In the dark storeroom, while my mother watched coldly, my stepfather’s cruel grin and sticky touch haunted me.
Night after night, in that endless dark, I grew thin and my hands shook as I poured poison into his cup.
At that moment, Easton rushed in; caught in the murder, I had already imagined many ways we might die together.
Yet I never imagined Easton would turn and stab my stepfather ten more times.
When the shackles closed on him, he said he would take the guilt for me so I could see the beauty of the world for him.
He should have known clearly what that scum did to me, but then he said I was no different from that beast, and the next second, I grabbed a knife and drove it into him without hesitation.
“Who’s the beast? Speak properly!”
With a wet sound, Easton leaned closer into the blade. “Tisha, it’s my fault. I spoke wrong. That’s not what I meant.”
Slowly, he wiped both his blood and Emma’s from my hand. I tried to push him away, but he only held me tighter.
The knife had gone straight through his shoulder blade.
His face was white as paper, yet he let the knife stay in him as he lowered his chin gently onto my hair.
His hand patted my back softly, calming me with quiet strokes.
I could not break free, so I gave up and stared blankly into the air.
In a voice only he and I could hear, I whispered, “It was you who said you would go to hell with me.”
At those words, Easton’s body went stiff.
The next day, Emma was gone without a trace. I went to see Easton at once and asked, “Where is she?”
He lowered his head, his voice heavy.
“Emma has already lost the child and carries nothing. We do not need to stain ourselves with another life or bring useless trouble.”
I remembered when a group of thugs mocked me as a shameless bastard, and Easton had broken their legs without pause, snapping their necks, his robe soaked in red.
So whether it was truly needless, or only that he could not bear it, he knew in his heart.
“Where is she really?” I asked again, my voice rising.
He stayed silent, and after a long pause, he finally said, “I will give you an answer.”
The bloodshot eyes he once had when standing for me seemed to overlap with this moment. I smashed everything in the hall to pieces.
My men searched for Emma, but Easton had hidden her too well and left no trace. That same night, his explanation arrived.