Betrayed (The Worshipped Series Book 2) (30 page)

The weeks seem to go by slowly after losing control and lashing out at Karen. She avoids me like the plague. Not that I blame her. I have tried more than once to make up for what I have done to her. But I also know she is terrified of me again. I can see it in her eyes, and how she looks at me like I will snap again. I try and make her see that I have my dark side under control. I went and bought some books for her to read to occupy her time. I let her wander around the area alone with the hopes she will come back to me. She always returns. I don’t know why she stays. I don’t know why she hasn’t told me to go fuck myself as she walks out of my life for good. It’s what I deserve. Hell, I deserve more than that. I don’t know what else I can do to make her at least talk to me. 

Our days are spent with me constantly watching her. I don’t know if she sees or feels me close by, but I am here. I cook for her, and try my damnedest to show her I can trust her while giving her space. I can only hope with time she will come back to me and forgive me for what I have done to her. 

Losing control like that with her was an eye opener for me. Knowing how much I have hurt her and knowing I almost killed her, makes it easier for me to keep the darkness buried. I should’ve never let it happen to begin with, and now I am paying for that mistake. I have yet to control all the emotions that are slowly making their way back. Seems fitting to me that I tried for so long to ignore and forget I am actually human. Sooner or later, no matter how hard I try, I will have to feel again. Not all at once. I can’t control what will happen if that dam bursts open again. I won’t let it happen. So, for now, I am slowly trying to become a normal guy. 

I watch Karen on the beach from afar. She is starting to get a bronzed glow to her skin and I find myself wishing I could touch her once more. The hunger I have for her has not diminished. If anything, it has grown. I want her more than anything, but I don’t know if it’s because I know I cannot have her now or not. I have to figure out a way to at least get her to talk to me again. I … I miss her. I miss being with her. I miss her laughter and seeing her smile. I miss the look she gives me letting me know I’m the only man she wants. Damn I even miss kissing her and just being near her. I just don’t know how to fix this between us. 

I walk back to the cabin thinking of a plan to get her back. I at least need her to listen to me. I need to tell her my story. I just need her to listen. The thought of sharing my past terrifies me. It will either make her understand why I am the way that I am, or it will push her further away from me. But after what I did, I have to at least try everything. I can only hope she doesn’t shut me out as I have done to her many times. 

Once back at the cabin, I make my way to the kitchen. I have never in my life cooked a romantic dinner for a woman before. And I want it to be perfect just for her. I can’t fuck this up. I go to the fridge and pull out two steaks. I marinate them and put them back inside the fridge. I prepare everything to make a salad for us and once that is good to go, I start on the baked potatoes and some vegetables. While the potatoes are cooking in the oven I try and find some damn candles. Since I didn’t stock the house or even ask the little cleaning lady for them, I don’t know if I will have any luck. But finally after looking for half an hour, I find them in a random cabinet. I take all of them and place some on the table and randomly around the cabin. I don’t know how much longer Karen will be at the beach and I try to hurry. I dim the lights getting the mood romantic like and I finish cooking our meal. 

I am setting down our plates when I hear Karen’s steps. I hear the sharp intake of her breath and her beach bag hitting the floor. My heart’s racing and my hands start to sweat when I hear her light footsteps come into the kitchen. I look up at her and try to give her an innocent smile. She has on a beach dress and her hair is pulled up into a ponytail. Her hair is windblown and it’s surprisingly sexy to see it that way. The bruises on her neck have almost faded away. I have to look away from her neck. The bruises are still there, but eventually they will fade. But knowing I hurt her, almost killed her, will stay with me forever. I can’t even start to forgive myself for hurting her like that. I will work twice as hard to show her how sorry I am, and to make it up to her. No matter how long it takes. Her eyebrows close in together and her lips are in a tight line. She looks angry at me. But when I look into her eyes, she looks curious. 

“What’s all this?”

I have to clear my throat a few times before I can answer her. It’s beyond me why I am suddenly nervous. “I … I uh made us dinner. I thought we could talk?” I try to sound as if I am asking a question to the last part. I don’t want her running away from me for any reason. If I have to reel in my dominate side to be near her, dammit I will. 

“Just dinner? No hidden agenda?”

“I promise I only want to talk.”

She sighs and says, “Alright. But, if you try anything I will leave.”

I nod my head and we make our way to the table and sit down. I sit here for a few moments watching her take a bite of the steak and salad. Once I see she likes my meal, I dig into mine. I like knowing I am providing for her and she loves my cooking. She’s even gained some weight from all my cooking. I like it. I want her curvier. I want ... damn I have to think of something else. My train of thought isn’t going where it should be. I need to be thinking of what to tell her. What I need to say first. I don’t want to ruin the moment with my past so I wait until we are almost finished with our meal before I start. 

I turn to her and see she’s watching me. I hope she doesn’t think I will try and avoid this part. Yes I dread it with every bone inside my body, but I know it has to be done. I will do anything and everything to get back to what we were before I lost it on her. 

“What I want to tell you, it’s not something I am proud of. It’s something that I wish I could go back and change. But it is a main reason to why I am this way. Why I struggle so hard with the darkness inside of myself. I don’t want you to think of me as some poor lost man. What I am about to tell you, I have only told one other person. But she … she didn’t want to know really after I told her everything. I am only telling you these things, in hope that in some way you understand me better. I don’t expect you to forgive me for what I’ve done to you, but I want you to help me be a better man.” I look at her and she is intently listening to every word I am saying. 

“My father was brutally murdered when I was four. I don’t remember exactly what happened that day, I just remember finding him and sitting in his blood for days until my mother got home from visiting my aunt.” I flinch at Karen’s cutlery clang against her plate from dropping them to cover her mouth. I realize the only way I’m going to get through this, is to not look at her and forget she’s here. 

“After my father died, my mother changed. They loved each other so much and I think the only reason why my mother didn’t kill herself was for me. Even though she couldn’t look at me for days and would leave me alone to starve and take care of her after a drunken binder or cocaine binder, she in some way cared enough to stay. My mother was not the best mother after my father died. I know that. But she played a small part in who I am today. She would move us every couple of months and not having a stable home really screwed with something inside of me.”

“I knew at maybe around seven or eight, I was different than all the other kids. I began to want to do things. Things to animals or the other kids at the school I was at then. I started pulling away from anything social and became the outcast everywhere my mother moved us to. I never told her what I was going through. Maybe a part of me didn’t want her to know I was some fucked up kid. Or hell, maybe I just didn’t think she would care. There were so many times I would have to pick her up out of her own vomit, or check to make sure she was still breathing after a cocaine binge. There were so many days that I was left alone in a shitty house with no one to talk to. I learned really fast to survive on my own. I knew there would be no one to come save me from this life I had been dealt with.”

I rub my eyes, not really wanting to go on. I hate thinking of this time in my life. I hate having to relive my fucked up childhood. But, fuck, for her I will do it. I will do anything to make her want to at least be around me again. In this moment I look at her and I realize, fuck me, I might actually love her. I look at her in confusion. She looks back at me with the same look on her face. Does she feel this way about me? I have never felt this before. It’s something entirely new to me. But hell, why else would I torture myself with this and not even know if she will want me afterwards if not for love? 

I shake my head to knock all those thoughts out. I can’t lose focus. I have to finish telling her. 

“I was twelve when I killed the first animal. I found myself trying to fight this strange urge to hurt and kill things. I used to take the alley-ways home. They were always quicker to get to the shit house we lived in. I came across a cat eating a dead rat and I was fascinated by it. I sat and watched the cat eat its kill for the day. I could hear the cracking of the rat’s bones, the pulling and tearing of its skin by the cat’s sharp teeth, and I could see the blood running down the rat’s body. It formed into a small puddle, and I had the urge to reach out and see if it was still warm. I watched every single bit of it and I fucking enjoyed it. Once the cat was done, I grabbed it by its throat. It clawed at me, scratching my arms and hands. It tried biting me but I couldn’t let go. Something happened to me, and I couldn’t make myself let go. It was like something had taken over my body. I could feel its heart racing against my palm. I could see in its eyes it knew it was about to die. The cat fought for its life but in the end, I crushed its windpipe. I watched as the life left the stray cat, and something I cannot begin to explain happened to me. I felt … I felt powerful. I felt as if nothing could touch me. I found myself loving how I took a life. How it felt to have that kind of power over something or someone else. And after, I felt some part of my soul drift away. I knew after dropping the cat on the alley concrete, I would never be the same. I had started on a downhill spiral, and I had no idea what I had set in motion.”

I couldn’t bear to look at Karen while telling her this of myself. I know how it makes me look. I didn’t know back then I was a monster. I had no idea what was going on with me, and I had no one to help me figure that part of myself. Hearing it myself, I know it’s fucked up. But it didn’t stop me from craving the power that came with it. 

“I went straight home after I killed that poor animal. I cried the whole way home and then cried some more later that night when I put myself to bed. I had no idea where my mother was. She was off on another drug binge I’m sure. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t kill another animal again. I told myself it was wrong and it just wasn’t right for me to do something like that. I knew something wasn’t right with me. I knew I needed some sort of help, but I didn’t have a clue who to turn to and ask. I was all alone, and I had to suffer alone. But as the weeks and months passed, I killed more animals. I lost count of how many innocent animals I killed and every time after, I would cry and beg for God to fix me. I begged and pleaded with Him to make me different. To make me normal. To make the craving to do it again, and for the high I got afterward to stop. I had no idea why I was this way. I never understood any of it.”

“My begging and pleading went unanswered. No one was going to help me and I knew I either had to embrace this new darker side of myself or let it break me down. I chose to embrace it. I was a fighter, and I wasn’t ready to give up yet. The day I turned thirteen, was the day everything fell into place. Nothing else mattered after that day. I didn’t care to understand what was wrong with me. I didn’t care that it wasn’t right for a teenager to want to kill things. I just did. But on my thirteenth birthday, I killed a person. It was more of an accident, but it was all the same to me. I took someone’s life away from them and after that, well you can guess what happened after that.”

“Shortly afterwards, my mother moved us close by that motel we stayed at, the one when I told you I burned down that house. I don’t think she could take all the cops and journalists hounding her for an interview with me. The next kid I killed hit the news and she hated it. It was harder for her to use and drink. So she moved us. One night, I woke to her talking to some man. I’d heard of him before, I knew things about this man and what he did. But I never saw his face until that night. I listened to this man talk to my mother about taking me away and going to live with him. He told her he could give me a better life and show me things about myself that I didn’t understand. He told my mother that if she gave me up to him when I turned fourteen, he would make sure she had all the cocaine she could ever want. She would have all the alcohol she would ever want. I remember looking around the corner, and I saw this huge man sitting on the couch with her. He must have heard me, and he looked up at me and smiled.”

I look at Karen, knowing if I say his name everything will fall into place for her. She will know of the horrible things I have done just simply by hearing his name. I remain quiet, not wanting to say his name. I don’t want her to hate me for going to him when I did. It wasn’t like I had a choice in the matter, but I could’ve at least not wanted to go with him. I think that is what I regret the most. I wanted to go. 

“Tell me who the man was Jason. I need to know.” She says as she leans in closer to me. For a second I think she might try and touch me. But I move away. I can’t risk losing it. If she touches me I won’t be able to finish. 

I look her directly in the eyes as I say, “It was Dominic Lufrand, Karen. He was the man at my house that night. The man who was good on his word. The man that took me from my home months later and turned me into one of his greatest killers.”