Page 110 of Shattered In Darkness

LOLA

Night in the woods is a cruel, suffocating thing. No moon. No stars, just the dead black pressing every window, cold wind rattling the cabin out of its bones.

The forest is alive. Not with animals, not with life, but with something waiting. Breathing heavy. Shadows pool in the corners, licking the edge of every wall, waiting to swallow us whole. Inside, it’s just me and him.

My nightmare, my shadow, my last hope.

We don’t talk. Not for a while. His eyes track the darkness beyond the glass, restless, always calculating. The same way he used to study me. Like I was the only thing that mattered.

Now, he looks at the door. The windows. Anywhere but my face.

Everything’s been said already. The secrets, the sick bloodlines, all of it spilled on the table and left to rot. Marcus. Richard. The night that broke everything. My complicity. His violence. All the things no one wanted to admit out loud.

Brody sits in the chair by the window, barely moving. Arms crossed, chest rising slow, steady, like a panther waiting to pounce or run. His mask is back on. Black, bone-white, stretched over his face, hiding what’s left of the man underneath.

He isn’t looking at me. He won’t. Not after the way everything exploded. Not after what I confessed.

I shiver, curling my knees up on the cushion, arms locked around myself. The cold is real now. In my joints, in my teeth. My lips have gone numb. But I can’t bring myself to ask him for a blanket. I can barely speak.

If I talk, I’ll scream.

Minutes drag. The wind gets louder, smashing itself against the old wooden frame. A loose shutter knocks, over and over, begging for entry. I try to breathe but my throat feels tight, strange, like something’s twisting inside as my heart batters its wings against my ribs.

Everything is wrong, every cell knows it. The house is too quiet. Brody is too far away. Even sitting ten feet off, he might as well be on another planet.

I whisper, “Are you…are you okay?” No answer. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. Just keeps glaring out the glass, like he’s expecting monsters to come out of the snow. I try again, lower. “I’m sorry.”

“You said what you needed to say.”

Is that all I am now?

He’s locked down tight, every muscle clenched, knuckles white. Protective, yeah. But cold, unreachable. If I touched him, he’d break me in half. If I left, he wouldn’t follow. Not tonight. Or, maybe he would.

I let the silence eat at me, picking at old wounds. The wind moans outside like a lonely animal. My throat aches with words I can’t say, apologies too small for the damage done.

After a while, I try again. “Brody, I… I didn’t know everything. About Marcus. About what he did to your mother. About what Richard was doing to you. I swear I didn’t⁠—”

He cuts me off, voice cracking through the dark. “It doesn’t matter if you knew. What matters is you didn’t run. You didn’t fucking leave, Lola. You stayed there. You looked away, just like everyone else.” His eyes finally flick to mine—ice behind the mask, desperate and wild. “You let him use you.”

I flinch, shame overwhelming me. “I was a kid. I was scared. I thought if I played along, he’d… I don’t know. Maybe he’d go easier on me. Maybe I could save you, or my mom, or⁠—”

He shakes his head, jaw clenched so hard I can hear his teeth grind. “That’s the problem. You decided everything for yourself. You could’ve talked to me.”

The words punch the breath out of me. For a moment, I can’t speak, heart thundering in my ears. “I couldn’t. He wouldn’t let me.” He doesn’t answer. I wipe at my eyes, blinking back the bite of old tears. “I never wanted to hurt you. Not ever.”

He laughs again, but it’s hollow, a sound filled with years of loss. “Fuck, Lola! I know, okay? I fucking know. You think I wanted to end up like this? You think I wanted to be the guy who hurts everyone who ever touched him? Or who hurts the one woman who he thought he would spend the rest of his life with? I never wanted to hurt you, Bambi. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I look down, fingers twisting in the threadbare cushion. “So much has changed now. I don’t know who I am anymore,” I say, voice small. “All I know is I don’t want to be alone. Not right now.”

Brody finally looks at me. His pain is a storm shifting under the surface, but for a second, something soft flickers there. He sees me shivering.

He stands, all at once. Too sudden. Like he can’t sit still with the poison in his veins. He stalks across the room, fingers drumming on the old wood as he passes.

His voice gets softer. “You’re freezing.” He’s right. I can’t hide the shivers now. I wrap my arms tighter, squeezing so hard it hurts. “There’s clothes in the bedroom,” he grunts. “Top drawer, bag next to the bed. Like I said, I planned ahead. Go before you turn blue.”

I nod, numb. Stand up on shaking knees.

The hallway is darker than I remember. The boards under my feet groan and twitch, warped by years, by cold, by solitude. The door at the end hangs open, black inside, as if the night’s already seeped through the walls.