Page 124 of Eternal

“He—” She shakes as another sob bursts out. “My dad said he was gone, but he’s not. He never was.”

“Who?”

She looks up at me, tears spilling from her eyes. Her cheeks bright red from crying.

“Weston Randolph.”

One name and the final piece of the puzzle clicks into place.

34

Eternal

Teal

It’s been three dayssince the hunting trip, and Declan has been giving me my space. Still, I knew it was only a matter of time before he forced me to face this.

He might have let me go that night at my parents’ cabin, allowing Kole and Violet to drive me back to Briar in the middle of the night because that's what I needed. But I’m not naïve enough to think this is over.

Especially now that I remember why I tried to end my life.

My godfather hurt me. He abused me. But I thought he was gone.

Three years ago, I learned that wasn’t true. And now that I remember again, it’s all flooding back. I feel like I’m drowning in the memories that were wiped from my mind. I always hated the holes, but now that they’refilled, I hate them more because I’m not free from what happened like I thought I was.

I’ve spent years in therapy processing what my godfather did when he stayed with us for a month when I was nine years old. He would sneak into my room in the middle of the night and become the nightmare I still dream about. No matter how many times I painted the monsters, it didn’t free me of them. What he did will always live with me.

A few weeks after that first time, my father caught him. He promised me he would take care of it and that Weston Randolph would be locked away where he couldn’t hurt me or anyone else ever again.

I trusted my dad because I knew that’s what Sigma House was good at. He wasn’t a good man, but at least that meant he had the power to slay my monsters.

My father protected me. He kept me safe.

Or so I thought.

Three years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night and walked downstairs to get a glass of water, only to discover that my father had lied about my godfather being gone.

They were sitting at the kitchen table, talking and laughing like nothing had happened. Like Weston wasn’t the reason my mind is permanently broken. Like he isn’t why I took a razor to my skin, trying to erase the memory of his hands on me.

I stared into Weston’s eyes and realized my father’s money will always come first. While he pretended he took care of Weston, they had continued their businessoperations, and he stayed at enough of a distance that I didn’t know about it.

Money was more important to my father than what my godfather did to me, and that realization hit me like a train, shattering my bones into a million pieces.

My godfather might have assaulted me, but it’s my father who turned me into this mess.

Someone who can barely see the canvas straight through her tears and pills. Someone who uses splashes of yellow to mask the darkness that’s eating me up.

I ran that night because I didn’t matter. Not to my family, not to myself.

But then Declan found me.

Declan. Not Alex, like I remembered.

He pulled me out of the road, and I wanted to believe I could be saved. For a split second, I let him be the comfort I’d spent my life searching for. But with every beat of my heart, my blood coursing through me reminded me I wasn’t strong enough to handle the pain.

I’m never strong enough.

I toss my paintbrush aside and kneel on the giant canvas that stretches the center of the floor in my studio. I’ve been dripping colors onto it all day like it can absorb everything I’m spilling out.