Page 175 of Wallflower

Karson’s sea glass eyes give nothing away, never leaving the threat at his front as he replies to me. “You had to believe it, or else you would have been hell on fucking wheels in there.”

“I would have fucking run! Or at least fought back.”

“It was part of the deal,” Chelsea mumbles from behind me.

“What deal?” I snarl like a cornered predator, waiting eagerly for a small opening before launching the full-force attack.

“The one Karson made with Maximus to free me.”

I can’t believe this. The betrayal I feel threatens to suck me down to a violent place as the sting in my palm aches for more. “Fuck you both, get out.”

“Not without you,” Chelsea replies.

“Why are you even here?”

“You’re my sister!”

“Am I? Do you know what I went through to keep you fucking safe? And you weren’t even there!”

“Show them,” Ripley’s calm voice swallows up my hysteria.

“Show us what?” Chelsea asks, feet slowly shuffling in my direction. Her hand tentatively reaches out to touch me again. I smack it away, moving toward Rip.

“Back up, Rose,” Karson grumbles.

“He knows what,” Ripley responds, answering my sister’s question. “Don’t you Karson? You’re the one that cleaned her up…scraped out the infection so she could be stitched up.”

“What is he talking about?” Chelsea asks.

“Didn’t he tell you?” Rip taunts, attempting to shatter whatever bond has been woven between my kin and Karson. “Rose’s tattoo is a mangled mess now because of all the torture she went through.”

“Thanks, babe,” I quip, and Rip offers me a sheepish look before continuing his rant.

“Not to mention all the other scars she’s forced to wear. Maybe if you hadn’t been so fucking selfish, some psycho wouldn’t have raped her, drugged her, and sewed her mouth shut.”

My stomach drops into my ass. I don’t remember telling him that. How does he know?

The shock that moves across my sister’s face can’t be mistaken for anything but genuine. “Rose…” she chokes my name, and again, I move toward the only person in this room I feel safe with.

“Back the fuck up!” Karson roars, flicking the gun towards the hallway that leads to the main door.

No fucking way I’m leaving.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Chelsea directs at Karson.

“What good would it have done? I couldn’t have you running back there to try and save her. You had to lay low, you’re still a missing person.”

“They almost killed her, Chelsea. More than once,” Ripley divulges, throwing any attempt Karson makes at justification into an incinerator.

My sister looks lost.

Before this, I’d have offered assistance.

Now?

All I want to do is somehow retrieve the gun I stashed in the empty canister labelledFlour,and use it to pump Karson full of holes. The fucking bastard.

Everything I went through to keep Brad from her, to keep her from being fed to sharks, was for nothing.