Page 116 of Cain

She was still lying on the ground. She seemed peaceful, as if she were asleep. But something was different about her.

She was pale. Cold. Lifeless.

“Mum!” I squealed, wrapping my arms around her as if that would bring her back. As if my desperate, childish cries could make her rise and comfort me like she always did.

Grayson kneeled behind me as if his legs couldn’t hold him anymore.

He pulled me back into his embrace and held me tightly.

“She’s dead! She’s dead, Grayson!”

His heart pounded in his chest, his breath shallow and uneven. I could feel it. He was in pain, too; I knew it.

He pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to get through this, I promise.”

“What am I going to do now?”

He held my face, forcing me to look at him. “You’re not weak. You’re stronger than this. Stronger than all of this pain. You have to be. For her. For you.”

That day was when everything pure and innocent in me died. A part of my soul was buried with her, leaving nothing but a void.

Ever since that day, I dreamed of his fall. I dreamed of the moment when I would end it all. When my hands would silence his pathetic screams.

I imagined how life would drain from him. I reveled in the thought of him begging. I wanted him to feel the terror I felt, knowing that it would be me, with my own hands, bringing him to his fucking knees. I dreamed of watching the light in his eyes fade, savoring every second of his suffering.

And I dreamed about it again.

And again.

And again.

Until one day, I made it real.

At first, it was all about him. How to kill him. He was the fucking target.

But years went by, and I saw the truth. He was just another bitch on a leash, a goddamn pawn in my father’s filthy hands.

My father never dirtied his own. He made others crawl through his shit for him.

That’s why he let his own son torture me like this. Like I was nothing.

He wanted my mother dead, and he fucking brainwashed Atticus to stain his hands. He wanted to torture me, and he used him to do it.

Every fucking scar on me is because of him. Every fucked-up part of me is because of him.

All the blood, all the screaming, all the fucking nightmares. All because that bastard sat on his throne and played God.

Even dead, that son of a bitch is still inside my head, still twisting the knife.

How the fuck was I so goddamn naïve? So fucking weak?

I should’ve put a bullet in his skull and set the whole fucking world on fire.

I should’ve ripped his fucking heart out and fed it to him.

I should’ve made him beg.

I should’ve made him suffer.