Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (51 page)

Wil experiences his own rite of passage. While I crested and fell over the knife’s edge, never being able to return to what I once was, my partner is screwing my mother. Wil has lost me for good.

Those arms that hugged me and comforted me- that chest that was pressed against mine- those lips that smiled, sneered, and kissed me- those hands that touched me in violence and affection- that piece of flesh that filled me and took my innocence- Wil uses his body, the body that I wanted as mine, on my mother… and he’s blissed out and in ecstasy through every second of it. I didn’t rip those grunts of pleasure from his chest. I didn’t make his fingers and toes curl. I made him lose his erection and I made him regret his release.

“Cum with me,” my mother begs
in a seductive purr that curdles my stomach, “Cum inside me.”

I hold the need to vomit as I run, not caring who or what hears me. My mother is screwing the love of my life- my partner
- and she’s trying to make me another sibling. Wil will be yet another father of my brothers and sisters. I’d made a promise to myself that I would never have sex with anyone that Gwen or Fate touched. Did I break it? Was Wil lying to me about being a virgin? Wil said he lies to me ninety percent of the time. Was that one of those times?

Syn, don’t be a fucking idiot! The odds say yes. Yes, Wil was lying to your face. And who cares if he wasn’t. Stop thinking like a boy crazed teenage girl. You don’t meet your soulmate at fifteen. There is no such thing as a soulmate. You can never touch Wil again. Gwen has placed her mark on him and don’t you dare break your promise to yourself! Gwen taints those men, and in turn, they will taint you- just as tainted as the blood that flows in your veins.

I make it over the wall and to the base of the maple tree before I fall to my knees
and vomit- I throw up until my body is wracked with dry-heaves. Wil was right, there is no way I can look at him the same way I used to. I won’t look at him in disgust because I love Grant and Stanton. They may be twisted by the game, but they are good men and good fathers. My father was bad and good. Being Gwen’s conquest doesn’t make you evil. I have to find a way to see Wil in a different light than I want to. He isn’t my lover, partner, or friend. He is a person in my life, and I have to come to terms with the fact that he chose my mother over me- don’t they all.

My face is awash with hot
tears streaming down my cheeks… and I feel lost…

“I was about to go find
you,” Roman says, when I open the passenger door of his car. Worry is strong in his voice. “You okay, sweetling?”

“No,” I whisper as I crawl into Roman’s car and
automatically buckle the seatbelt. “I am definitely not okay,” I say in the voice of the dead. I’m just running on auto-pilot.

Roman tries to see my face
, by cupping my cheek and turning me into the light. His eyes track my features, but I shield my emotions behind an impenetrable wall of pain. When he tries to pull me into a hug, I murmur
no
. His hands nervously skate up and down my arms, even my thighs, as he looks for external injuries that do not exist, because the eye cannot see the wounds embedded inside your soul.

“Thank y
ou for taking me, but we better get going. Stanton wakes at five-thirty to shower, by six he’s checking on me. I know it sounds random, but you will be the first person he seeks.”

“Okay,” Roman sadly says as he pulls away from the curb in front of my house. All my parents are now dead or dead to me. I’m officially alone and on my own. I feel lost. But Wil is right, I will get stronger and I will persevere.

“Regina-”

“No,” Roman’s voice breaks
, as if he can sense the inner-conflict battling out inside my mind, as if I look as different as I feel. Kids my age use sex as the mark of womanhood, but I just crested a new rite of passage. Can Roman see that I just committed matricide and it irreversibly changed me? Can Roman feel my thirst to go back into that house and commit another act of matricide with a side of patricide?

“Not now, hun,
” Roman softly says as we drive out of the Gates and towards the city. I never thought I’d be happy to see the place where violence and crime thrive and are considered the norm. But that is where I now belong, isn’t it? I belong with the rest of the criminals.

“I have to. I made a deal and I always keep my word
,” unlike some people
goes without saying. “I’d rather talk about my friend than what’s going on in my head.”

“Very well,” Roman murmurs
, fingers tightening on the steering wheel as we enter thicker traffic.

“Regina is the mistress to Grant Whittenhower. They have a two-year-old son named Daniel- Niel. She’s going to college in computer programming. Someday, Regina will change the world. She’s a good mom and an even better friend. And someday, Grant Whittenhower will change your world. Be ready for it and accept it with open arms.”

I slip through Bianca’s window as the sun breaches the horizon, illuminating another new beginning. Roman is next to me on the fire escape. Chivalry isn’t dead. The guy wanted to make sure I got into the apartment undetected. Who thought you’d find kindness and comfort from a lowlife drug dealer? You can, because our professions don’t make us who we are. Our station in life or the size of our bank accounts doesn’t make us good or evil. I’ve seen true evil and it smiles out the eyes of a rich philanthropists.

I pad down the hall,
relieved to hear the sound of Stanton’s shower as if it were just an ordinary day. I strip my clothes off and throw them away, down to my bra and panties- the shoes too. It has nothing to do with the fact that it is evidence implicating me in a murder. I don’t want to ever wear anything that was in that tainted house.

I dress in girly pajama. When around the house, I dress for Bianca. A pink thermal and bottoms with rainbows are pulled over my sensitive skin. I slip between the sheets and tuck the blankets under my chin.

Numb- I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling. I’m different. I did unspeakable acts and saw others. I am different, but I feel the same. It reminds me of a birthday. You are one year older, but in reality you are only minutes older than you were when you were a year younger in age. You didn’t gain a year’s worth of experience and knowledge when the second-hand of your internal clock clicked over to a new age. That’s how I feel. I should be different, but I’m not sure I am.

“Syn?” Stanton calls
as my bedroom door cracks open. Schedules- boundaries- structure- Stanton checks on me as he always does every day. “You awake?”

I close my eyes and don’t answer him. Stan walks over and kisses my forehead
, just like an ordinary day. The feel of his fatherly lips on my skin wells tears in my eyes. By the time I will them away, he’s already gone- the crank of the elevator making its descent.

I fall into the oblivion of sleep, a place where nightmares
and dreams dwell. I spiral into a place more realistic than my daily life.

~Chapter Forty-Two~

I walk down the hallway on rubbery legs with a foggy mind. Nothing feels real. Yesterday at this time: Rex wasn’t pissed at me. Wil was still a seventeen-year-old boy who I thought cared about me. I hadn’t seen Wil- twice. Stanton wasn’t disappointed in me and I him. I hadn’t known Lara Simpson was captured. Momma was still breathing. My world was an illusion that just burst.

I need coffee before I can deal with Bianca
’s sweet innocence this morning. An hour of torturous sleep isn’t enough after the past few days.

“What are you doing here?” I question Stanton as he sits on the sof
a, watching Bianca tie her shoelaces.

“We’ll talk after the squirt is off to school,” Stanton tightly says, he’s watching me- scrutinizing me.

“Am I late?” My eyes dart to the clock on the cable box- nope, on time. I walk to the kitchen in search of coffee and a bagel. My empty stomach needs refilled so I will have something to throw up. Bile isn’t pleasant when not mixed with food.

Julio steps between me and my breakfast. The sad expression on his face makes me worry. Do they know? Is Stanton going to punish me? Is he going to call the police?
Does the monster that lurks beneath my surface show upon my face? Are they now frightened of the monster called Syn?

“What’s up, Julio? No food for me today? You’re no longer my babysitter, now you’re the food police. Am I getting fat?”
I use the sarcastic nature of a pissed off teenager to cover the tumultuous emotions simmering in my blood.

“Syn,”
Julio says as if he’s pained. “It’s best not to eat yet.”

I leave Julio
where he stands.

They know
.

T
hey know I’m a murderer.

I walk b
ack to the living room and sit in the chair opposite Stanton- who won’t meet my eyes. I drum my fingers on the armrest- waiting. I’m always waiting.

“Give your sister a kiss
goodbye. She’s not feeling well today and can’t go to work,” Stan coaxes Bianca. I receive the sloppy kiss to my cheek with good grace. I don’t wipe it off until Julio and Bianca face the elevator, which is on the move.

I stare at the doors as if I’m awaiting my persecution. With a ding, Grant is revealed. Unexpected, my face twists into a scowl. Grant looks at me like he’s never seen me before. He
doesn’t even greet Julio and Bianca as they trade places in the elevator. Grant walks to me, never taking his eyes from mine. I flinch when he crouches by my feet, bringing us eye-level.

Holding
my hands in his warm palms, Grant demands, “Talk to me.”

“What would you like to talk about?” I conversationally ask, leaning back in my chair. I need
to get away from Grant- he will break me.

“I can’t even tell when you’re lying anymore,” Stanton says, taking a position at Grant’s right. Grant’s hand is on the left armrest, Stanton’s on the right- I am affectively caged in my own chair.

Fuck!

“How did you figure it out?” I ask, not because I really care what they think, I just need to know how I left a trace so I don’t do it again in the future.

Jesus Christ, I make it sound as if I plan on doing it again… and again. It’s like when you’re a virgin, sex is a big deal. After your cherry is popped, it no longer holds the same weight. You can’t imagine ever killing someone, and once you do, it’s easier to do it again… or it could just be me.

“I had a visitor waiting for me downstairs. Mid-conversation I received an important phone call. I put two and two together,” Stan unemotionally says.

“Roman?” Note to self: always work alone. It leaves no witnesses.

“Roman was worried about you.” Stanton has an intense expression on his face, like he’s holding something back. “It seems you’ve grown on him… and you broke a huge rule. You told him Grant was coming for him.”

“I was sick of waiting,” I simply answer with a shrug. I don’t allow them to intimidate me. Stanton is for intimidation- Bad Cop. Grant is for comfort- Good Cop.

“I’m lonely and have no one to play with- and I don’
t mean sex,” I stress because I know that’s where their minds went. “I mean a conversation, a movie, taking a walk, or even committing a crime. I have no friends, Stanton. I’m dying inside.”

“So you kill someone? Did it make you feel powerful?” Stanton spits. The good cop puts a hand on the bad cop’s shoulders. Stanton is deviating from whatever plan he and Grant worked out. “Did it make you feel sick? Do you feel remorse or vindicated,” Stan growls, ignoring the painful squeeze of Grant’s hand on his shoulder.
“You can’t breathe life back into the dead if you make a mistake.”

“Honestly,” I say, having to take a fortifying breath
. “I felt proud, and now I feel at peace.” I look Stan in the eyes and then Grant. “I felt like the angel of mercy giving my mother her last wish. I never felt closer to her than I did in those final moments.”

Stanton looks like he’s dying inside- near tear
s. He falls backwards as if I dealt him a devastating blow. Stan sits on the balls of his feet and gazes at me like he’s going to be sick. I don’t look to Grant. I know they both think I just turned into a serial killer.

“Am I a sociopath?
” I calmly ask, turning my head to the side as I regard them. “I can see the question in your eyes. The answer is… no,” I firmly vow. “Do you know what Mitchell did to my mother? Did you see her body? Did you help them,” I snarl, anger building, fueling the fire in my veins.

“What?” They say as a unit.

I burst from my chair. Their arms couldn’t contain me. Stanton and Grant fall to the floor from the force of my eruption. I stand in the seat of my chair and scream at them. “There is nothing on this earth that anyone could ever do to deserve the treatment that my momma endured- the repeated rape and torture. Lara was tied to a bed in her own blood and filth, with Mitchell’s fluids on her skin. I killed her to stop the pain. She was broken inside and out. I could have released her and they would have stalked her and did it again. I could have said my goodbye and walked away, but they would have raped and killed her. I was the daughter my momma needed at the end as she begged me to kill her.”