Hector puts a cigar in his mouth. “He’s not here.” He lights the tip of the cigar and rolls it around in his mouth. The silence between all of us borders on awkward, so I turn around to focus all of my attention on Hector.
“And what exactly do you want with me? And why is she alive? Does Bishop know? Does anyone know? Why bring him out?” I point toward Lucan, the mere sight of him making my head spin and my hand itch. I think I’ve passed the shocked phase. I can feel myself slowly brewing, my anger like a swimming pool of lava at the bottom of a volcano, ready to erupt.
I look back to Khales. “And who are you, by the way?”
Hector shakes his head. “That’s not important right now. What’s important is this—”
“No.” The word is instant and automatic.
“Oh?” Hector’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “I see you’ve grown a little backbone now that you’re not hiding behind my son.”
I tilt my head and watch as the gray cloud of smoke floats into the dark night. “I never hid behind your son. He shielded me. There’s a difference.”
Hector leans back onto the car, and I step back a little so I can see both him, Khales, Brantley, and Lucan in my peripheral vision. “And anyway,” I add, shooting a glare at Brantley, who is standing on the other side of the car. “Loyalty and all that—right, Brantley?”
“You don’t know shit about loyalty,” Khales murmurs, stepping up to me, chest-to-chest. I can feel her breathing labor as she looks down her nose at me.
I stand up straighter and match her stare. I don’t know who I’m kidding; I’ve never been in a fight before, but I won’t let someone hit me and get away with it. “You don’t know shit about the shit I know, Khales, so step the fuck back.”
“Okay, girls.” Brantley grins, stepping between the two of us. “As much as this is getting my dick hard, we need to stay focused.”
“You’re disgusting,” I mutter to Brantley, eyeing him up and down. I don’t know what he’s playing at or why he’s here. I’m not even 100 percent sure if he’s on our side anymore.
“One question,” I state, looking directly at Brantley. “Your birthday party, when we were little….”
Brantley’s face drops. Hector remains quiet, watching me carefully.
“What of it?” Brantley asks, folding his arms in front of himself.
“What happened that day?” I whisper, leaning against the car. “I mean, I remember vague parts, but not all of it.”
“So, what?” Brantley snarls. “You suddenly having memories and shit now?”
“No!” I snap back. “I just want to know why no one told me about this earlier.”
Brantley looks to Hector, then to Lucan, who then looks to me.
Hector then looks to Lucan. “What birthday?”
My eyebrows pinch. “Wait!”
Brantley freezes.
Closing my eyes, I think back, digging for more from that day, but I was so young… so young.
“Where are we going?” I asked the man. He was the same man who hurt me at night. I didn’t know why he hurt me, but he’d tell me not to tell any adults. I had to respect my elders, so I didn’t tell a soul, afraid I’d get into trouble.
“You’ll see, Silver,” he murmured, his rough hand clutching onto mine as he pulled me down a long, dark hallway. We passed so many doors. All of them the color red. Not a nice red, a blood red. He stopped at a door, a door that had Vitiosus on a gold plate hanging on the door. I looked up at the man, tilting my head. Over the time he hurt me, it would only ever be in my bedroom. I didn’t know why he had brought me here. To this place.
He pushed open the door and gestured toward the room. “Go and get on the bed, Silver.”
“No!” I scream, dropping to the ground. Shaking my head, I clutch my hair and pull at it, wanting to scratch the memories out of my head.
“Madison!” Who is that? It sounds like Bishop. “Brantley—”
Looking toward the bed, I swallowed, slowly stepping into the room. It was a big room. Gigantic. It was dim, almost dark in the room, and there was a big bed sitting to the side. I looked closer, stepping toward the bed, my heart beating in my chest and my throat clogged. All the lights were dim, but there was one shining on the bed, only when I got closer, I saw it was a camera sitting on a stand with a light pointing toward the mattress.
My eyebrows pulled together. “Wha—”
“Go to the bed, Silver.” That voice. I hated that voice. I felt sick, my tummy not feeling good. Something was wrong, like it was always wrong when he was around. I hated him, but I obeyed because that was what I’d been told to do. I had to listen to adults; they always knew best. But why did he make me feel dirty? No other adult made me feel dirty. He made me sad, hurt, and angry all at once. I was confused, I think.