Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Tears stream down her face and she opens her mouth and for one moment, none of this is real. For one moment, in my head, we’re back in our room in bed together kissing, laughing, touching each other, enjoying the simple pleasure of being alone and young and yes, in love, I’ll admit it, deeply fucking in love. I pretend like we’re happy, because I’ve never been happy a single fucking day in my life until she came along and changed everything.
“I drugged him,” she says as tears roll down her face. “Slowly, for about a year, I drugged him. I found sleeping pills in your mother’s bathroom and I’d sneak into the main house to steal them. I’d crush them up and put them in your dad’s food whenever I could, as much as I could. I did it all the time, at first just to fuck with him, just to get some petty, stupid revenge for what he did to me. I hated him so much, Kellen, you know why, you understand better than anyone. I thought it didn’t matter and wouldn’t go anywhere.
“But then he started to get worse and worse, and I just kept giving him more pills. Until one night, I got a little too bold, and poured them into his nighttime whiskey. As I was sneaking out, he caught me and held me down and hit me, screamed in my face and demanded to know why I was slinking around the main house, but he was stupid enough to drink the stuff without realizing I’d poisoned it. I told him that I was in there to steal from him and he believed me because he thought so little of me. He hit me and nearly choked me to death, but then the pills kicked in.
“He was a wreck. Slurring, groaning. I got away and ran out into the hall and he chased me. He slammed into doors and walls and I reached the back staircase right as he lunged for me. I didn’t mean to do it—I never planned on doing it—but he was right there and he was so messed up and I just—”
She sobs once and shakes her head.
“I pushed him. I shoved him down the steps. He fell hard, bounced, grunted, and when he hit the bottom, he was bleeding from his head and not moving. I ran then, went out the front, back into my cottage, and I tried to forget. But I couldn’t forget. I killed your dad, Kellen, I killed him and I’m so sorry.”
She sobs hard and Hugh releases her, looking victorious.
The silence is deafening. I can barely think. Blood rushes through my ears. I want to shout, to scream, but I can’t find my voice. I can’t find my body. I’m floating through the air and my feet are dragging over the floor.
“You poisoned him?” I ask softly.
There’s just that one word ringing in my ears: poison.
“They were sleeping pills. I was just—I wanted to hurt him and I didn’t know how else to do it.” She shakes her head, crying hard. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”
“You poisoned him.” I stare at her, feeling so sick I want to vomit.
Poisoned him.
Just like my mother’s been poisoned.
It’s been Tara all along.
She poisoned my dad with sleeping pills and she’s been poisoning my mother with mercury.
She hates my family so much. She admitted it herself—my father was abusing her, and she hates my mother for standing by and letting Cait die.
It’s her, all her, from the start it’s been her. She stayed behind to get revenge for Cait, my poor sister, and while my father deserved it, my mother did not. I can’t believe Tara would do that.
I can’t believe—
Poison—
I thought I loved her. And I thought she might love me too.
But it was all a filthy lie.
I roar in anger and throw myself sideways, mindless and heedless of anything, slamming into the guy on my right. He grunts and I grab his gun, twisting, and pull the trigger. Two shots take the guy on my left in the chest as he raises his weapon but hesitates to shoot, probably afraid to hit his friend, and the shots knock him back to the floor. The man standing to the right of the couch takes aim and I shift and pull my guard in front of me. Gunshots go off and bullets slam into my captor’s flesh, and I hear him grunt in shock and pain, and blood drenches my clothes as he dies. I topple backwards, off balance.
More screaming and yells. I shove the body off me, clinging onto the gun, and throw myself sideways, rolling across the floor. Bullets hit me, one in the leg, another in the arm. I growl in pain and scream with rage and shoot my attacker in the foot. The door slams open and a smoke cannister rolls into the room. Hugh’s moving already, dragging his father up, but Cormac’s too old and slow. I fire a shot, taking Cormac in the skull, the old man’s brains splattering against the kitchen cabinets. Hugh shouts in shock and rage. The smoke cannister pops and smoke drenches the space as Hugh releases his dead father and runs toward the back of the cottage.