The drive there a silent one, but thankfully after the excitement at home, also an uneventful one. Belle and I content to stay inside the confines of our own thoughts. The need for words in order to fill the empty space non-existent.
At least until I pull into the parking lot and she became aware of just how real this was about to get.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Belle? I can turn the car around, tell Tom thanks, but no thanks, and we can go back home. Watch a movie or something.” I offer up for good measure. One that falls flat the second she shakes her head.
“No, Kayden. I’m sorry, but I’ve been looking over what you wrote the day after and this…it needs to happen now.”
“Okay then. Let’s get this over with.”
Exiting the car, she slides right into place beside me as we walk to where we need to be. What I know will be the cold, devoid of life and color room with my brother waiting.
Just like last time.
Slipping my hand into hers and squeezing, I offer up as much support as I can, given my aversion to being here and it doesn’t take her long to return the favor with a squeeze of her own.
As we’re greeted by Tom and lead through to where we’ll be meeting Dean, I realize that going into this meeting right now, she knows more than I do. She’s read what I still haven’t been able to open the book back up and look at. Putting me at a clear disadvantage even though I’d lived through it.
“You ready?” Tom asks, pulling us both from our thoughts and when we nod, he knocks twice on the steel door and moves back, letting me go first when it finally pulls back and we’re granted access inside. Belle reaching out at the last second and resting her hand on my arm, pausing me before I can make it all the way in.
“Let me go first. This was my idea.”
Moving out of the way and letting her step through, but keeping my hand securely wrapped in hers, I follow her in, only taking a seat when Belle drops the book on the table after opening it to the entry we’d left off on at home and slid it over toward my brother.
“How’d I know it wouldn’t be Tom on the other side of the table?’ Dean smirks and despite my desire to reach across the table and make him eat every word he just spoke, I shift my attention away and focus on the journal instead.
“Shut up.” Belle says as she pulls her chair closer to the table, her hand hitting the top of the book as she shoves it so close to my brother there’s no escaping it.
“You’re feisty tonight. Seems like Kayden lit a nice fire up under your ass.”
“Dean.” I cut in, but Belle’s hand coming up stops me cold.
“The last time I was here, I actually felt bad for you. When you asked me to take care of your brother, I thought I was finally witnessing the human side to Dean Walker. Turns out, I was wrong. Monsters; real ones, they don’t have human sides. They’re just vile all the way through.”
Bringing a hand to his face, Dean fake yawns and it takes every bit of restraint I have not to dive across the table and end this for real. In the only way that would make it permanent.
“Is there a question in there somewhere? Something I can actually answer? Or did you just come here to remind me what a sick prick I am?” Dean spits out and Belle doesn’t waste a second.
She’s on her feet, leaning across the table until her entire hand is slamming down on the paper directly under his nose.
“Read it.” She demands and despite the seriousness of the situation, there’s no denying the way my body reacts to her command. How incredibly hot it is to see the girl I love taking control.
She’s changed so much, but in the best fucking way.
“Story-time was an hour ago, princess,” Dean sneers. “Or did you not get the memo?”
“You’ve never read a story like this one, though, Dean. It’s a real page turner. Endless amounts of pain, agony and torture. Those are your favorite things, aren’t they?”
This is the side of Belle that I always knew was there, but spent a good part of my existence trying to keep down. Even when she couldn’t speak, you could see the fight she had in her eyes. Getting to witness it now, especially aimed at my brother on my behalf, well, there’s nothing quite like it.
“You sold me, sweetheart.” He laughs before lowering his eyes away from her and focusing on the book. Swallowing hard as I watch his eyes filter back and forth from one page to the next, the acid from earlier swirling in my stomach when he finally finishes and turns the page.
“Feel free to read the next page out loud. That’s the best part.”
Dean has never backed down from anything or anyone. Not when I was a kid, and definitely not as I got older. Even if in the end it was the stupidest decision he ever made and he lived to regret it, which after a lot of the fights he got into that were with bigger people than me, he definitely did, he never bowed down to anyone.
Which is why it shocks the hell out of me when he does what Belle says and starts reading.
Dear Dean,
I don’t know what I did to make you so mad at me.
Maybe it was because you think it’s my fault Mom left.
That I cried too much.
Cared too much.
Maybe it’s not Mom leaving at all, but you ending up with me as a brother that makes you hate me.
Maybe you really wanted to be on your own.
Have Mom and Dad all to yourself.
Whatever the reason is, I really wish you didn’t.
I wish that things could be the way they were when I was four.
When you would come into my room, see me playing with the Matchbox and Hot Wheels and get down there with me making up fake car crashes.
The way you would make the noises of the rescue vehicles when I drove them and laugh afterwards. Or the way you used to sneak videos into my room when I was five and let me sit with you and watch all the scary movies mom always said I wasn’t allowed to see.
Most of all, I wish that things could be the way they were the first time Dad tried hitting me.
When you came flying down the hall and jumped on him. Beating on him as hard as you could with your hands until he let me go and I could get back to my room where it was safe.
I miss the way things were when you were pretending.
Reality really sucks because I love you. You’re the best, most amazing big brother in the world. When my teacher asked me who I idolized and wanted to be like when I was older, it wasn’t our dad I said. It was you.
I wanna be you, Dean.
I want to be the pretender.
I hate when you hit me. I hate when you pour bleach into my cuts trying to get them clean, and how you laugh when I cry. But most of all, I hate that no matter how much I do for you, nothing ever makes you happy.
I hate that I can’t be good enough for you.
That I can’t be good enough for anyone.
Not Mom, not Dad. Not even for Belle.
You’re right.
I am worthless and it is my fault she left. But now that I’ve admitted it, do you think you can stop being angry so maybe we can hang out again?
I really miss hanging out.
When you read this, please don’t be mad. I just wanted you to know.
I love you, Dean.
Your little brother forever,
Kayden.
“You made the boy that looked up to you, loved you even though you weren’t worthy of a second of it, drink until he almost killed himself. You poured bleach into open wounds to the point where even now, he’s got scars. You beat him, you used him, and you tried to kill him.” Belle begins once Dean has pulled his eyes up from the journal. “But he survived.”
All traces of his cockiness is gone now. His face a blank slate showing no emotion. Belle’s words along with my own obviously having the desired effect and silencing him for the first time in his life.
“You beat him and bent him, but Dean…you didn’t break him.”
“Why?” he finally asks when after Belle’s final
words, the room is blanketed in silence. “Why the fuck did you bring this here? Want me to read it? What is this?”
“I wanted you to know just who it was you were torturing every time you put your hands on him. But most of all, I wanted you to know because when we walk out of here today, it’s done. We’re done with you and every unspeakable horror you put Kayden through. You on the other hand, have nothing but time to think. So, we’re shifting the pain where it belongs. On you.”
“You think you know everything don’t you, little girl? You don’t know shit! Your precious boy over there, he was as deep into all of it as I was. He’s as guilty as I am.”
Dean’s barely got the words out before Belle is moving, shoving the chair back across the floor with a squeal from the force behind her body as she takes off around and right up in my brother’s face. As I get to my feet in order to stop her, the exact moment the guard in the corner of the room moves the same way, Dean is falling backwards.
His chair slamming back hard against the cement. His body hitting with a resounding thud as the air is completely drained from his lungs, a muffled moan the only sound heard as the vibration from the impact of the chair begins to fade away.
Reaching out quickly and grabbing a hold of her arm, I pull her back into me, but not fast enough to miss the words that come spitting out in response to what Dean said before she flipped him on his ass.
“No one is as guilty as you are!”
Moving her back, I release my hold on her long enough to grab the journal off the table and slipping it under my arm, turn my attention back to her. Motioning with a nod toward the door, the guard steps forward and opens it, gifting us our freedom.
Freedom that even though I didn’t agree with the idea at first, Belle gave me when she demanded we come here. What she secured the second she set her sights on my brother.
Isabelle Reagan not only loved me the way I never expected to be, she also freed me.
As we pass over the threshold of the door and Belle steps out into the hallway, I turn back toward my brother. Knowing deep inside this is the last time I’ll ever see him, and doing what until now I’d only deluded myself into believing I’d actually accomplished.
I let go.
“I was wrong with what I said in that letter. The person I really want to be like when I finally grow up, is me. We’re done here.”
Stalking from the room to where Belle stands waiting with Tom and sliding my fingers through hers as we make our way toward the exit, there’s only one thought I’m left with as we make our way outside.
It’s just too bad the same can’t be said for the journal.
The worst is still to come.
Chapter Sixteen
September 6, 2010
She’s here.
Nine years I’ve been going to school while she gets to sit at home and do whatever it is home schooled kids do.
Nine years I’ve been able to keep her my secret.
My dirty one if the last four years are any indication.
A dirty little secret that’s about to get blown wide open and be thrown out for the rest of the world to fuck with.
Belle is here.
So now, not only am I a freshman at another school that if the reputation I’m coming in with is any indication, I’m going to run just like the last two, but I’ve also got to deal with her being in my face.
Who the fuck did I piss off to deserve this?
What makes it even worse is that not even five minutes after I got there and was jumped by Amy, she’s thrown right in my face.
Strolling in the front doors, I’m met with Tim’s fucking laughter first. That hyena sounding shit as he guffaws like a moron and points at whatever is going on in the middle of the sea of people that have gathered around.
What I see when I get closer is Isabelle crouched in the corner, smashing her head off the side of the wall. Her pants, like every other fucking time I’ve seen here in the last four years, full of piss and probably shit considering she was never at any good at controlling it. A moan or a groan louder than all of the people standing around pointing and laughing at her escaping as she shakes and keeps smashing her head. What quickly turns into a squeal the more people start congregating around pointing.
I could have ended it right there. Shoved all those stupid apes out of the way until I was down on my knees beside her the way I’ve done before. Rubbing her back, reaching for her hand and soothing her the way I used to. Singing to her the way I did when she had one of these freaky fucking incidents at her house when we were kids.
Singing songs that the second anyone heard, would make me an even bigger joke than she was.
Point is, I had the power to fix it. At least, I used to. Fix her.
Do I fix it, though? No. Of course not. If I went to her, all of my secrets would be exposed, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna make the next four years hell.
Which leaves me wondering what the fuck she’s even doing there.
Fuck no. I can’t go there. I can’t care why she’s at Wexfield.
The only thing I need to care about is doing whatever it takes to make sure she doesn’t fuck things up for me.
Keep her silent.
Which, short of duct taping her mouth shut for the next four years, means I’ve got to scare her.
Make her fear me.
Something I might be able to do if I could just stop the fucking war taking place inside me.
Jesus.
It was brutal this morning and it’s only gotten worse since.
Seeing her like that on the floor and knowing I had the tools to stop it, yet standing there like a fucking jerkoff and not doing a damn thing because having Tim, Amy, Charlotte and Eve laughing at the pathetic lump on the floor was easier, has been haunting me.
Belle is haunting me.
It was easier to hate her when she wasn’t all up in my shit.
Now though, I’m haunted by the past. The memories. Every fucking one of them.
What I can easily go back right now and read because it’s all detailed out in here for me to see.
But I’m not that person anymore.
I’m not her friend.
I’m not the boy she remembers anymore.
I’m not even sure I’m fucking human.
Shoving her to the dirt at the park last year and telling her she smelt like a fucking shit hole before calling her a retard. Laughing when tears start spilling out of her eyes and she fell in the mud puddle and starting rocking back and forth. I’ve got to do better. Up my game and treat her even worse.
That’s better. My heads back on straight and I know what I have to do.
I have to make her see it.
See the monster.
I’ve got to make her hate me.
It’s the only way to keep her safe.
“Jesus Christ.” I curse under my breath, closing the stupid book and whipping it across the room with a growl rivalling a caged lion. “A real fucking bang up job I did with that, huh?”
Hanging my head and throwing my hands into my hair, I yank on and pull it, consumed by every ounce of guilt and self-loathing I have. Following it up by angrily dragging my hand down over my face as I expel the world’s heaviest sigh. One I’m sure is coming straight from my broken heart.
Reading this shit, it’s breaking my heart the same way I did hers. I can actually feel parts of it splintering, like a piece of wood being shredded. But instead of the shards just falling bloody to the ground, they’re turning around and stabbing me.
Repeatedly.
What fucking thought process went into that choice I made the first day of freshman year? What planet was I living on where I thought treating the girl like a piece of shit was the way to keep her safe?
Better yet, after everything that went down earlier between Belle and my brother, what possessed me to think diving straight into when things became even more fractured between us was the way to go?
Ugh. I just want this nightmare over wit
h already.
I’m ready to look forward now, I swear to god.
“Kay…” she breaks through, pausing me mid pace, but where before now, I wouldn’t have hesitated meeting her eyes, I can’t so much as turn in the direction of her voice. Can’t meet those eyes. The ones that clearly show me everything she feels because she wears everything so damn openly.
I can’t bear to see what the monster coming to life again has done to them.
It’s just too damn bad she’s not on the same page.
Calling out to me again and huffing heavily when I don’t so much as twitch in her direction, she’s across the floor in a flash. Her hands on my face. Yanking me with a force I didn’t even know she possessed, until I’ve got nowhere to look but at her.
“How many more?” she demands, and the cold detached sound of her normally sing song voice plunges the knife in even deeper. I’m almost afraid to look down because I don’t want to see what it actually feels like to bleed out emotionally.
“More what?” I finally manage to choke out through my internal despair.
“How many more entries after this one?”
“One.”
“Good.” She states and I roll my eyes. Hard pressed to see anything good about the situation we now find ourselves in. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m going to let you go, and you’re going to sit. I’m going to get the book off the floor and we’re gonna read it together.”
No fucking way. I’m done. Walk down memory lane is finished. Over it.
“No.”
“Excuse me?” she asks, surprised. “I was unaware I was giving you a choice.”
What the hell?
“Belle, I can’t. Please. I know this was my bright idea, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t break you again.”
“Of course you can’t break me, Kayden. It’s because you never broke me in the first place.” She spits out, sounding more like me with every angry word muttered. Further proving my point.
Maybe she’s right and I didn’t break her, but all the shit I’ve written, especially after we stopped hanging out, sure has changed her. She’s not the same girl anymore.
What Lies Beneath (Count On Me Series Book 7) Page 12