Page 71 of His Toy
“What did Eric do to make you think it’s necessary to kill his followers, people like my sister? Hazel might be a drug addict, might have accidentally given out a bad drug, but she never hurt you. She never did anything to you. And me? All I did was obey you, Zaid. Every single time.”
I clenched my fists.
“Explain this to me,” she continued, “Get it into my head why you think it’s okay to kill a sixty-year-old man. Put him in jail, Zaid. Don’t do this stupid shit.”
“You think I didn’t try?” I asked, matching her tone. “He has his hands in the police. His followers are everywhere.”
“But you’re not this cold,” Heather said, her voice shaking. She was holding everything back, trying to make it through this. “You’re not like this. Killing those innocent people is hardly like you. I know you. You wouldn’t do it.”
To say I wouldn’t kill them at a moment’s notice was a far cry from the truth.
“He slit Zayda’s throat in front of me,” I said. And I was there again, Zayda screaming, begging for mercy, the blood trickling down my face, blurring everything red. “I see it every fucking day. The sputtering blood. My mother’s body shaking for minutes before going still. This scar,” I pointed to my face, “I earned this scar for my cowardice. I let her die. I have been waiting for this moment for twenty years. I’m going to make this right.”
And for the first time since I had walked into the room, Heather was silent. She studied my face, the scar, as if she could look into my skin and see the past. I turned away.
“I’m a fucking monster,” I said. “It’s in my blood. You need to leave before it’s too late.”
The fireplace crackled, the popping sounds coursing between us. We were stuck in limbo. Neither of us wanted to move.
“He’s your father,” she finally said. “He’s your father, isn’t he? You would kill your own father.”
“He was never a father to me.”
We might have shared the same blood, but that didn’t make us family. It made me a monster. If I made sure she knew that, that she wasn’t safe here, not with Eric alive, not with me,thenshe would be safe. It was the only way.
I had to make her hate me.
“How can you kill your own blood? Never speak to him again. Ghost him all you want, but he’s your only fucking family, Zaid, how could you—”
“Blood means nothing,” I scowled, turning around sharply. She bit her lip, stepping back and knocking into the couch. “You should know that.”
Hate me, I thought. Run away. Leave this place. Don’t look back.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I lied to you,” I said, holding the words in the air, waiting for her hatred to sink in. “Kiley found more than their graves.” I sucked in a breath. I didn’t want to do this, but I had to. “Your parents left you and Hazel in a garbage can. You meant nothing to them. Getting high was more important than you.” Her eyes welled with tears and it fucking hurt to see her like that, to know that it was me who did it, but I had to make sure she would never come back here.
Run away from me. Be safe. Don’t look back.
“Your sister runs away from you,” I continued, “She doesn’t want you in her life.”
“That’s not true,” Heather said. “You don’t know that.”
“This isn’t the first time she’s run away, is it?”
It wasn’t a question. We both knew the truth.
“You don’t know anything,” she said. She was shaking, barely holding back her rage. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my sister safe, to get you to let those people go. I will fucking die for them, if that’s what gets you off,” she shouted. “But I will not be your toy.” She clutched her neck, nervously grabbing for where her collar should be, rubbing it in my face that the symbol of our relationship was gone. She didn’t trust me anymore.
Let it go. Destroy it. She should never have trusted me. If it keeps her safe, then burn our relationship to the ground. Even if it kills me.
“You and your sister will be safe,” I promised.
“I don’t know if I should believe you,” she said, her words cracking under the weight of sorrow. “You asked me that first night if I wanted this.” She gestured at the room around us. “This, Zaid? I never, ever wanted any of this. Not this. Not you.”
“Then leave,” I said.
I stared into the fire. After a few moments, her steps hastily ran from the room. Soon, she would be gone, on her way to find Hazel. They would be far away from here.
With her backpack, Heather walked down the driveway. Her light figure disappeared into the daylight. I texted Grant to follow her from a distance, to make sure the Mabens made it to safety. To never tell me where they were. To give them a new life, without me. There was a chance that they would return to help those people, but by then, this would all be over. The monsters would finally meet. Only one would survive, or no one at all. But Eric would be dead. I would make sure of it. And the rest of the world, the Maben sisters,Heather, would be safe from true evil.
It was better this way.