Page 41

Scarlett

S unlight pours in through the window, but it feels so different to the light that fills my room.

It feels less trapped. Less oppressive.

I can hear the smattering of rain, the howl of the wind; the storm that raged all night has still not blown itself out apparently.

Rafe’s arms are wrapped around me and though I shouldn’t feel any comfort in them, I do.

I got up in the night to pee, and realised that I must have stopped bleeding. That it was over. All done and dusted.

My insides still feel sensitive. My nerves are all over the place but, physically, I guess I’m already healing.

As I shift slightly, those strong arms loosen enough to tell me Rafe is also awake.

“You okay?” He murmurs into my ear, softly.

I’m not sure what response to make. Am I okay?

I just lost something precious, something undefinable, and yet something I never wanted.

I feel guilty for the relief I feel, and heartbroken at the fact that I never even got a chance to consider what might happen if I had managed to keep it.

I’d not even gotten the moment to think, to dream, to come up with silly scenarios in my head of carrying this child, of nursing it, cradling it, caring for it.

A deep longing pang seems to tear at my heart, but now is not the time to dwell on this.

Now is not the time for grief.

Now is the time to focus, to plan, to remember who the fuck I am and why I’m on this damned island in the first-place.

Grief can come later. Trauma can damn well wait until I’m ready to face it.

I’ll channel all of it, all of those awful twisting emotions and use it as my fuel to burn this place down.

Rafe lets out a deep breath and I turn enough to look at him.

He looks so unlike his family, so unlike Alex and Vincent. I can see the strain of this in his eyes too. While Alex has that whole silver fox thing going, Rafe has barely a wisp of grey. His skin is rougher than his brother’s too, but while Alex’s was smooth, it was too smooth, too perfect.

I run my fingertips over the hint of wrinkles on his forehead before bringing them down, taking my time to study him.

He’s beautiful- in that deadly, dangerous way.

Without his t-shirt on, I can see all the tattoos that have been only hinted at before.

Oh, I know I’ve technically seen him naked, have already fucked him, but that memory is hazy.

That girl was half me, half someone else.

But the weak Scarlett is gone. The confused Scarlett is no more. I’m me, the real me.

The one that put herself into this trap. Who agreed to everything two years ago. Who laid her head down on that block, knowing a blade was going to come crashing down at any second.

There’s a silence that hangs between us, but it feels precious. Like just saying one word would fracture whatever this is and then I’ll wake up and realise that it’s in my head. That it was never real. That this too is just further proof of my insanity.

His eyes, deep and steady, hold me in place, anchoring me in a moment that seems to stretch for eternity. I try to look away, to break the spell, but the vulnerability pulsing in my chest tethers me to him.

His presence wraps around me like a shroud, protective yet delicate, and I want to etch this moment into the very fabric of my being. To shore it up for the future when I know I will once more be facing monsters.

As I search his eyes, I see an unyielding determination reflected back at me. It’s both beautiful and terrifying, an unspoken promise that chills and warms the air between us. The way he looks at me, it dissolves the walls I’ve built, layer by layer.

And beneath the weight of everything, I feel exposed— like a trembling leaf caught in the violent grasp of a storm, yet somehow, I know I won’t be swept away.

I drop my gaze, unable to hold his anymore, and I stare at a tattoo that I swear was not there the last time I was in this room.

My fingers brush against the soft skin of his neck and I can feel that it is new.

That it hasn’t fully healed yet. It’s a bird.

Some sort of songbird, with specks of gold and red amongst the black.

It sits just below his ear, big enough to be visible no matter what clothing he wears.

“I got it for you.” He says quietly. “I needed something to immortalise you with.”

My eyes widen. I stare back at the ink, tracing it again with my fingertips.

He marked himself with my nickname? If that isn’t a declaration I don’t know what is.

My eyes drop as I take in that awful scar over his chest and slowly, hesitantly I move my hand to trace that mangled skin.

“And this?” I whisper, aware of his previous reaction to my questioning.

He tenses, opening his mouth to no doubt dismiss me again, but I won’t let him get away with it that easily this time. If he’s pulled all my walls down, he can damn well dismantle a few of his own too.

“Tell me, Rafe, tell me what happened. You know all my worst secrets. I deserve to know yours.”

I can see him grapple with himself. Whatever the hell caused that mark on his skin, he still clearly is dealing with the trauma of it.

“It was Alexander.” He says, his voice full of a hate I know I’ve felt in my darkest moments.

“What?” I frown, confused.

“He did it.” He states, “When I was seven. I was playing with one of his toys and he didn’t like it. So he went and got a kettle of boiling water and poured it all over me.”

What the fuck?

“Lucky for me, the kettle wasn’t that full or it would have done more damage.”

I don’t mean to react the way I do, but I stiffen in his arms. A vision of him as a child, defenceless, innocent, being hurt like that flashes through my mind.

“…It’s third-degree burns.” He continues. “It doesn’t hurt. The nerves were literally burnt right off. I spent months in hospital recovering and when I was discharged, my parents had me shipped to a boarding school.”

“What about him? What did they do to him?” I don’t want to speak his name. I don’t want to make my tongue form those syllables.

He lets out a broken, bitter laugh. “Him?” He says. “Their golden boy? Their precious firstborn? Nothing happened to him. They acted like it was all just some horrible accident.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He cups my cheek, holding me a little tighter as if he needs this moment of comfort from me. “Don’t be. You didn’t cause it. And besides, you’ve suffered far worse at his hands.”

That doesn’t make it okay, though, does it? That doesn’t diminish the horrific abuse and the awful betrayal of parents too. Christ, I knew they were fucked up, but I didn’t realise they were that bad.

“He used to talk about you.” I hear myself saying.

Maybe it’s the shock making me ramble on.

Maybe it’s the fact that we both now carry some awful trauma because of that man.

“He used to get so angry and rant. He used to say such awful things. That you were a drug dealer. That you stole things. That you were a criminal.”

He shakes his head, his eyes flashing with a hint of that very danger that used to send me running.

“Yeah?” He mutters. “Makes sense I guess, he’s been determined to screw me over for most of our lives, simply because I dared to exist.”

“Is that why you’re doing this, then? Is that why you’re helping us?”

He smiles more. “As much as I’d like to say you were the sole reason, that’s not the case. Besides, how could I turn down the chance to truly get my revenge on him, on them?”

I gulp, silently absorbing those words. After he’d chased me through the woods, I’d believed he was as much of a monster as they were.

When he’d just stood there and watched while Alex abused me in that dining room, I was convinced that that was the case.

But his behaviour afterwards had confused me.

The way he’d comforted me, the way he’d acted like we weren’t just fellow conspirators, but that there was something more. Something greater.

He stares into my eyes, searching for I don’t know what exactly.

“Scarlett?”

I shake my head, unable to have this conversation right now. There’s too much going on. Too much trauma, too much pain and too much anger to consider anything beyond the now.

But I can feel it all the same. I can feel that hunger, that need inside myself. There’s a voice in my head telling me that there’s a reason I sought him out in the first place, a reason I knew he’d be my safety in this turbulence.

“Did we…” I hesitate to form the words, the question in my head. “Before all this, before the accident, before I was brought here, did you and I, did we, were we in some sort of relationship?”

He narrows his eyes as a look of what could be jealousy, could be just anger, flits across his face. “No.” He says and that word feels so final. So heavy.

I bite my tongue, nodding in acceptance.

Jesus fucking Christ, Scarlett, stop making this any more emotional than it needs to be. Stop making such a scene.

“I wanted you.” He says, cutting through my headspace. “From the moment I laid eyes on you in that bar, from the moment I saw you flirting with my brother, smiling at him, I was hooked, addicted, fucking gone. I knew what he had planned, I knew that he knew who you really were…”

I gasp, feeling like a chill of ice-cold water has just hit me. He knew? He knew even then?

He tilts his head, obviously reading my thoughts. “He knew from the beginning, Little Bird.” He states.

Fuck.

FUUUUCKK.

I thought I was the one outmanoeuvring him. I thought I was the one pulling the strings. Something in me twists at the agonising thought of how fucking stupid I really was. How utterly na?ve. It’s not rage I feel. It’s something so much stronger, so much more furious.

“I did try to warn you.” He murmurs. “But you wouldn’t listen. It’s why I stayed close, stayed around, why I put up with them.”

I wince, remembering back now, remembering that moment so long ago.

He’d come across as an arrogant arse that day in the bar.

In fairness, he’d not seemed all that different from Alex.

Which was why I’d dismissed him. Why I’d shrugged him off.

Oh, I’d done my homework, I knew there was a rivalry, a rift between the two of them and I’d assumed that’s all his intervention was. A chance to fuck his brother over.

Only, I wasn’t going to run like a scared little girl.

No, I had my own reasons for allowing a man like Alexander Forster into my life.

Have my own reasons. Even now, those reasons haven’t changed.

If anything, they’ve solidified, they’ve grown.

Everything Alex has done to me since, every awful transgression will be paid for in blood. His blood.

He cups my cheek, clearly seeing the way my expression has morphed into one of fury, and he plants a kiss right on my lips.

It’s soft. Considerate.

And it rattles me right to my damn soul. I don’t want his kindness right now, that won’t help either him or me. I need that dangerous side. I need that darkness, the despair, that twistedness that echoes my soul.

I snarl, pushing him back. Yes, a part of me wants him badly, wants to lose myself in his kisses and his comfort, to just pretend for a few hours that none of this world outside this room exists.

But it does. It does exist.

And the last time I did that Alex was waiting, ready to shatter that illusion, and shatter me too.

“What is it?” Rafe asks, watching me warily.

“He’s gone.” I say. “But for how long? When he comes back, he’s not going to be forgiving, he’s not going to just smile and let this go. He’s going to hurt me again.”

“No, he won’t.”

“Yes, he will.” I snap back. He might have grown up with him, but I know his brother just as well as he does.

“He won’t because I won’t let him. I won’t let him touch you again. The door is locked. With the storm outside being as bad as it is, he and my father won’t be back for at least a day.”

“And then what?” I ask, trying to keep the hysteria from my voice. “What then? We tell them to shove it and just disappear off into the sunset together?”

I have to know where I stand. Where we are. What we are. God knows I never planned on whatever this thing between us is. Rafe was a means to an end just like the rest of them, but what if he was more? What if, in some miracle we do walk away from this, we do come out the victors, then what?

His lips pull into a half-smirk. “You imagining running away with me, Little Bird?”

“It’s not a joke.” I snarl, clenching my fists. How can he make light of this situation?

“Alright,” He says, sitting up a little. “Say we do leave. As soon as the tide is out, and it’s safe, I’ll take you away and we can just be free from all of this.”

“But we won’t be.” I reply, narrowing my eyes as reality hits me.

“We won’t be free. If we leave, they’ll be hunting us.

You know that. You know what Alex and your father are like.

They’ve got this all set up. They won’t just walk away and forget about everything.

Besides, I deserve my revenge after what they’ve done to me, done to my family… ”

His hand drops to my stomach, and I almost choke up there, as a voice in my head says there’s technically another name to add to the list now, another person they’ve all but murdered.

Does a foetus that wasn’t even formed enough to be classed as a child count?

It does to me. It matters to me. Even if it was little more than a few cells collected together, it was something to me.

“Then what do you want to do?” He asks, and I see that flash of violence in his eyes that used to put the fear of God into me.

I draw in a deep breath. So much of me is screaming in my head to run. To escape. To put this damned plan aside and prioritise my safety, my life. But in my heart, I know that I won’t be safe, I won’t be free until this is ended. Until all the chips have fallen and one of us, me or Alex, is dead.

And besides, I’d never forgive myself if I took the passive route, if I just washed my hands of what they’ve done, if I turned the other cheek.

No, my wrath will be felt.

My anger will be sated.

Even if it does kill me to achieve it. Even if it takes everything I have left, I will have my vengeance on the Forster’s. I will make those bastards pay.

“It’s your decision.” Rafe replies. “It always was.”

I guess it’s a moot point right this moment. I can’t leave. Rafe can’t leave. We’re trapped on this island until the storm passes.

Just as his brother and father are trapped on the mainland.