Judy stepped closer with a fake sympathy. “Right, Miss Fairbank. Your parents are gone. Wouldn’t keeping those things only bring more pain? Maybe they died because of their own sins. I heard they were cut to pieces, sewn into dolls. When I first heard it, I was terrified.”
Her words drove a blade into me. Swiftly, I grabbed her, slammed her down on the table, and drew a dagger from my thigh, pressing it against her wrist.
“Too many words.” I snarled. “Do you want the items or your hand?”
As quickly as I, Marcus sprang up and kicked the knife away. But I pulled a gun and pressed it against Judy’s belly.
“Melody! Let her go!” Marcus roared. “Judy just spoke the truth. You killed so many people and you can’t even hear one hard fact? You think your parents didn’t deserve it because they offended too many people? Look at you now, I barely recognize you.”
The gun in my hand trembled, and it nearly went off. I was shaking all over. He knew exactly how my parents died. Those enemies came after him, not them. They kidnapped three people and forced me to choose between my parents and him.
Seeing me torn, they told me they were old and couldn’t protect me anymore. They also begged me to hand over our family to Marcus so I wouldn’t be tormented.
They didn’t die at someone else’s hands. They killed themselves to save me from more trouble. Afterward, the enemies released Marcus and took my parents’ bodies away.
When I finally found them to exact revenge, the house was empty. Only two rotten, stinking dolls remained. I dug a grave for them with my bare hands until my fingers shredded, the flesh torn from my fingertips.
Melody's POV
I dug and dug until my hands went numb while Marcus knelt beside me the whole time. He bled from a wound on his head and swore at my parents’ graves that he would protect me with his life. That night, he even carved my name into his chest with a dagger.
“Melody is in my heart. From now on, where I am, you will be. You're my life.”
I ground a cigarette butt into the back of Judy’s ear, grinning with a savage curl to my lips. Then I slowly loosened my hold on her.
“You were right,” I said. “They wouldn’t have wanted me to become like this.”
Judy collapsed into Marcus’s arms, sobbing. “She’s a lunatic!”
Marcus stared at me without blinking.