Page 99 of My Girl

Crave smashes Ned into the floor. Ned’s head bounces. His eyes go dull. Unconscious.

Crave turns to me. “Who is going to protect you now?”

I bare my teeth at him. “I fucking hate you!”

“You’re a goddamned broken record.” Crave scowls. “Admit it, Rae. Admit who you are. You thought fucking a masked man would take away your self-hatred, because I don’t give a fuck what you want or what you did.”

He leans his palms against the wall, caging me between his arms. Blood is smeared on his teeth. I bite my tongue.

“I see who you are, right down to your ugly core,” he murmurs. “And I’m still here. We’re the same, Rae. I’m the only one who will always be here for you.”

My eyes frantically search him. Those bulging brown eyes. The clean-shaven face. His black hair.

It can’t be true. He has to be wrong.

But I see myself in his face. Our shared brown eyes. My dark hair that I’ve dyed red. My hair hasn’t receded like his, but I can tell we’ll have the same hairline one day. There are even wrinkles around his eyes that I know I’ll have too.

I may be his daughter, but I’m not a killer.

I can’t accept it. I won’t admit it. I refuse.

“Just because we share blood doesn’t mean we’re the same,” I whisper.

“Don’t it, though?” he snickers, a smirk painting his lips. “You were raised by a good woman. A woman I raped and got pregnant. A woman who gave you everything. And you still ended up here with me.”

He grabs the gun off of the floor, and I back away, sliding along the wall until I’m pressed against the fold-up table. I broaden my shoulders, opening my eyes wide, daring him to shoot me.

He hands the weapon to me.

“If you hate me so much, then prove it.” He puts his hands behind his head in a defenseless position. “Kill me. Ned will be your alibi. Say it’s self-defense, and you can forget you found me. You and your mother can go back to thinking you were born from some fucked-up dead man named Michael Hall. You can move on and put a pretty little bow on your murder-filled past.” He licks his teeth, the blood smearing clean from his white canines.

I hold the gun to his forehead.

Kill him,my brain argues.He deserves it.

“The truth,ourblood, feels better though, doesn’t it?” he asks. “It feels right.”

I pull back the hammer.

“Do it,” he demands.

I pull the trigger and flinch slightly. I shoot the wall.

I drop the gun and crumble to my knees.

I can’t kill him. Not now. Not when I need so many answers.

“That’s what I thought,” Crave murmurs.

He turns toward the door and steps over Ned’s unconscious body.

Blood boils in my veins.

His blood. Mine. Ours.

No. It’smyblood. I choose my own path.

And I don’t choose him.