Page 255 of Jagged Souls

“A broken vase,” he says. “It’s still avasedespite its new shape. You take a bottle and you break it over some guy’s head, and it changes from being safe to drink from to being a weapon because of its jagged edges, but it’s still abottle. The core of it is still the same. The destruction of it does not change what it is. And you, Micha, are still a fighter. That is why you’re here, fighting to work through this. You are still a protector of children –”

I shove to my feet, clawing at my shoulders, ripping off lines of skin. “I’m not!” I scream. The memories of what I did with Bear slam into me. I drop to my knees, still tearing at my flesh to get it off me. To get him off me. To get to the sickness of my soul so I can rip it out too. He thinks my only sin when it comes to kids is cutting out thatparasitewhile Varius slept. But he doesn’t know all I’ve done. He wouldn’t be saying this if heknew. “Ihurt them,” I rasp, the words tumbling out.

“You traded yourself for that little girl.”

I shake my head as I start to hyperventilate. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t fucking understand!

“You could have killed yourself in my cage so Antonio could never get to you.”

I stare at him, wanting to confess my sins, but I can’t. The words lodge in my throat. The shame. The self-disgust. Bear didn’t violate me that day.Iviolated me.

“But you didn’t. You accepted Rudy’s –” He falters on a hard swallow. His eyes flick away from mine for a second, moisture painting them with an unbearable pain. But then he looks back at me, lets me see the truth of his words. “You accepted his trade because you still wanted to protect her. You’re a protector, Micha. That has not changed.”

“I’m a pedophile!” I scream. I might not have actually hurt a kid, but I was able to think of it. I was able torole playit to get high. “You don’t know what I’ve done! You don’t know who I’ve hurt! So don’t sit there and tell me – don’ttell methat I’m not – that Isurvived!Because they broke me. They fucking – they fuckingdestroyedwho I was. And I let them. I let them just so I could get high. I did that! That was allme.”

I stumble back as he stares at me. And I finally see it. The horror, the disbelief, the inability to know what to say. All this time I thought he saw me, but he only ever saw the mask I was putting up.

I shake my head, my heart grieving. It hurts too much just thinking about what I did. I need some V. I need to stop the pain. Stumbling towards the door, I yank it open to find Varius. This session is over. I can’t do it anymore.

“Micha –”

“Just stop!” I run out, my skin itching, my mind infested with fire ants and boiling tar.

I pick up the pace as I hurry down the hall. By the time I reach the stairs, I’m flat out running, so desperate to escape my own skin. My own mistakes. My own misery and self-betrayal.

How can he call me a protector of children when I didthat?

When I killed Varius’ child too?

Tears streaking down my cheeks, I start to run towards Varius’ room. He appears in front of me before I can take more than a few steps. Gathering me up in his arms, he lifts me, and I wrap my legs around him as I bawl my eyes out on his shoulder. He doesn’t take me to our room though. Not to a bed. Not to those memories I’m trying to escape.

He carries me outside so the wind will stroke my face, and the fresh air will fill my lungs, grounding me in a world so different to the prison I knew. He’s trying to stop the memories by overriding my brain with different smells,presentsmells.

He sits down on the ground in the middle of the woods, with me on his lap. “You’re safe here, monster,” he murmurs as he runs his fingers over my body. “Feel my hands. They will never hurt you.” He reaches down and digs one hand into the dirt, then lifts the earth to my face, which still lies buried against his shoulder. “Smell the woods. This is home.”

I squeeze him harder, starting to hyperventilate as my heart runs wild. But I can feel his safety. I can smell the roots of home.

“And take this knife,” he says, removing one of my hands from around his back and pressing a blade into it. “This moment is yours, Micha.I’myours.”

I grip it hard, finding solace in its presence, in the gift of it coming from him. He lifts it to his neck.

“I’m yours to stop, monster. You have absolute control over this.”

My hand trembles. Fear swamps me at the thought of cutting him open by mistake. The fucking idiot shouldn’t have given me a knife right now. I could hurt him.

“You’re still you, Micha. You still want to protect those you love.”

My lips wobble as that truth hits me. But that just makes me cry harder. Because that confirms it wasmedoing those things. Not a shell. Not someone too broken to know right from wrong. It was me. It was all me.

Tears rush down my cheeks.

“Please,” I beg, crying into his shoulder, “make it stop.”

“I don’t know how,” he says, his words twisted in pain, in a desire to know how to help me.

“It’s simple.” It’s so fucking simple. “Give me some V.” The words tumble out of my mouth. The shame hits right on their curtails, but I don’t draw them back. My hands shake as I say, “You can take a Rick and stop all your pain too.” The nightmares that keep him from sleeping when I do still. “We can do it together.”

His eye closes briefly, a mask falling over his face. But he won’t deny me in this. I have a knife to his throat. I’ll make him get me some V.