God. The smell.
“She found the hole we’d made in the wall in Josh’s room where we kept a diary of sorts. Everything they did to us scratched on any piece of paper we could get our hands on. We were going to expose them one day. She took them all, though, and locked him in his room, and we went downstairs to the kitchen. She turned on the burner.”
Lev’s eyes narrow, harden.
“She made me burn them one by one. I remember the tips of my fingers burning and the smell of it. It’s weird what you remember, isn’t it?”
He doesn’t answer.
“You know what she used to do? They were religious, the Georges. We went to church every Sunday. She had this cross around her neck. It was a hideous thing, old and big. And when she’d watch him hurt us, she’d clutch it in both her hands, and she’d pray.” I feel the rage in my voice when I tell this part. “She’d fucking pray as she watched her husband—”
I stop myself, give a shake of my head.
Lev is watching me. I see rage in his eyes too. Not pity. Thank goodness it’s not pity. His grip on me is harder. I wonder if he’s aware.
“When all the papers were gone, she turned off the fire, and I thought it was over, but it wasn’t. She wanted to hurt Joshua. To punish him. And I think hearing my scream did it.”
I don’t think anything else they did to me hurt as bad as that. Physically at least. Fire is a different kind of pain than anything else.
Lev stands, and his grip is so tight now it hurts my wrists. I think he realizes it at the same moment I do because he lets go and cups my face, turning it up to his. With his thumbs, he wipes away my tears, and I think that’s it when he kisses me.
I think he’ll just hold me then. Make love to me. It’s what I want.
But he’s not finished yet because he pushes my hair back and thumbs the scar on my temple.
“This?”
“I didn’t want to strip for a bath with her perv husband watching so he bashed my face into the edge of the tub. It knocked me out so I count that as a win. I didn’t have to know what he did to me then.”
That was the first time he touched me. It wasn’t the only time there was blood, though. There was always blood with him. I think it got him off.
“I wonder if Mrs. George watched that time. If she prayed. Joshua wouldn’t tell me anything. He couldn’t look at me for a long time after that.” I don’t want to think about it, about what he was made to do.
“Katya.”
I snap out of my memory. Lev’s jaw is tight, eyes hard. He has murder inside them.
“He touched you? Forced you? The man who was supposed to care for you.”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to. A single tear smears down my cheek. I lower my lashes when he won’t let me look away.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Yes, I do.
“Katya.”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand.” I make myself look at him.
“What don’t I understand? He touched you. He touched you when you were a child in his care.”
“I used to come when he did it.” I wait for his reaction. For his repulsion. I’ve never said this out loud. Ever. His expression, though, doesn’t change. “It’s sick, huh?” I bite my lip to keep it from trembling, but I’m shaking all over now.
“That’s physical. Just your body’s natural reaction.”
“Natural?” I almost laugh but it sounds crazed. “There’s nothing natural about that.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Katya. You know that.”
I look down now.
“Is she dead? The woman?”
I shake my head.
“But you killed him.”
My gaze snaps up to his. No one knows that.
“You stabbed him in the gut.”
“How do you know that?”
“Is that why you were sent to juvenile detention?”
I just keep staring.
“But they blamed Joshua. It doesn’t make sense, though. That Joshua died the way he did because how did George do that in self-defense if he had a knife in his gut? And just the size difference between them.” He pauses, and I think about Nina again. That expression she’d use of doing the math. Lev’s doing the math. “What was Joshua, barely a hundred and twenty pounds was what the coroner’s report said. That dick was a big guy. Did they know what he’d done to you? That the husband and wife were abusing you?”
“I don’t know if they knew all along, but if they did, they covered it up because a case like this getting out would be bad for them. Kids left in a foster home where they were abused and the caseworker was oblivious, or worse? It doesn’t look good. Joshua was dead, so he was the one they accused of doing the actual stabbing even though they knew it was me. I was sentenced as an accomplice, but they pinned the majority of the blame on Joshua. I wasn’t fully responsible because Joshua had manipulated me, they’d said. I served my time in that detention center. My records were sealed because I was a minor, but I think also, again, to cover their asses. Those people don’t care about the children they’re supposed to be protecting.”