Page 8 of Letters to the Lost

“Yeah…” I give Dad a sad smile “This is when Jane’s abuse got worse, she allowed men to have sex with me after this, making them pay for ‘access’ to me. She told me that if I told anyone, she would kill Chloe.”

“That wasn’t sex Autumn. It was rape,” Doc says from his post against the wall, a frown on his face as he looks at me.

“I know that now, but it was normal for me. I didn’t know it was wrong, not until I was in high school. You spend so long being abused, that you assume that it’s the norm for everyone else. Itwasn’t until sex ed in school, that I realized that what I was going through wasn’t normal.”

“Did you ever tell anyone?” Doc asks me.

“Once. I told my teacher that Jane had broken my arm the night before, and the teacher called CPS. She got so drunk that night, flew into a rage, and beat me so badly that I was wishing for death.”

“I’ll fucking skin her alive,” Dominic seethes, his already tight grip on my hand, tightens further.

“So, what led to this?” Atlas asks me.

“I started receiving messages from an unknown sender. I think the first one was after my first day of classes, it all spiraled from there. The night of the storm, I was sent a photo that sent me into a tailspin. I saved all the messages in a private folder, trying to hide them from all of you. I didn’t know it was Jane, but looking back I should have guessed.”

“What was the photo?” Sebastian asks.

Holding out my hand for my phone so I can put in the passcode for the folder, I open it for him and pull up the photo that now haunts my every waking moment. Chloe’s dull and milky eyes stare back at me, her face chalky with ice blue lips.

Handing my phone back over, I bury my face into Atlas’s shoulder, needing his strength right now because the photo is enough to send me back into a tailspin.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Sebastian mutters, before passing the phone to the others.

“How sick can one person be?” Atlas chokes out.

“How did she get access? I thought no one claimed the body?” Tobias voices, making me wonder the same.

“Death will be far too kind for her, torture for months sounds much better,” Dominic mutters, palming his knife with his spare hand.

Zander stays silent but moves over to my side, pushing Dominic out of the way. He climbs into my bed, lifting me to situate my body in his lap. His tall frame trembles, his arms banding around my waist as he buries his face into my neck.

“I am so fucking sorry Princess. You should have never had to see that. Never should have had your last memory of her tainted in that way.”

“It’s why I started hurting myself, these messages constantly reminding me that I let her down, that I didn’t deserve a life while she was gone,” I tell them all honestly, deciding that this is how everything needs to be.

“Were there more messages last night?” Sebastian asks, his brow furrowed as he looks through my phone, obviously seeing nothing about yesterday.

“No,” I brace myself for the next part of my confession, “I went to my therapy session yesterday, feeling happier about attending. When I got there, it wasn’t my therapist in her office, it was Jane. Jane was with some man, he held me in place so I couldn’t try to run while Jane told me things about you all, admitted to setting the fire, blamed me for Chloe being dead, then she got me on the ground and beat me. It was all too much…” my voice breaks,” There were so many secrets between us all. She told me about who you all are, and I just couldn’t deal with it on top of everything else. I needed it to stop, I needed the hurt to go away. I’m so tired of hurting but I’m so tired of fighting too. I feel like I’ve been fighting my whole life, like I’ve been treading water for years trying to survive but if I just gave in to the abyss under the current, I could finally find the peace I’m desperately craving.”

“Please try to understand Little Monster, I never wanted you to know. I never wanted you to see me in any other way but as your father,” my dad begs me, his eyes finally showing vulnerability under the hard mask he normally wears.

“You could have told me. I looked like a damn fool as she told me who you were. Who you all are.”

“We didn’t want you to worry about any of that. We were going to tell you eventually, but not right now.”

“Do you kill people?” I ask them all.

Dominic gulps heavily next to me, averting his face from my gaze. Zander continues to hold me, pulling me further into his chest, rubbing his thumb over my ribcage in a soothing motion.

“You must understand. We don’t just kill people because we want to, there is always a reason. And never kids, ever.” Dad tries to reassure me.

“So, you didn’t threaten Jane?” I ask Dad, determined to finally get the truth.

“I did, but it was only to scare her. She was your mother, and I would never have done it. She had been telling my enemy everything. She got good people killed, my shipments stolen, and nearly caused a war to break out because she decided to get into bed with the enemy. Literally.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Dominic looks at me incredulously.

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