Page 22 of Savage Hate
In my case, three monsters.
A cold sweat breaks out all over my skin, and the back of my neck begins to tingle as I realize where I am, and who I’m with—and the fact that they seem hellbent on retribution. Clearly, they’ve done this before.
Noah was an ass to them, sure, but I was worse.
I was the snake in their lives, miserable and always waiting to strike. Noah may have kicked their asses, but every day I attempted to break their souls.
I wish I could say I didn’t know any better, but I knew what I was doing. I was scared and insecure, and it took a solid five years of therapy to come to terms with that. I wanted to reach out to them over the years, but I also didn’t want to reopen any wounds. In my eyes, we’d all moved on—me, especially. I was no longer a bully, no longer feeding off people who saw the real me, no longer tearing people down just to make myself feel better. I did the work. I spent many sleepless nights wishing I’d been better, wishing I could apologize. Not just to them, but to everyone.
But as Noah stirs before me, and Damon continues holding the knife out to me, I realize that while I was paying a fortune for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, journaling,healing…Silas, Damon, and Jude were stewing in their anger.
And this is the result.
I look up at Damon and cross my arms. “I’m not going to kill Noah Adelmann.”
“Go on, princess,” Jude says, his voice like velvet. “We know you want to.”
I shake my head, swallowing the bile that’s beginning to rise in my throat. “Why would I want to kill him?”
Silas takes a step forward, his icy blue eyes pinning me to the spot. “Because we saw what happened.”
He sounds angry. Like, really,reallyangry.
“Nothing happened—”
“Are you in denial, or do you actually not remember this motherfucker grooming you for a year and then attempting to rape you?”
At Jude’s words, the blood in my veins turns to ice.
Realization slams into me. He’s right—Iamin denial. I have been since that night. Whenever my therapist asked about it, I would always lie and say I got too drunk and went home sick. Because I did. I vomited my guts up that night.
But not because I was too drunk.
And then I think of Noah Adelmann. A twenty-two-year-old who befriended a sixteen-year-old. Who used to pick her up in his Mustang and take her for ice cream. Who would talk shit about Mindy and try to isolate me from my friends. Who would text me inappropriate things that I thought werenormalat the time, because I was vulnerable. Because I didn’t know better, and I didn’t have anyone looking out for me. And that night, if Silas, Damon, and Jude hadn’t been there…
If it would make you feel better, we can keep this a secret. Just between you and me.
I take a few steadying breaths and look over at Noah. He’s older, obviously, but he looks… sad. He has a weathered face and a beer gut now, and a bald patch on the top of his head. I do the math and realize he’s thirty-two. There’s a wedding ring around his swollen ring finger, and even though the hatred that runs through me is potent, I also feel bad for him. Still living in Greythorn, looking old and exhausted…
“What did he come in for?” I ask, and I can see Damon’s eyes widen in surprise as he plays with his knife. “The tattoo. What did he ask for?”
“His daughter’s initials. She’s two, apparently.” I swallow. A daughter. Ababy. He’s someone’sfather.I open my mouth to ask him to let Noah go when Damon interrupts me. “He tore up his knee playing college football, so he ended up becoming the girls’ volleyball coach at Ravenwood Academy. There are… rumors… that he acts inappropriately with some of them. Last year, he almost got fired for sleeping in one of their rooms during an away game.”
I look between the three of them. “Hewasn’tfired for that?”
Silas shrugs, coming to stop right in front of me. “You remember who his father is, right?”
My heart races. Carlisle Adelmann. Superintendent of Greythorn School District. I’d completely forgotten that fact—how Noah seemed to get away with anything.
Including hanging out with high school girls at twenty-two…
Damon and Jude come to stand next to Silas. Confusion muddles my brain, and I’m unable to move, to speak. Yes, they had ten years to stew in their anger, but maybe it didn’t corrode their souls.
Maybe it just fueled the fire.
I look at each of them. At Damon’s rough demeanor, at Jude’s deadly stillness, at Silas’s tortured soul—and suddenly, I’m not scared anymore.
They didn’t turn into monsters.
