Broken Butterfly: Fallen Brook Series: Book 3

by Jennilynn Wyer

  I’m not a vengeful person and I consider myself to have strong morals, but I’m not sorry that they’re dead. The abuse Fallon endured by their hands for years, the things his mother did to Peter, the scars his father left on Fallon…I’m glad Fallon is free of them. I honestly don’t know what kind of person that makes me, but after everything I’ve been through—seeing my parents’ blood pooling around them and their dead eyes staring at me while I was forced to watch Him stab and rape my sister—it changed me. I would never think myself capable of taking another life, but I would gladly take His. Some monsters should never be allowed to exist on this earth.

  Wait.

  The violent thud of my heart slamming against my breastbone has me picking up the framed photograph for a closer look. My eyes narrow and focus like the aperture of a camera lens. White noise fills my ears until I hear only the sound of Hailey’s whimpers, and the gurgling of choked blood as it pools in my mouth as He removes the knife from my side. The butterfly tattoos on my upper torso that cover my knife wounds erupt into a painful fire like acid burning through flesh. Heterochromatic eyes, the brown and blue from my nightmares, look back at me from the picture.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! Ohmygod! No!

  “I knew I was on borrowed time before you’d eventually find out.”

  I jump so violently at the sound of Fallon’s voice that I drop both the plate of food and the picture frame. They fall in slow motion and smash to the floor, the sound they create traveling through me like the boom of cannon fire.

  Fight or flight. Adrenaline and red-hot rage infuse my blood. Fight or flight. I turn to face my new nightmare, every muscle in my body vibrating. Fight or flight.

  I choose to fight.

  “You lied to me!”

  Fallon stands five feet from me, hands in his pockets, those ice blue eyes never wavering from my accusatory green ones.

  “I wasn’t lying when I said He would never hurt you again,” he says, but all I want to do is smack him.

  “You knew all this time and you lied to me!”

  “I did what I had to do to protect you,” he says softly, those blue eyes looking down at the floor then back up at me again; however, this time, when he looks at me, he tries to smother the fear in his eyes with a stony expression. I watch as those sly-blue eyes darken into fathomless voids of nothingness. No emotion, no feeling behind them—just vacant and empty. But, like him, it’s all a lie.

  The fine hairs along my skin raise and I take a step forward. Ryder comes running down the hallway, calling my name, and I turn to spear him with a look that tells him to stay back.

  “Please,” I beg him, holding my palm up to tell him to stop, which he does, concern apparent on his gorgeous face. He flicks his worried gaze from me to Fallon, but, thankfully, he keeps his distance. I snap my head back around to Fallon and take another step closer to the liar in front of me, wishing so badly that I could beat the rest of his excuses out of him.

  “Bullshit! You did what you had to do to protect your brother.”

  “That’s what you think? After what he did to me, to you, to your family? You think I would protect that evil son of a bitch? You are so naïve, kitten. You have no fucking clue! You never did!”

  “You’re a heartless bastard, Fallon! Everything out of your mouth is a lie!”

  Fallon rushes forward the remaining three feet, Ryder cursing him as he approaches me, but I stand my ground. I will not run away or flinch. I’m facing the truth of my nightmare.

  “You forget, kitten. I warned you that I was one of the villains in your story. I fucking warned you that I would destroy you. I told you that you would hate me.”

  “Tell me everything,” I demand. “I deserve to know the truth.”

  “Tell her,” Trevor says from behind me. He must have just come back. His sudden presence has my head spinning. How does Trevor know? “We should have told her a long time ago. She deserves to know.”

  I feel like my body is on a swivel as I turn around again. “You knew? You’ve been lying to me too?”

  So many things become clear. Trevor’s sudden appearance at the beach the day we first met. How, even though he’s a senior, he wound up in my English Lit class for freshman and sophomore years. How he’s always been overly protective of me. All the times he told me he needed to tell me something important.

  “Fallon, tell her, or I will.”

  “Fuck you!” Fallon rails at him, grabbing the sides of his own head.

  “Was it Peter?” I shout back at him, needing to know for sure. Needing the truth. “Tell me, Fallon! Was it Peter that night?”

  Fallon stumbles over and slams his back into the wall as if it’s the only thing that can hold him upright. His desolate pale cerulean eyes hold me prisoner as he nods yes.

  My bottom lip trembles. Peter killed my parents. He killed Hailey and caused Elizabeth Ann’s death. He stabbed me and left me on the floor to die. The weight of finally knowing who was responsible for that night eases its relentless grip on my soul and I take a deep breath. Knowledge is power, Fallon used to say. I missed the clues, the signs. I should have started to put the pieces together when Fallon told me about Peter. About the night his brother came into his room with a knife. The goddamn knife. How Peter straddled him and stabbed him. How Fallon spent weeks in the hospital recovering. All the times Fallon promised with absolute certainty that the man from that night would never hurt me again. The clues were there, right in front of my face, but I never saw them. Don’t you see, Elizabeth? Open your eyes and see.

  I feel Ryder edge carefully up against my back. Automatically, without thinking, I lean against him, reaching back with one hand until I feel his hand grip mine. Breathe, Elizabeth. You aren’t alone. The monster is dead.

  A new question creeps in. “Ryder, did you know?” I twist my head around so I can see his eyes.

  “No,” he softly answers me. Thank fucking God. I sink back into him, needing him to help hold me steady.

  “Peter was obsessed with you,” Fallon begins, and his words cause bile to boil up into my esophagus.

  “Like you?” I snarl accusatorily at him.

  A flittering of pain briefly replaces the emptiness in his eyes until he shuts it down. “It was my fault. I was the reason he noticed you. Because I was interested in you… wanted you.” He scoffs. “But you’re right, kitten. I was obsessed with you too. Perhaps I’m no better than my brother after all. Perhaps my fascination with you is what led him to you like a lamb to slaughter.”

  “What are you saying, Fallon? Was Peter stalking me? Did you stand by and watch and do nothing?”

  “Peter could never get close to you. You were always surrounded by Jay, Ry, and Julien. I tried to protect you from him on my end as best I could.”

  “You did a fucking piss-poor job of protecting me then,” I hurl at him, motioning to where the scars are on my side.

  “At some point, when Peter failed to get near you, that’s when he set his sights on your sister.”

  I’m sifting through every thought, every word, every moment of my life, thankful for once that I have my memories back. As I do, I realize that Fallon has always been in the background protecting me. He also protected the boys I love. He made sure that the video of the fight with Marshall never saw the light of day so Jayson, Ryder, and Julien wouldn’t get into trouble. He got Marshall kicked off the Highland High soccer team after he intentionally injured Julien during a game. He made sure Jacinda left me alone in high school after her stunt with Jayson at the party. He has always stood by Ryder and has been there for him when I couldn’t. He threw himself in front of me to protect me after I punched Marshall for running Ryder off the track during a race at the Fields. Fallon took me in and helped me heal when my mind was shattered with returning memories that I didn’t know how to handle. He flew Ryder to Barcelona, bringing the man I love back to me. He bought my parents’ house to fulfill my dream. Fallon has been protecting me in his own way for years. And I never saw it.


  Open your eyes and see.

  “When Peter got his claws into Hailey, I was horrified, but also relieved. He filled his obsession on you with her, and I figured that, as long as she occupied his attention, you’d be safe. I was wrong.”

  “Peter was the older guy that Hailey was secretly seeing?” I need confirmation. I need to hear him say it.

  “Yes.”

  “You let your psycho brother touch my sister and didn’t do anything about it?”

  Fallon doesn’t answer me. My body again tries to propel forward as my anger churns higher and higher. Ryder holds on to me, not allowing me to leave his side.

  “Did you know he was abusing her? All the bruises and burn marks on her body were from him? Answer me, Fallon! Did you know?” I scream.

  “No! No, but I knew what he was capable of, so I should have realized what he could do to her.”

  I tilt my head back into Ryder’s chest and howl at the ceiling, my whole body releasing the turbulent energy of my internal anguish.

  “You allowed that monster to hurt my sister. Where is Peter, Fallon? So help me God, if you are hiding him or shielding him, I will kill you myself. Where is he?”

  As if being hit over the head with a club, Fallon slides down the wall to fall heavily on the floor, his hands clenched on both sides of his head, his knees raised, and his body folding into itself in an upright fetal position. “He’s dead! Peter can’t hurt you anymore! He’s dead, Elizabeth. I killed him!”

  I turn around and collapse into Ryder, racking sobs convulsing from my chest. He’s dead. The monster is dead. Fallon killed him. Fallon killed his own brother. For me. The silence that pervades the hallway is thick, the only sounds penetrating through the stillness are my hiccupping cries and Fallon’s ragged breathing. Ryder murmurs something in my ear, but I can’t hear him because Fallon’s hushed explanation holds me hostage.

  “I was here that morning. Patricia and my father were in Europe. I was here when Peter came in, soaked in blood, still holding the knife. His car was still here so he must have run the entire distance from your house to here. Jesus Christ, there was so much blood. He was covered in it. The smell of it. I’ll never forget the smell. For a second, I thought he was going to kill me, like he tried to before. He told me what he did. He cried, Elizabeth. He fucking cried. He said he killed our light; he destroyed our sunshine. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. And then he told me everything. He told me what he had done. He begged for forgiveness. He pleaded with me to help him. To save him.”

  Fallon presses his hands together as if in prayer. “He dropped the knife. The one he just confessed that he used to kill your family. The one he used on you. I stared at it on the floor as Peter rambled out every horrific fucking detail of what he did. He kept repeating over and over that you wouldn’t see him. That he asked you to see him. To notice him. He said he didn’t mean to hurt you, but you kept fighting him. He said Hailey had to die because she wasn’t you. He only wanted you. He had to have you. He would never give you up. I don’t remember how I came to hold the knife in my hand. I never remember picking it up off the floor. All I remember is the distorted smile on his face when he impaled himself with it, and him thanking me.” Fallon shudders and wails out, “He thanked me for it! I was holding the knife that killed my brother and he thanked me for it. What kind of monster am I?”

  Peter used Fallon to kill himself? How many times is Fallon going to have to shoulder the weight of his family’s crimes?

  Trevor walks around me and Ryder and goes to Fallon, easing himself down to the floor in front of his sibling. He cups his hand around the back of Fallon’s neck and looks at me. “Fallon called me. I had only recently learned that we were brothers. That my father was his father. My mom was gone, and I had no one. He asked for my help and I didn’t hesitate. I came right over. Fallon was holding Peter in his arms. The look on Fallon’s face when I walked in.” Trevor swallows thickly, shaking his head.

  “Fallon told me what Peter did. What happened after.” Trevor implores me with his blue gaze, so much like Fallon’s, wanting me to see the truth of that night. “I couldn’t allow Fallon to be arrested for something that wasn’t his fault. Peter used Fallon as a means to an end. It was my decision to hide the body. I bundled Peter in one of the rugs from the great room. I carried his body out back to the lake on the property. I helped cover up his death. I got Fallon to erase the security camera footage. We were lucky in the fact that the staff had been given time off while Patricia and Phillip were out of town, so nobody was here at the house.”

  “So you see, Elizabeth, it’s not just Fallon and Peter that have blood on our hands. And I’m sorry. So very sorry for my part in all of this and everything you’ve gone through because of it. I didn’t know who you were at that time. My mom was gone, and I had a brother who asked for my help, so I did. I couldn’t lose anyone else.”

  More than a year has passed. Why has no one asked questions? Isn’t anyone curious as to the sudden disappearance of Peter? Then I remember what Fallon told me in Barcelona. Peter was lost a long time ago. He would disappear for extended periods of time, months or longer, while on drug-induced benders. His mental illness made him unpredictable and unstable. Peter was a sociopath. He was constantly in and out of rehab. His family had everyone thinking Peter was just one of the hired help. The only person who would have noticed his absence would be the mother who abused him his entire life, and I doubt very highly that she would have reported him missing. What a fucked-up family. How did Fallon survive this place?

  I’m able to find my voice, but it’s gruff and raw from crying. “I don’t understand something, Trevor. If you helped Fallon and held onto this secret with him, then why have you and Fallon always been at each other’s throats? Why act like you hate each other? Why didn’t Fallon want you anywhere near me?”

  Trevor helps Fallon stand up. He braces an arm around his waist in support until Fallon is able to steady himself. Fallon rolls his shoulders back and stares at me unapologetically. “I didn’t trust Trevor not to tell you. I also didn’t want any of the evil from that night to ever touch you again. All I ever wanted to do was to protect you from the darkness. Keep it away from you. But in the end, I failed you in every way.”

  I walk over to Fallon and face the man who slayed my nightmare. I didn’t know what I would say until the words tumble out of my mouth. “Thank you.”

  Fallon didn’t kill Peter; he only held the knife that Peter used to kill himself. What happened with Peter was not Fallon’s fault.

  “Thank you, Fallon,” I tell him again. His face morphs from expressionless to utter shock and disbelief. I’m pretty sure that Ryder and Trevor have similar expressions on their faces.

  “What?”

  “Thank you, Fallon.”

  “Elizabeth, no.”

  I smack his face. Hard. Once. Twice. Three times. He stands there and takes it. Tears leak from his eyes and a violent red blooms on his cheek where I hit him. I may be grateful that Peter is dead, but Fallon knew what his brother was capable of and he didn’t protect Hailey. Neither did I. I saw her bruises. I saw the marks on her body. I didn’t fight hard enough for her. I never pushed her to explain. Hailey was always there for me, and when she needed me the most, I was nowhere to be found. Fallon failed my sister. He failed my family. But so did I.

  There must be something terribly wrong with me for me to be feeling the way I am right now. I should feel upset, anger, maybe even horror or revulsion. I do and I don’t. I’m livid and heartbroken about what happened to my sister and to my parents because of a psychotic madman’s obsession. However, I also feel a sense of peace. Calm. The monster who took everything from me, including my memories and my unborn child, is dead.

  “I can’t deal with you right now,” I tell Fallon, turning away.

  I need time to process this. I need to get out of here. I can’t be in here any longer.

  Fallon’s hand reaches out to me, and i
t about tears me apart when I hear his broken plea. “Kitten… Elizabeth, please. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

  To deal with all of the emotions that are overwhelming me, I actually laugh; the sound of it strange to my ears. “Fallon, what happened to Peter is not your fault. He killed himself. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Trevor tries to say something, but I hold my hands out in front of me like a shield.

  “Please, stop. Whatever it is you want to say will have to wait. I need time to think things through. The only thing I can tell you right now is that you and Fallon shouldn’t have to suffer any more for Peter’s transgressions. To be honest, none of us should. He’s dead and I can finally breathe easy again knowing that. Let him stay buried,” I tell them.

  Buried and gone, no longer able to hurt anyone anymore. “Ryder, please take me home now.”

  Chapter 38

  “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  It’s past midnight, so officially it’s New Year’s Eve. Ryder and I should be at Wintergreen, dreaming about running up and down the slopes, making love in front of the fireplace, having snowball fights, planning our wedding, and watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks from the porch of our rental cabin that night.

  “If I said this Christmas and New Year’s sucked, would you be upset?” Ryder’s response is to hold me tighter as we lean on the hood of his car.

  After leaving Fallon’s, we went back to the apartment. My mind was too restless, however, so I asked Ryder to bring me to the hill overlooking the college town. Ryder had told me that this was his quiet place. A place of solitude and peace that he would come to just to think and be alone. It’s the place he brought me after our first date, and we danced together under the moonlight. It is also the place he brought me after we proposed to each other. That was the night we held each other as the snow fell all around us. Tonight, however, the sky is so crystal clear that it seems like you can see every star in the Milky Way, regardless of the city lights below.