Page 88 of Shattered In Darkness

Cold air howls under the door. I open the cabinet, stare at the shelves, and grab a can of dog food. I break it open, and dump the food into the dog bowl. I don’t need her to like it. I don’t even need her to finish it. I just need her to understand: she eats what I feed her, or she eats nothing.

Back down the stairs. The mask is tight, suffocating, but I need it—need the permission it gives me to do what comes next. She hasn’t moved. Just shivers, knees hugged to her chest.

I set the bowl in front of her, the mug beside it. “Eat,” I say. “Now.” She stares at me like I’m not real. I grab her by the hair, yank her face to the bowl. “Eat,” I snarl. “Eat, or I’ll make you.”

She shakes her head, but I force her face down. Her hands come up to push me away, but she’s weak, pathetic. I can hold her in place with one hand.

I press her face into the mush. “You want to be a bitch? Fine. Eat like one.”

She whimpers. I let her up when she starts to choke. She spits it out onto the floor and glares at me, lips trembling.

“You’re not in charge here, Lola. You don’t get to decide when you eat, when you sleep, when you piss. I decide.”

She glares at me. There’s fire left in her, small and sad. I want to snuff it out.

“I hate you,” she whispers, voice cracked.

I crouch, mask to her face. “I’m not here to be loved.”

I stand, pace, fists clenched so tight my gloves creak. The drugs burn through my veins, make my thoughts skip and stumble. Every time I blink, I see Marcus’s face, smirking, his hands on Lola, on my mother, on everything I ever loved.

Rage boils over. I want to break something, someone. I want to make her scream, make her beg, make her hate me so much she forgets him. I want her to know she’s mine, down to the marrow, down to the part of her that screams in the dark when no one else can hear.

Dragging a chair to the center of the room, I sit, mask on, legs spread, arms draped over my knees. “Stand up,” I order.

She hesitates. I drum my fingers on my thigh impatiently. She stands, unsteady, swaying. Her eyes flick to the door, to the window, to anything except me.

“Walk,” I say. “In a circle. Don’t stop until I say.” She stares, but she does it. Bare feet slapping the cold floor, arms wrapped around her chest. I watch her, let her feel the weight of my gaze, the way it strips the skin from her bones. “Faster,” I say. “I want to see you run.”

Stumbling, she starts to run, awkward, pathetic. Her breath comes sharp, too fast, and she’s panting after a minute, sweat shining on her forehead.

“Keep going,” I say. “Don’t stop.”

She runs until her legs shake, until she trips and falls, knees hitting concrete. She cries out, tries to get up, but I’m there before she can, grabbing her by the hair and drag her back to the mattress.

“You’re weak,” I say. “You’re nothing. You were always nothing. Even when you were mine, you were just a thing to be filled, to be used.”

She sobs, fists pounding my arms. I let her. Let her burn out the last of her fight. When she’s limp, I let her go.

I stand over her, breathing hard behind the mask. The anger is a living thing, clawing at my insides, demanding more, always more. I want to hurt her, want to make her feel what I feel every fucking day—lost, abandoned, betrayed.

I go to the shelf, grab the roll of duct tape, and tear off a strip, putting a strip over her eyes. I turn on the radio—static, white noise, nothing but the sound of a thousand broken screams. I let it play for hours, let it eat into her brain, let it drive her as mad as I am.

Leaving her in the dark, I head upstairs, listening to her sobs echo through the floorboards. I pace the cabin, every window black with night, every mirror reflecting the mask back at me. I rip it off, throw it against the wall, and sink to the floor, head in my hands.

Her face is everywhere. I see her as she was—laughing, alive, the only light in this fucked up world. I see her now—broken, ruined, mine. I want to bury my fists in the drywall, want to smash every plate, every cup, every piece of this place until there’s nothing left but splinters and dust.

Reaching for the bottle from the counter, I down three swigs, feeling the burn coil in my gut. I slam it down, shatter it against the sink, glass spraying across the tile.

My heart is a storm. My mind is a graveyard.

I remember my father’s voice, cold and smug: “She’s just a tool, Brody. Use her or lose her.”

I sit in the dark and listen to the wind scream around the cabin, listen to Lola scream below, and wonder which one of us is going to break first.

I lock the door, and shoot up again. The world goes soft around the edges, colors bleeding into each other, anger melting into hate, hate melting into want.

I sit in the dark, mask on the floor, blood on my knuckles, and wait for the storm to pass.