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The last thing I needed was to be tied to him in that way—by the invisible thread that connects us, that made us the same.
Even though my father had his trophies—a compulsion he couldn’t fight against—he encouraged me not to follow in his footsteps, but I couldn’t help myself. Instead of keeping something that had physical evidence that could help identify them, I always kept it simple.
I drop down to my knees by Ian’s dead body and push his head forward as I reach for the back of his shirt. My hand slides along his clammy skin until I feel the tag on his shirt. I pull it out, grabbing my knife with my other hand as I cut it off.
Sliding the material between my fingertips, I glance up at Onyx as he watches me. I usually keep the tags from their shirts or another article of clothing. If I can’t find a tag, I cut off a small piece of their clothing. Onyx finds it peculiar, but at least it’s not as easy to identify as a fucking body part.
“Why don’t you ever take anything of theirs?” I ask him, the thought randomly floating in my mind. I always found it strange, that he didn’t have the same compulsion that I had.
“Because I already take everything that they can give me.” He tilts his head to the side. “I take their lives.” Onyx pauses, pulling up his sleeve, revealing the one tattoo that I’ve always questioned. “I add another line as a reminder.”
Along the inside of his forearm are small black lines. They resemble a count of some sort, but he would never indulge in my curiosity until now. I never knew what they represented, and when I watched him carve the lines with black ink and a needle into his skin before, I thought it was just something he did to feel something… anything.
I was wrong.
Those are his trophies.
CHAPTER NINE
ABEL
The bark from the tree scrapes along my skin as I press myself against it. Neither of them saw me and I was able to get out before I was found.
I finally found her.
I’ve spent so many years looking for her. It wasn’t easy, but there’s a sense of pride that fills me, knowing that I’ve finally accomplished what I set out to do after I turned eighteen. She fell off the grid, there weren’t many records of her after high school, but I still found her. She was the sole reason why my family was destroyed, why the ground was ripped out from underneath my family’s feet.
My memories of Selene are fleeting, but one has always haunted me. I knew from that moment that I would one day have to end her the same way I did him.
Selene was always off, and our parents both knew that there was something wrong with her. Mother always kept me under her wing, doting on me like I was the only child that mattered. But then again, she never had a close bond with Selene. Selene was closer with our father, and that man despised me.
He was never actually cruel to me, but he was uninterested. Neglectful in the ways that a father should bond with his onlyson. Selene was the fucking sun and moon in his eyes. I never understood why they were so close, especially when he was so closed off and indifferent, but it was just another similarity between the two of them.
The night that I found my father killing someone opened my eyes to something that I had never experienced before in life. There was something cold about the man, but I never took him for a murderer, much less a fucking serial killer.
I was still young, so I didn’t fully understand. I didn’t understand the death threats that we started to get and the way that we had to hide. I didn’t understand why Selene hated me more than anything in the world until the night that she tried to kill me.
“You ruined all of this. You took him from me, and now you’re going to pay for it.” Her words were cruel as she shoved me back under the water with her hands around my throat. I never knew my sister to be so violent, but the look in her eyes was maddening.
I breathed in a mouthful of water, the chlorine filling my lungs as she viciously pulled me back above the surface.
“What am I supposed to do without him now? He was teaching me everything that he knew, until you came and fucking ruined it. I need to carry on his legacy, and it starts with you.”
I don’t know what happened after that, except waking up in the hospital after she almost drowned me to death. Our mother found us in the pool and realized what Selene was doing. I never saw her again after that day. I never knew where she went. My mother refused to speak of it, only telling me that Selene was gone and I was safe from her now.
We moved out of the state after that, and it was as if Selene had died… until I found out the truth—until I found out where she was.
Selene was never gone, and I was never actually safe.
My mother may have forgotten about her, but she haunts every inch of my mind. And now that I’ve found her, I won’t stop until she’s finally gone. Only then will I be able to breathe. Only then will I finally find some peace and be able to live my life without thinking about the bitch who ruined it.
If it weren’t for her, maybe my father wouldn’t have been doing what he was doing that night. I know that’s not true. The bodies and the evidence from years before Selene was even born suggest otherwise. There was a sickness in his mind, and Selene inherited it from him.
I was the lucky one. I had my mother’s genes, and after all the shit with Sirius, she even had me genetically tested to see if I had the ‘serial killer gene’. Thankfully, I didn't. I had hoped that Selene didn’t either. Maybe she was just off, maybe she lost her mind after the trauma we experienced with our lives being ripped to pieces.
But I was wrong… and Selene just confirmed what I had always really known.
She’s just as sick as our father, and she must be dealt with.
