Page 115 of The Poison Daughter
His jaw ticks and his hands fist at his sides. “Who scarred your back? Who burned you, Harlow?”
The question leaves me breathless, my rage a great wave that never seems to crest. It just rises and rises until it’s too big for words. All at once, I’ve slipped out of the present and into the past.
The memory skips and jumps. The pain is too bright for it to connect. Aidia’s hand cool on my neck. “I’m sorry, Low. My heart…my heart…my heart—” Broken agony in her voice until I say, “My bones,” and she descends into sobs so intense I can barely make it out when she says, “Our blood.”
Aidia’s hushed voice in my ear. “This is the true beginning of your tale, Harlow. The hurt is not a dying ember—it’s the spark that helps you set this world on fire. The same place where the hurt seeps out is where the hope shines in.”
The brush of my fingers to the bumpy skin on my lower back returns me to the present. Those wounds never felt like a place where hope could live. Those beatings were meant to break me. Surviving them didn’t make me feel hopeful so much as transform me into a weapon to wound the world instead of a tool someone else could use.
I can’t remember the actual violence. But I remember the creeping horror—the awful inevitability of pain—the crushing, claustrophobic terror of having no way out.
Most of all, I remember the helplessness, and I will not be helpless again.
I let him look. I’ve spent so much time trying to keep anyone from seeing it, wearing carefully cut clothing, never being fully naked with lovers. I feel like I’m leaking vulnerability—like I’ve shown him where I’m tender and now I’m braced for a blow.
But Henry doesn’t move. He’s so still, I’m not certain he’s breathing.
Some part of me wants him to look—wants someone,anyoneto bear witness to this secret burden I’ve carried for so long.
The desire to show my strength could work in my favor. Henry has already seen it. I may as well let him look his fill and see that I’m not so easily daunted.
“Harlow—who did this to you?” His voice is tight with anger.
Maybe he’s mad his bride isn’t pristine. Maybe he just wants to know my past so he can try to understand how to frighten me. He’ll be disappointed to learn that he can’t.
Henry waits for me to speak, his eyes drinking in the topography of my back.
I lick my lips. “How did you put it? To use your own words: This is what survival looks like.”
He swallows hard, his gaze tracing over the starry pattern at the very bottom of my spine, like he’ll be able to find the truth written there on my skin. I suppose that’s exactly what it is, but it’s impossible to read if you don’t know the language of this kind of violence.
“You are entitled to my future, Henry. Not my past.”
He holds my gaze, but I refuse to give him an inch. I know what he’s thinking—that he’s owed something because he shared with me. That’s the trap he tried to set. He can’t be mad at me for not stepping into it. I keep my chin up, my arms crossed over my chest, and turn to face him.
“Share if you want, but don’t expect me to feel obliged to do the same.”
Giving him this now might make him feel like we’re even, but it could also make him suspicious. I think it’s too soon for him to believe this is a realistic win. Just like how I don’t believe he was being magnanimous when he told me his secret. He wants sympathy.
“We all have our secrets, Harlow. But here, the difference in living and dying is knowing which ones keep you alive and which ones will cost you. Those marks are not…” His voice trails off, his face torn between anger and confusion. “Natural,” he says finally. “I’m not judging you, but as my wife, people will always be looking for your weakness because you will bemyweakness. If someone here sees those scars, you need to be steadier. If they see a place to hurt you, they will use it.”
“Sounds like I’ll be right at home.”
In all our time together, Henry has been at ease, but now he shifts uncomfortably, water stirring around him as he crosses his arms, then lowers them back to his sides. It’s as if he can’t decide how to rebuild the wall that this unwanted intimacy tore down.
I know the feeling. It’s not as if I didn’t expect this to come up. In a few days, he’ll see me naked, but I had hoped to reveal my secrets at a moment of my choosing, when they could be used to strategically disarm him, instead of leaving me feeling exposed.
He looks down at the rippling water and then back up at my eyes, and I know at once that—even if this started as a way to test me—whatever he’s feeling now is real.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper.
He frowns. “Like what?”
“Like you’re forgetting to hate me.” I arch a brow, glancing down at his body shimmering in the water. “Don’t go soft on me now, Henry.”
His lips tip into a wicked grin as his gaze dips to my breasts. “I think you’ll find that no matter how I look at you the next few days, there’s no risk of that.”
Well, at least I have that going for me. Sex is one of the more effective motivations I’ve used.
