Page 117 of Ripped Lace (Ripped Bratva)

Numbness washes over me. I know it’s true, because the understanding is written all over Elyssa’s face.

The truth is always uglier than we think it will be.

She stumbles back out of the room. I rush out after her.

“Close the door and get the fuck out of here,” I instruct the two men who standing guard outside the cell. “Now!”

They do as I say and leave quickly. The whole time, I keep my eyes on Elyssa.

She’s pacing back and forth like an angry lioness. Her face is ashen.

“Elyssa,” I say when we’re alone. “Elyssa,you—”

She stops short when she hears her name. Her eyes land on me and tears slip down her cheeks.

“Oh, Phoenix,” she says helplessly. “What have I done?”

She retreats into a concrete corner and stops only when her back hits the wall. Then she slides down as though she can no longer hold herself up anymore.

I walk over to her and squat down so that I’m at eye level with her.

“Take a deep breath,” I instruct her. “And then… tell me what you remember.”

28

Elyssa

The memories feel like wisps of lace blowing in the wind. I try and reach for them, but they’re elusive. They slide out of my metaphorical hands, slapping my face as they go past, leaving me with barely-grasped snippets of my adolescence.

An adolescence I spent working at the Garden.

The Garden.

It’s been knocking at the door of my mind for weeks now. It started with the crying babies. It continued with devastating dreams.

Now, here it is: the truth.

Part of the truth, at least.

And all of my guilt.

“Tell me what you remember,” Phoenix says to me.

I shake my head. “You’ll hate me.”

“What’s the alternative?” he asks. “You can’t hide the truth. Not for long. Not from yourself.”

He’s right about that. It’s the one absolute that I feel like I’ve been blind to this entire time.

I raise my eyes and try to blink away my tears. I don’t want to make myself the victim in this. Because I’m not. I may have once believed what I was doing was right, good—even noble.

But that was my crime.

I was ignorant. Willfully ignorant. I refused to think for myself. Instead, I believed what they fed me and I bought into the meat grinder they’d set up in the guise of a sanctuary from the world.

“Elyssa,” Phoenix presses, “it’s time to talk.”

I take a deep breath, just like he’d suggested. It doesn’t help much. “The Garden,” I manage to choke out.

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