I Knelt For Three Years For A Lie. Now I’m Back For Blood Chapter 02
Marcus stiffened, his body becoming a wall between me and the mouth of the alley.
Too late.
They were right there.
They looked so clean, so healthy. The sun hit them and made them look like a picture in a magazine, while I stood in the dark, smelling of rot.
Owen dropped his water bottle.
The plastic crunched, and the water splashed all over his clean boots.
I stared at those boots. I couldn’t remember the last time I wore shoes that didn’t have holes in them.
“M-Mia?”
His voice cracked as he looked at the wreckage in front of him.
Jenna grabbed the kid and pulled him behind her, staring at me like I was a stray dog that might bite.
“Mia, how did you… look at you…”
Her eyes filled with tears instantly. She always was good at crying on cue.
Nobody moved. They just stood in the light, looking at me down in the mud with nothing but suspicion.
I looked at Owen. The man I’d spent every night for three years begging God to bring back.
I thought about his funeral. The empty urn. The way I’d beaten my forehead against the tiles until I passed out.
“Owen,” I said, and the smirk felt like it was splitting my face open.
“Back at the funeral home… when I was smashing my head against the floor in front of your empty ashes… did you enjoy the show?”
Owen’s face went gray.
“Mia, I’m sorry… but Jenna’s pregnancy… she was fragile. Any stress could have killed her.”
“We didn’t mean for it to go this long. It just… it was easier this way.”
Jenna started shaking.
“Mia, it’s my fault. You can hit me. I deserve it.”
“But Leo’s only two. Please… don’t do this in front of him.”
She was using that kid as a human shield.
Marcus stepped in again, his face hardening.
“That’s enough. You’re acting like a lunatic.”
“Let’s go home and talk about this in private. Don’t make a scene.”
A scene.
I’d beaten my head against the earth for three years to atone for their ghosts, and that wasn’t a scene.
But the second I stood up and asked why—now I was the disgrace.
I looked at my brother.
I looked at his clean hands, the hands that had probably helped them pack their bags while I was bleeding in the dirt.
“Talk about what? How much it cost to bribe a coroner for those death certificates?”
Marcus flinched.
He grabbed my wrist, his thumb pressing right into a raw, half-healed sore.
The pain was sharp, but I didn’t blink.
His voice came down on me, cold and hard.
“Mia, are you really going to ruin everyone’s life just because yours is a mess?”
He leaned in close, his breath warm against my ear, a poison whisper.
“Shut up and get in the car. Don’t make me force you.”
Marcus didn’t give me a choice. He just hauled me up and threw me into the back of the SUV.
My knees cracked against the seat. Yet I didn’t even have the breath to scream. I just felt that cold, greasy sweat sliding down my neck.
Owen sat up front, staring straight ahead. He didn’t even give me a look.
Jenna climbed in next to me, clutching the kid.
She turned on the air conditioner. The car filled with three years of road salt, sweat, and dried blood. My smell.
Then she shrank into the corner, as far away as she could get.
“Mia, we’re going to the house. You need to wash up.”
Marcus watched me in the mirror. His eyes were just two hard, impatient dots.
“You look like hell. People are going to think we’ve been torturing you.”
I leaned my head against the window. The glass felt like ice against my scabs.
“Torture?”
A jagged sound escaped my throat.
“You faked their deaths, watching me bleed for three years because I thought I’d killed them.”
“How is this torture? This is a blessing.”
Owen turned around. He had that same ‘patient’ look he used to have when he was lying to my face.
“Mia, it’s done. Can we be adults for once?”
“I know you feel cheated. Name a price. Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”