I almost told her everything. It was on the tip of my tongue. But I knew it’d blow everything I’ve been planning. It would stop her from leaving and stop all of this from moving the way I need it to.
Lucky for me, Hell called her from the bottom of the stairs before it slipped, and I brushed her off fast by sayingHell’s waiting. Go.
One day, when she’s back, I’ll tell her everything and by then I’m hoping it’ll all be over. The weight on my chest, this constant pressure of hatred and rage—it has to go. It has to end. Because if it doesn’t, I will.
There’s five of them on my list. The man I thought loved me—Gray. My three foster brothers—Zye, Elias, and Lake. And last, the woman who shat them out, Iris.
My life was a fucking lie. At least, from what Ithinkit was. I still don’t know the full picture. One minute I’m the barefoot slave for a family dripping in wealth, the next I’m realizing none of it made sense.
I don’t even know why I was fostered because I was never treated like family. Maybe that was the point. Maybe I was brought in just to be the fucking slave girl and amusement.
Punishments were brutal. No Freedom. No love. Just pain and abuse.
My foster mother, and I say that with venom in my throat, was a wicked bitch. Cold hands, but even colder eyes. Nothing I did was ever right. And those boys? Born from her rotted womb, they were moulded into the same monsters.
The boys used to bully, beat, starve, and pick at me like I was nothing, as if hurting me was a game they couldn’t get enough of. Any opportunity they had, they took it. But their mother gave them one rule. One fucking line they weren’t supposed to cross. They weren’t allowed to touch me intimately.
As I got older, things shifted and got much darker. Zye, the oldest of the three, changed the most. His weird behavior morphed into something else entirely. Something sick and controlling.
He decided what I ate, when I ate it. Even if that meant being naked and eating it off his polished fucking shoe while he stared down at me. He chose what I wore and decided when I was allowed to speak.
I was his, in some fucked-up way, even when I never wanted to be. A pawn he liked to parade around when no one was looking.
He never had to touch me to violate me, his vile stare and actions did more than hands ever could. He’d stand there, getting off on the sight like I was some private fucking show made just for him. Every chance he got, he’d jerk himself off red raw, watching me like I already belonged to him.
He’d bring women in and violently rape them like he was raping me, eyes locked on mine, feeding off the permanent horror he was carving into their bodies. Every scream was a performance for me. Every crack of bone, every plea, every sob was meant to burn into my brain.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop it. I was collared like some useless fucking animal, while they were destroyed in front of me. And he made sure I knew; this wasn’t just violence. This was a message, and I was the reason they were suffering. And for a long time, it stayed with me, and I really did think it was my fault.
His brothers were just a demented, but they weren’t as bad as him. Well, not until that night.
And then Gray happened.
One of Lake’s acquaintances.
He showed up for a family birthday for the first time some months prior, all casual in that mansion like he never belonged there. But the moment he looked at me from a distance as I hid around a corner, something shifted into place. He looked at me not as the slave girl or the property of that fucked-up family, but as someone real and for a second, I thought he was my way out.
But I was so fucking wrong.
My eyes sting, vision blurring as I stare ahead, lost in it. I remember how we’d plan little escapes, just the two of us, stealing a few hours where I felt like I could finally breathe. Like I was free. He made me believe it and he promisedhe’d get me out of there. He fucking promised with those same lips he used to kiss the bruises he never asked about.
I was stupid. I should’ve known better. I was just so desperate. Yet I was just part of a game so messed-up, I didn’t even know I was playing until it was too late.
But that was then.
I won’t make those mistakes twice, and they won’t get the chance to either. Because Arabella’s not some vulnerable little girl anymore. She’s about to rise from the fucking dead. And this time she’s dragging them all to hell with her.
I sniff, dragging myself back into the present, wiping the tears off my cheeks with both palms like they’ve got no right being there.
My eyes shift back to the trailer door reminding myself that Blush told me to swing by so she could trim the dead ends off my hair. She said it looked like it hadn’t been touched in years, and she’s not wrong.
Truth is, I don’t want to go back to that cold, empty trailer anyway. Not yet. It’s too early, and I’ve got too much rattling in my skull. I might as well kill some time.
Once knocking, the door swings open and Blush greets me with that infectious smile of hers, dressed in obnoxiously cute pink and black PJs, the sound of gritty rock music pouring out behind her.
“God, it’s freezing! Get the fuck in here,” she barks, waving her hand like I’m letting the heat escape.
I walk up the short stairs and step into what looks like a fever dream of cotton candy and glitter bombs. Everything is soft, pink, over-the-top girly.