Page 60 of The Road to Ruined

"I still don't get it. Why would you be loyal to them?" I ask. "They took you from your home when you were a child. They abused you."

"They didn't take me. I was given to them. He had a choice—he could have died. As far as abuse goes…that's a spectrum, too, isn't it? Dictated by societal norms, where in the world you live, what religion or customs you ascribe to."

I scoff. "You sound like Dec—"

"Teagan," he cautions, cutting me off. "Donot."

"Sorry. Why doIhave a choice?"

"Because you're too old and too broken for blind obedience and loyalty unless you choose it. You'd end your life one way or another."

"But they're evil people," I say as he pulls into the garage. "I'm not evil."

"They're just a symptom, Teagan, of a sickness inside our society as a whole, in man. Everyone is hungry for power—for a higher purpose. You don't like what happened to those girls, and I get that. But you also can't stop it from happening. It's going to keep happening because of the sickness, at both the highest and lowest levels of society. Neither layer has any real desire to do anything to stop it or it would have ended a long time ago. They could go away, and there would be thousands ready to instantly fill that void."

"Well, I'm glad that helps you sleep at night."

"You don't know anything about me or how I sleep at night."

"Yeah, you're right. I don't," I tell him, slamming the door as I exit the vehicle.

I walk ahead of him up the staircase to the main floor of the house that isn't a home and then to the bedroom that isn't mine, closing the door behind me. I slip out of the red lace dress and boots and into one of those generic labelless black tops, turn off the light, and crawl into bed with my knife in my hand.

Iwascared for. Idoknow what it's like to be touched in a loving way, and it does make all of this a lot harder for me.

Shortly after, the doorknob turns, and footsteps approach the bed.

"What do you want? I don't want to have sex with you," I say without turning to face him.

Bone Saw climbs into the bed behind me. "I thought I'd stay with you until you fell asleep again. Do you want me to?"

"…Yes."

He wraps an arm around my waist, slipping his hand inside the front of my t-shirt, and I feel it—no glove, just bare skin against mine. I close my eyes as he runs his knuckles up and down my stomach—a small concession, a tiny scrap of affection that, while soothing, also reminds me just how starved for it I am.

He says I'll forget about it—that I won't need it anymore, and I hope he's right. I'm so tired of how much it all hurts.

When I wake up, I'm alone. It feels like hours have passed, but I know it can't have been that long. It was after three in the morning when we got back, and through the open door, I can still see it's dark in the main room.

"How did you get this number?"

Bone Saw's voice—his unmuffled voice—carries into the room. Or, at least, I assume it's him. There's something vaguely familiar about it, but I can't quite place it.

"Yeah, well…plans change."

Who is he talking to?

Slowly, I climb out of bed and move through the room with my knife clutched tightly in my hands just in case. I stop in the kitchen, just out of view, maybe eight or ten feet away from where he leans against the bookshelf with his back toward me, talking on a satellite phone. He's still wearing a hood, but the mask must be raised.

"I don't answer to you. And it's not my job to ask questions."

Slowly, I step around the corner, holding my breath while I close the space between us.

"Yeah, well, she's not a kitten—she's a monster. And you can't keep monsters as pets."

My heart stops; I forget how to breathe, like I'm the one who's been stabbed in the kidneys over and over again. Tears well in my eyes, falling of their own accord because I can't even blink. I beg my body to move—to dosomething—and what it finally does is speak in a tone that doesn't even sound like my own.

"Is that Declan?" my high-pitched voice squeaks.

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