Page 74 of We The Depraved

“Sage, I can’t have you doing this,” my nana hobbles over. “You need to apologize to your cousin. She’s your blood. What in the hell is wrong with you?”

“She profited….her mother fucking profited off my hurt and pain,” I shake my head.

Blood is still dripping.

“I should fucking shoot you dead, right here,” I say.

Niki’s arm wraps around me. “Sage…”

“You’re crazy!” Khrystina shakes her head.

I step away from him.

For years, I’ve wanted to be free of everything that fucking man did to me.

“When I was a child….” Pain began to bubble to the surface of my mind. “You all knew my father was fucking me. Breathing and sweating like a pissed off bull on top of my teenage body…I wanted to die when he looked at me.”

“What?” Khyrstina’s eyes nearly budge out of her. “Dad never laid a finger on you. Stop lying about this shit. He never fucking touched you!”

“Oh he, did Krissy. Mom was dead and I was there. The only fucking reason he didn’t touch you was because I finally told Nana. But before I told Nana, Reese knew. She stayed over one night and she walked in on him…”

“I…I…I…” Reese was caught after years of not hearing it out loud.

“Your fucking mammy had her hand all in this,” I sneer.

My Nana clutches at her chest. “Reese, is this true?”

“Na-nnna,” she stammers. “I…”

“Oh my God, Sage,” Nana starts to shake.

She falls to the ground and starts to seize right in front of us.

There’s screaming that happens. Ear piercing screaming and pure chaos covers me. I don’t know it until later but it’s me doing the screaming.

We get an ambulance to the house as soon as possible. As pissed as I am about what Reese and my aunt did, I’m more pissed that I caused my Nana unneeded stress. When the ambulance arrives, Reese gets in back with her.

Niki wraps his arms around me and I see Krystina looking lost on the porch.

My confrontation with Reese came but I know it cost me something.

“You need to talk to her,” he whispers into my ear.

“I have no idea what to say,” I’m shaking a little from the adrenaline still coursing through my body. “I should get to the hospital.”

“Your grandmother is going to be okay,” Niki assures me. “But your sister needs you to make sense of the shit storm you just caused.”

“You have a way with words,” my eyes roll and I take him in.

Slowly, I walk over and sit next to my sister on the front porch of my grandmother’s house. She doesn’t look up. I wish she would because the sun is setting. I see Niki getting into the SUV and his driver driving them away. When the car zooms away, a sunset is revealed.

“I hate that you found out about him that way,” I say.

She sighs.

“I don’t get it.”

“Don’t try. There’s pain in trying to understand shit like that. Just know I made sure he’d never touch you like that. Nana told him she’d ruin his life….rip his balls from his body. It’s why…”