caused, Bunny."

Every word landed like another stone in my chest. "I know."

He continued. "But as long as you wake up every day wanting to be different..." His voice softened. "That's not who you have to stay."

I stared at him.

"You don't get to erase what you did." He reached over and took my hand, rubbing his calloused thumb across my skin. "But you do get to decide whether it was the last episode or the whole story."

I stared at him for a long time—the man who had choked a woman in front of me, who had killed without flinching, who had built an empire on blood and fear. And yet here he was, sitting on a dock in the morning sun, holding my hand like I was something precious, telling me I could rewrite my story.

"I've watched you brutally murder people," I said slowly, my voice barely above a whisper. "I've seen you choke a woman. I've seen you threaten to cut off someone's face and send it to their mother. How can you be this, too?" My voice cracked. "This gentle. This patient. This kind. How can both of those things exist in the same person?"

"Monsters have duality, too, Bunny." He looked out at the water. "They're not just one thing. They're not just the ugly parts. They're the beauty in horror, the tenderness in violence, all tangled up together."

I shook my head. "I wouldn't call you a monster."

"I am." He said it without shame or apology. "I've done monstrous things. I will probably do them again. I like doing them. I have blood on my hands that will never wash off. I'll just never be that way with you."

I simply nodded because I didn't have the words to respond to that. Not yet. But I had another question. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Anything."

"Are you ever going to let me go?"

He was silent for a moment. Then he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. "I don't know if I can."

I didn't know how to feel about that, so I just let it be. I closed my eyes, shut off my brain, and enjoyed the feeling of the sun on my face while sober.

Chapter 15

Kael

Eight weeks. Fifty-six days of watching Bria come back to life.