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He sits beside me, the bed dipping as he cradles me into his chest. I sob, trying my hardest to push it back down. To keep it together. But it’s bursting at the seams, and I can’t shove it back into the boxes where all of these suppressed emotions belong. He rests his chin atop my head. “You never have to apologize for this. Whatever comes our way, we’ll fight it together.”
My heart fractures at the sentiment. I cry and cry, and he’s with me, holding me, embracing, caring for me silently in the way that Dmitri always has.
“I hate him,” I squeak. So much. He took absolutely everything from me.
“I know,” he grits. And it’s all he can say because I imagine he’s a raging storm inside. I can feel it. A cool, palpable tension that’s one click away from snapping.
And I feel all the more guilty for being part of the reason he’s slowly unraveling, but I’m not strong enough to stand on my own and not cling to him for dear life.
42
DMITRI
My jaw grinds as she cries. How can she ask me to let her go back? Even with him not being here, he still has a hold over every part of her. When she begins to tire of crying, I brave the question and despise myself for the timing. But I have to know what he did to her. So I can take on her pain and demons and fight them for her. I want to do it for both of us when I face him. Because I know deep down, he’s done so much more than she’s admitted to me.
“Did he hurt you?” I ask, but my voice doesn’t even sound like my own.
She looks up at me. Her brown eyes are starkly different to the red raw rim around them now. “He hurts everyone.”
I expected the answer. I lick my lips. “Did he take from you when you said ‘no’?”
Tears prick at her eyes, and I’m a bastard for asking about it and forcing her to relive the memories. But I need to know. Her demons are mine. I had my own reasons for killing my father, but I would kill him a second time for her.
“Countless.”
I’m imploding with self-loathing. I wasn’t there to keep her safe from him. I dip my gaze to her slippers. At first, I thought it was a self-conscious thing, but as I watched her carefully, I noticed she sometimes strained to walk. How easily her balance was off center. Sure, dancers were prone to injuries, but it never sat right with me. I swallow, and I hope I’m wrong, but my father would do something so cruel as to take away her one passion in life. The thing that always brought her to life. She notices me looking and quietly confesses. “Them too.”
Her hands are shaking as she pulls back the tight Velcro. I can’t swallow the lump lodged in my throat as she slowly removes them, and I have a cruel, immediate desire to break every bone in his body as if I didn’t already have reason enough before. Jagged scarring runs along her foot where the big toes have been cut off. Her sense of balance, ability to walk and run, to jump into the beautiful forms she so gracefully enjoyed—gone in an instant. Stolen by him.
Tears stream down my face, and it’s a mix between fury and self-loathing for not having realized earlier. I only specifically regarded her off balance when she took the knife from the psycho, pink-haired woman. How had I not noticed all this time? I’d even given her shit for wearing slippers to bed, and when I recall every moment it came to her feet, she’d always concealed them in some way.
With this business of trying to undermine my father, I’d missed the most obvious thing standing right in front of me.
Her pain.
Her suffering.
How can I so boldly tell her I want to protect her when I wasn’t there for the most important time of her life.
“Dmitri.” She loosens my grip around her and crouches at my feet, so I’m forced to look at her as I hang my head in shame and try to hide the tears. “This wasn’t your fault.”
“He took your spring, Cricket.” My voice cracks. “The one thing you loved, and he took even that from you. I should’ve been there.”
Her hand goes to my jaw. I don’t deserve her gentleness. “No, this isn’t your fault, Dmitri. I made these decisions on my own.” She swallows hard as if fighting herself to reveal something. “The first time I tried to escape him, he caught me. So I threatened to put a blade against my wrists.” She pauses, trying to push past it as if reliving the memory. “This was the consequence of trying to escape him.”
My throat goes dry, and I look at her, my eyes red raw. She weakly smiles as tears begin to spill over her cheeks. We were just two broken people.
She continues. “When it all became too much. I’d given up on the thought of ever escaping. Coming back here to you and Layla gave me hope, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that. So when I say this is not your fault, I mean it.”
I had been here picking apart his business and inner workings while he violated the most important person to me. Where now, even in her situation, she’s forced to be the strength for both of us when he mutilated her to such a degree. And all I selfishly endured was self-loathing. All I can manage to say is, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”
Tears spill over her cheeks as she offers another tight smile, and her voice cracks. “You’re here now. That’s what counts. Dmitri, I’d given up before you came back into my life. It’s priceless to me.” With cruel conviction, she adds, “I want him dead, Dmitri.”
“That makes two of us,” I readily agree.
I stare at the malicious carving of her feet. I probably wouldn’t think twice if I did that to someone; didn’t that make me just as cruel?
I stand and put both hands under her arms as I lift her.
