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He tilted his head, the black holes he had for eyes staring at me. For a moment, I thought he’d stay silent. Kaleb wasn’t a talker. Even around me, there was only so much he’d say.

“Yes. Grease,” he repeated eventually. “I was hungry. Made a mess when I seared the pork on the pan. Grease spilled on the floor. I cleaned some of it up. Some of it I missed. Dad came back later that night, drunk. He slipped, hit his head on the corner of the table first.” Kaleb makes aboomsound. “Chair second.”Boom.“Floor third.”Boom.

My lips tugged up. My teeth flashed. I believed with my whole heart that, for once, God cared about someone who deserved His attention.

It’d never been me, and that was okay.

As long as He saved Kaleb. As long as He brought him here to save me. “That’s it? Are you serious?”

“I am.” He remained as emotionless as ever. “Three blows to thehead. He passed out while Mom and I were in our bedrooms, sleeping. He bled out. By the morning, he was dead.”

Kaleb’s death grip on my wrist tightens. A wake-up call.

A reminder to stay put, no matter what I hear.

“I don’t need an accomplice,” he growls. “And stop calling me son. I don’t need a father figure.”

Dr. Reynolds laughs, hisha, ha, ha,coming off condescending as fuck. Reflexively, I tug on my hand, desperate to break free from Kaleb’s hold. Eager to round him and punch that asshole’s nose.

Except the hand curled around my wrist isn’t a human’s hand. It isn’t made of skin, tendons, muscles, and bones.

It’s all steel, locking me in place.

“You don’t?” Dr. Reynolds is missing the signs of Kaleb’s growing aggression, or he just doesn’t care. Either way, he goes on undeterred. “Seemed like you needed your old man before you killed him. He did set an example for you, didn’t he? He taught you how to hit someone, how to do it right. The history of your hospital visits is proof of that. It tells a long story, years ofinexplicablewounds and injuries.”

Tears prick the corners of my eyes. My body presses against Kaleb’s in an attempt to offer him comfort. To let himtake, take, take everything from me. It’ll always hurt, burn, and torture me to hear about the abuse.

Kaleb might brush it off. His cold, borderline sociopathic character might steel him. He might not care. The emotional scars might not be there.

I, on the other hand, can’t stand it. I want to scream and cry. I want to run into my old home and drive a knife into his mom’s eyes. If she isn’t dead already, I’d stab every inch of her body until she is. And then some.

Not for allowing the abuse to go on for as long as it had. She must’ve been terrified. Terrorized. Scared out of her mind.

The fact that she hadn’t bothered checking on him not once is what gets me. It fucks with my head.

I’m also so very proud of him for putting an end to it.

My teeth grind. My muscles are aching to cause serious damage. “Kaleb.”

“Shh.”

“He taught you how to make a person bleed.” His doctor is fully committed to his monologue. So much so that he isn’t commenting on our interaction. “Ironically, this knowledge he offered you was what cost him his life. Yes, I connected the dots. I figured out it was you, my boy.”

He keeps repeating that stupid, mistaken observation, and that, too, makes me want to scream.

Kaleb’s dad isn’t the reason for his son’s violent tendencies.

Kaleb didn’t learn shit from his father. Kaleb was born this way.

For some unknown reason, he’d been doing his best to avoid harming anyone for years. Or maybe it’d been a desire hehadn’t been aware of. Maybe that first blood drawn was what woke his dormant, dark desires up.

Regardless of what triggered it, it’d been there from day one.

My hot, cold, murderous stepbrother. My unhinged man.

For one satisfying moment, I imagine him killing his dad. Winding his fingers into his hair, then bashing his head in.

One time. Two times. Three.