Page 59 of Ash and Poison

“Correct,” I said with a nod as he continued to move. “Do you think Riley is the only one?” I asked after a while.

He stiffened under me. “No, I don’t,” he growled, his voice trembling with barely restrained anger. “But Hannigan said he never saw anyone. The girls were in masks. And Riley was tortured for a long time before she killed herself. It wasn’t… like one and done.”

This didn’t sound like some random psychopath on a killing spree.

He was forming a sick, twisted bond with these girls. A warped connection with his victims. Through rape and torture and abuse.

“I went through Doctor T’s file on Riley, but the reports were missing.”

He nodded. “I took some of them, but there were a lot of pages missing even before I took them.”

“I need the ones you have,” I said with a sigh. “Someone’s covering their tracks after Doctor T’s death, or it was Doctor T himself,” I muttered, a knot forming in my stomach.

Asher’s body went stiff. “If that’s true, they might be here,” he whispered. “Do you still want to do this with me?”

“Yes,” I said. “I might not trust you completely, Asher, but I respect you for this. A man who’s willing to walk such a dark path for someone else—for a friend… I believe a part of you is good.”

“I don’t feel like I am. I’m starting to enjoy it and that feels wrong, but I also feel like Riley won’t rest until I put the ones who hurt her down.”

“Girls like Riley… we deserve our justice,” I said with a sigh. The kind of justice that was so often denied to us, buried beneath the weight of fear and silence. “The world’s not kind to us, Asher. It pushes us to grow up before we are ready. It tears us apart from the root, and steals our childhood,” I whispered when he kicked the door to my cottage open and placed me on the couch.

“It’s cruel. Unfair.” His voice broke as he sat down next to me, his hand on my back.

“It is. So fucking unfair. All we want is a safe place. To not fear the shadows, to not so violently fight every day to live. To just live. We don’t want to choose the bear either. We want to choose men. Our fathers, brothers, friends, but…” I blinked, pressing my nose to his shoulder, inhaling his scent, willing the tears to stop.

He stilled. I had a feeling he understood what I just admitted.

“Diya?”

He wanted to know, but I wasn’t ready to give him more. Some truths took too much out of us. This was something like that.

“It’s nothing. I need a hot shower,” I whispered, and he nodded.

“Wait right here,” he said. “I’ll get your bath ready.”

“I don’t have time for…”

“I said sit,” he ordered. “You have time to take care of yourself.”

He walked to the bathroom, and after a few minutes, he came out, looking satisfied. “I got your bath ready. Got any pain meds?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Where?” he asked, his eyes lingering on my bruises.

“Kitchen cabinet. Second one from the right.”

He went back and came with a glass of water and Tylenol and handed me two pills.

After taking the pills, I stood up and groaned.

“Wait,” he said, lifting me in his arms. I snuggled closer against him with a sigh, my fingers brushing his back.

“You tried to kill me yesterday.”

The irony of this situation was laughable.

He muttered something under his breath.