Total pages in book: 193
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
“Where’s Seth?” I ask as I go willingly, letting him spoon me with his hand on my belly.
“Bathroom?” Thor guesses.
I shake my head as I stare at the empty bed that looks like it was never slept in. “He can’t be. It was empty when I came in.”
Thorin tenses behind me and then he’s cursing as he lunges from the bed, nearly toppling me over the side in the process. “Shit. Sorry, songbird.” He helps me sit up and then dresses before dashing from the room.
I hear him burst inside Khalil’s, and it takes me a minute to stand. Not much longer now, I think as I waddle across the hall after him. I’m in my third trimester and more than ready to evict this little invader of mine.
“Why the fuck would he go back there?” Khalil barks at Thorin when I walk inside. Khalil is already up and shoving back into his clothes.
“Not him,” Thorin clarifies. “Zeke.”
Zeke’s awake? My heart falls. When? Why hadn’t he said anything? Why would he just leave?
“What’s going on?” I finally ask when it’s clear they don’t notice me standing there.
Thorin turns to me wearing a stormy expression. “We think coming back here woke up Zeke, and he’s gone back to his mother’s home.”
“Okay… Other than him doing it secretly, why is that a bad thing?”
“Because even though he never talks about her—never even allows himself to think about her—his mother’s house is where it all began. She’s the reason Isaac was able to mold his mind like Play-Doh. Going back there will not be good for him.”
“You don’t know that. Zeke is stronger than you think.” But my words fall on deaf ears because Khalil and Thorin are already moving for the door. “Wait,” I say since it’s clear they can’t be convinced that Zeke doesn’t need saving. And if I’m honest, I’m more worried than I let on. I still remember how easy it was for Isaac to manipulate Bane when he’d never even met him. He’s dead now but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still dangerous. “I’m coming with you.”
Neither of them argue because they know what I know—Zeke isn’t a danger to me, and neither are Seth and Bane. We leave Khalil’s parents’ home and drive across Six Forks to a rougher part of town that fills me with unease when the buildings become dilapidated and the people we see roaming the streets this time of night become more frequent. I immediately try to piece together the fragments that have become Zeke’s mind like a puzzle, but it’s not until we’re pulling up to a gray house with the roof caving in and the front door hanging off the hinges that I finally see the whole picture staring back at me.
EZEKIEL
It looks the same. Worse, but it was never much to begin with.
I stand inside the one-room shack feeling the cold draft spilling through the massive hole in the roof.
It wasn’t always that big. I used to stare up at the ceiling from my mattress on the floor and count the cracks spidering from the hole that was a fraction of the size it is now and wonder when it would finally cave.
I walk the house like it’s a museum housing the worst of my childhood memories.
The small square kitchen table where I’d sit and wait for a meal that most nights wouldn’t come. The iron still plugged into the wall from the last time she made me hold out my wrist until I told her the name she wanted me to have and not the one my mother gave me. The dented walls inside each of the rooms that she’d throw herself against whenever she was caught in one of her rages and I managed to trap her inside.
And then there were the warm hugs and smiles. The assurances that she didn’t regret having me. The home-cooked meals. The songs she’d sing to me when I was sick. Those are the memories I cling to.
My mother had DID too—Bianca and Mara.
Bianca was my mother’s name. Mara was her alter who tortured me, screaming about me taking her baby away. The first time my father met Bianca’s alternate identity, he fled and ran straight back to the family he’d abandoned for her. Isaac’s family.
A sound behind me, the crunch of glass under a shoe, has me looking over my shoulder and seeing a very pregnant Aurelia walking in while looking around with an unreadable expression. “Princess?”
Slowly, Aurelia’s eyes turn to me, and she gives me a warm smile that I don’t return because the shame of her seeing this place has my skin crawling.
I turn to fully face her as she walks deeper inside, carefully stepping over the debris littering the floor. I rush over to meet her and take her arm to hold her steady. “What are you doing here? And what the fuck?” I say as I touch her hard, round stomach. “You’re pregnant? When did this happen? How did this happen?”