If she doesn’t stop acting like this, she will get eaten alive by people far worse than the two boys, who are probably still crying over a bit of pain.
But she doesn’t look away; with each bite, the light in her eyes only grows brighter. That look… I’ve never seen that look before. At least not when I’m involved.
And I don’t know if I like it.
It’s weird.
I clear my throat to end the silence as I bounce my foot. “Roman.”
Her little forehead wrinkles. “Huh?”
“My name.”
She blinks. “Oh.” Does this girl ever say more than a few words? What is wrong with her? She clears her throat and frowns at the ground between us as she says, “Woahman.”
“What? No. Roman.”
She sucks her bottom lip and hides part of her face behind a pigtail. “Woah-man.”
“No, it’s—" I snap my mouth shut.
What did Ugly and Skinny tell her to say yesterday? Raspberry…? The angry beast—the same one that Margaret is always telling me I need to learn to control—rears its head.
Those dickwads.
“It doesn’t matter.” I try to save her from feeling bad. “I don’t like the name anyway.”
She looks back up at me, almond-shaped eyes glossed over, and I want to yell at myself for making them that way.
In her sweet voice, she says, “I do.”
“Why?”
I’ve never liked my name. No one has ever said it with any sort of love or care. It’s thrown around like some kind of insult.
The book she was reading flips to the cover page, where there are twelve drawings of different men and women with golden leaves around their heads and what look like white sheets wrapped around their bodies.
A tiny finger points to one of the men whose eyes are narrowed, covered in armor with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. “He looks like a Woahman, just like you.”
“It says his name is Ares.”
She nods thoughtfully. “But he looks like a Roman.” The ‘R’ still comes out as a ‘W.’
“It says he’s the God of War.”
Brown eyes peer at the writing, and her mouth moves like she’s sounding out the word. I don’t think she knows what it means.
I shrug. “Still don’t like it.”
She twists her lips, looking around our nook like she might find a response somewhere. Her attention lands on her toy, and I practically see the lightbulb go off in her head.
“How about Mickey?”
My lips twist into a scowl. “Are you calling me a rat?”
The hold she has on me the second she laughs is immediate. I’ve never heard anything like it. There’s joy in there, but something more. It’s like the feeling I have when I finally have a meal or when the sounds in my head stop.
“No, silly. He’s a mouse. You can be Mickey, and I can be Minnie.” She sighs in wonder as she hugs the decrepit thing to her chest. “Mouses are my favorite.”
Mice, I think.
It’s fitting for her.
“What if I don’t want to call you Minnie? What can I call you then?”
The look that flushes her face is worse than getting kicked in the balls. I’ve disappointed her. I’m not sure why.
She chews her lip. “Isabella. But everyone calls me Isa.”
Her name triggers some distant memory. “I’ll call you Bella.” Because she’s the only person I’ve ever met who deserves to be called pretty. Even with her messed up hair and inside-out ripped t-shirt.
“But—"
I stop her before she tries to protest. “I like Bella.”
Her smile is bright enough to stop the sun, and with it, maybe even my plans of escaping this place.
Chapter 3
ISABELLA
Present
Roman pulls away once the bleary haze takes root in my bones, numbing me to my thoughts.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Where would I go? I wasn’t the one who left in the first place. I’m still caught in the web of our making, stuck under a roof where every breath feels like it could be used against me.
I barely register the feel of his lips pressed against my forehead before he leaves. I hardly hear the slap of boots hitting wood, leaving me to stare blankly at the line of scarlet splatter on the flyers stuck to the fridge.
It’s hard to think the fridge containing leftover dinner is in the same room as the man slaughtered by my childhood love. It doesn’t match the purge mask sitting in a pool of blood on the table, right next to yesterday’s newspaper, Millie’s cross-stitch supplies, and Greg’s severed fingers.
The dishes drying on the rack don't match the body hanging from the beam in the living room. Mundane things surrounded by broken parts, which are all out of place. It’s just like my hollow heart.
There was never any hope in this house. No one here saw a future beyond these walls, or the hardware store Greg and Millie own—owned.
Marcus was always meant to suffer because of his own sick desires. Greg was always meant to die facing the consequences of his actions, whether drinking or sitting idle. And me? I was always meant to be broken by the boy who put me together.
It’s funny how life turns out.
Roman could hurt me a thousand ways, and he wouldn’t need to lay a hand on me; a single word, and I would be done for. The sight of his back as he walks away would be enough, and nothing would put me back together.
All the broken shards that made up my being would catch in the wind, and I’d never be complete. Not that I ever was. But he made me feel like I could have been one day.
Frantic movements pull me from the darkness, and it takes more energy than it should to turn my attention to Marcus, who’s wriggling and shuddering helplessly. I assume he knows how tonight will end.
The last meal he ate will be the overcooked chicken I prepared. The last person to lay their hands on him will be who I thought was my other half. But the last face he sees will be mine.
Little Isa.
Pretty Isabella.
Or his personal favorite: fucking slut.
His eyes plead with me as he cries, probably praying I will be the angel sent from above to save him. He’s right about one thing: I am an angel. But I wasn’t sent, I fell. I descended through the sky with burning wings, landing outside Eden in the land writhing with serpents. Because Roman pushed me out.
I don’t realize I’ve started walking until I’m in front of him, slowly tearing the tape so he feels every bit of it.
The second his thin lips are free, he gasps for air like it’s his first time breathing. “Isa, pl—you’ve gotta help me. You’ve gotta—he’s a fucking lunatic.” He blinks fast, swinging his petrified gaze between me, the stairs, and the knife block on the kitchen bench. I keep my eyes on his face, ignoring the blood draining from the hole where his appendage used to be and the liquid clumping in his bloodied chest hair. “There—the knife. Cut—"
“Did I look this pathetic?” I ask, emotionlessly.
Like a child sniffling as the tears mixed with sweat and snot? Was this me? Did I look so deserving of the torment too? Wide, innocent eyes so full of delusion that I thought someone might actually come to save me.
“What are you talking about? Just get the fucking—"
“No.”
Mouth agape, he pauses. “What did you just fuck—"
“Shut the fuck up,” I spit.
His eyes widen, and his face loses its color.