Page 40 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

thirty-eight

Declan

I take my time cleaning up the glass with the broom I spotted on my way back from the garage, being sure to catch every sliver so that we don’t have any more accidents.

The remains of her dish set are heavy; they’ll shred a trash bag immediately.

I decide to ask forgiveness instead of permission, making my way back to the garage.

I grab one of the medium sized boxes that’s unmarked and open it to throw the contents into a trash bag but stop dead.

Whatever I expected to be in here, it’s not this.

A little plush bunny lays on top of a pile of baby blankets, a ribbon attached around it’s neck.

This feels more intrusive than anything I’ve done so far, and yet I don’t stop.

I lift the bunny in one hand, staring at it like it will tell me the things I want to know.

But it simply stares at me with glassy, inanimate eyes, so I set it aside and lift out the blankets.

Fuzzy pink and blue, green and yellow blankets with unicorns and elephants, rabbits and ducks.

They smell sweet and mellow, their gentle scent overpowering the leather and must of the garage.

I’d think they were just in storage as future gifts, except these don’t have tags on them.

And when I reach beneath them, a single photo lays at the bottom of the cardboard box.

The picture doesn’t make much sense to me, but I don’t live under a rock. It’s a sonogram photo, and I’m guessing the little white dot in the center of it is a baby.

Or was a baby.

Her name typed neatly in the white upper edge of the picture confirms the conclusion I already assumed.

D'Anerio, Soren P

March 19 th .

Barely more than a year ago.

“What are you…” Soren’s voice trails off when I turn to face her standing in the doorway of her garage.

My shift allows her to see the box I opened, the pile of blankets that I discarded, the stuffed rabbit lying atop it, and the picture still in my hand. Her mouth is open in surprise, her eyes wide.

“I needed a box for the glass.” I explain.

She’s transfixed on the bunny, and I think for a minute that she’s about to snatch it against her chest. But then she shakes her head so violently I think she’ll lose her balance.

“No.”

“No?” I laugh—not because there’s anything funny about the contents of this box or the fact that she clearly didn’t want me to see them, but because I don’t really understand.

“No,” She repeats louder.

When I don’t move, I see something in her snap. She charges at me in a fury of fists and hair that’s fallen free from her bun. Her blows glance off my chest without causing me any pain.

I let her hit me, too steeped in confusion to do anything else.

“Get out!” She cries, her voice shrill. Her fists beat against my chest until she tires of that and takes to pushing me instead. “Get out!”

Thirty minutes earlier a moment of tenderness had passed between us, but that moment is gone. her softness, her vulnerability is gone, replaced by rage.

“I hate you!” She screams.

“Soren,” I try. “Your neighbors…”

That makes her laugh, but she chokes on it when it tries to come out as a sob instead.

“Fuck my neighbors! And fuck you ! Get out!”

But I don’t. I can’t.

I see her need, her hatred. She’s too full of things that will corrode her from the inside out… things she needs to let go of. And she needs someone to take her rage out on.

I dodge her fists and act quickly, trapping her against my chest.

She struggles to get free of me, but I hold her tighter.

I don’t squeeze. I just press her into me, quelling her attempts to fight me off until she finally has to accept that I’m not letting go of her until I decide.

That’s when she stops fighting.

All of the fight in her disappears at once, swallowed by grief.

I saw it in her from the first moment I set my eyes on her—it’s part of what drew me to her. But I’d assumed it was grief for the husband she may or may not have killed. Now, I’m not sure how much of that grief is for him and how much of it is for a pain that burns deeper.

I’ve realized in the last few hours how little I know about Soren Palmer… and I’ve realized that I was wrong.

I thought I could destroy her—I’d promised to.

But as she stands in her garage, her fists full of my shirt, her face buried in my chest, her cries—raw and animalistic—I realize I can’t destroy this woman even if I want to.

She’s already destroyed.