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The girl, Clover, began to read, and with every passing page, the coals of rage that had been smoldering inside of me since I was fifteen years old burned hotter and brighter until they eventually caught flame. By the last few pages, it became brutally clear that this was, in fact, my own personal hell, and Satan was using this girl to mock me.
Her sweet voice and slender fingers read directly from the story of my dreams—a gray-eyed boy and a green-eyed girl, the woods, the farm, the lake, the cemetery, the evil house, and the man who lived there. The visions I’d been having since returning to Ireland came pouring out of her pink lips, only in her version, everything was wrong. It was despondent and demonizing. Tragic and hopeless. The boy didn’t get the girl in this version—she abandoned him. Then, after years of abuse and solitude, he finally became the monster everyone in the village believed him to be. He killed his own father and burned his house to the ground. The villagers suspected the boy had died in that fire as well, and now, his ghost haunted the forest of Glenshire, still waiting for his one true love to return.
I didn’t have many good memories, and the ones I did have never really happened. They were fading glimmers of dreams that I clung to because without them, my life would be just as tragic as that story. Which was the whole fucking point. The Devil had found the one remaining source of pure happiness in my life—my dreams—and he’d corrupted that too. I could hear his laughter in my head as I pushed myself to stand.
“Fuck,” I sneered, bracing my forearm against the wall as the earth tilted beneath me.
“What are you doing?” Clover asked as my vision went black around the edges.
Pressing my forehead to the cool stone, I took a deep breath, waiting for the dizziness to pass. I didn’t know what was beyond that cave, but it had to be better than the psychological torture of being hated, feared, cared for, and mocked by a demon who was impersonating an angel.
My angel.
“Christ, you’re gonna fall.”
Keeping one shoulder pressed against the stone, I took a single step and exhaled in relief when it was easier than I’d expected. Less painful. Once the dizziness subsided, I would leave. I needed to fucking leave.
The sound of crunching gravel filled the cave as the imposter leaped up and sprinted over to me. “At least let me help ya.”
I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to rip her face off and expose the lying monster underneath. I wanted to burn every shred of this illusion to the ground and show the Devil that I knew exactly what the fuck he was doing.
But mostly, I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up again so that I could find the redhead—the real one—and stay in her world forever.
The girl appeared on my right, slipping between me and the stone. Wrapping her arm around my back, she fit against my side as if she’d been carved from it, and some angry, empty space inside of me felt the same way. My rage evaporated. My wrath simmered. And when I pushed away from the wall and draped my arm over her shoulders, allowing her to help me stand, a new pain demanded my attention—a searing burn behind my eyes.
I could feel her heart pounding against my ribs, feel the rise and fall of her lungs, just as hard and fast as mine. And I could sense her hesitation before her cheek pressed against my chest and her chin began to quiver.
This was no fucking demon. This was a human being who was in even more pain than me.
I held my breath and lifted my arms as she wrapped herself around my torso, my muscles tensing violently as they prepared to fight back. The only times I’d been grabbed round the middle were during sparring matches in the Kletka, after which the fucker would find himself on his back with my knee inside his rib cage. My heart rate skyrocketed as I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe through it, to focus on her scent, her size, her soft hands, and her shuddering breaths.
Even as a kid, no one had touched me like that. My ma had worked nights as a dancer, and when she was home, the last thing she’d wanted was another arsehole grabbing at her. I thought that had helped me survive in the Kletka. I’d learned to live without human touch long before I got there.
But this girl hadn’t. She was so desperate for comfort that she was seeking it from the same man who’d destroyed her life. I’d never been in that much pain. I would let my father torture me before I ever let him touch me.
My father.
Jesus Christ, I had done to this girl exactly what my father had done to me. Killed her family. Ripped her away from her home. Put her in a cage where survival was a daily challenge.
I felt fucking sick.
I’d thought I’d won. By forsaking my own humanity, by suppressing my basic instincts, my moral compass, I thought I’d been denying him the satisfaction of breaking me. But really, I’d done exactly what he wanted all along.
I’d become just like him.
Lowering my arms, I wrapped them around Clover’s shoulders stiffly, mechanically. My muscles throbbed with unspent adrenaline. My hands balled into fists. My rapid, heavy breathing ruffled her hair as I fought an all-out war against my urge to defend myself. But Clover didn’t seem to notice.
She was busy fighting her own battle. I could feel the weight of it, of everything I’d taken from her, pulling her toward the ground. Her fingertips dug into my upper back as a silent sob racked her body. A few moments before, I’d hardly been able to stand, but if Clover needed me to, I would help her carry that burden forever.
It was the least I could fucking do.
I held her like that until the grief finally retreated. Once her shoulders stopped shaking and her legs could bear weight again, Clover released me and wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her jumper. A cooling wave of relief washed over me as soon as she let go—my body still interpreted human contact as threat—but I found myself leaning toward her rather than pulling away.
Touching her might have felt like a war, but some wars were worth fighting.
“Sorry.” She sniffled, keeping her gaze cast down. “I came over here to help you, and instead, I …”
“Don’t.”
