Crossing my arms, I leaned back in the chair, further extracting myself from the conversation. I had no fucking clue how this would go. I would be there if Pim needed me but I wouldn’t dishonour her by stepping in before she asked.
“You owe me nothing.” Her mother curled her upper lip with disdain. “It was me. All me.”
Pim stiffened, toxic questions spilling from her lips. “You mean...you did have something to do with my abduction?”
Sonja Blythe’s eyes widened in horror. “No! What? No, not at all. I only meant I wasn’t a mother to you.” Her voice lowered. “Min, you have no idea how often I wish I could go back and do it all over again. Be a better mother. When I thought you were gone...well, I wanted to kill everyone I’d ever put before you. Every appointment I took when I should’ve taken you to school. Every session I booked when I should’ve taken you to dance practice.”
Her shoulders caved as her face turned haggard with confession. “I was a teacher, coach, and headmistress when I should’ve just been your mum. I dragged you out to functions and forced you to act as my eyes and ears and tell me what you saw. You didn’t want to be there—not for the long hours I commanded. I knew that. I knew keeping you out late ruined your concentration at school the next day. I knew teaching you how to see things people wanted to keep hidden would make you an outcast at school, yet I did it anyway.”
Pim’s posture softened a little, still unable to accept. “So you killed to make up for your mistakes? You did it to ease your conscience?”
Her mother’s eyes glassed again. “You know...I’ve asked myself that same question. I really studied myself. I searched and searched to see if I was as heartless as I felt. But I can safely say, on my life and yours, I killed because that bastard stole you. I killed because no one else had a right to you but me. I killed because you were all I had left of your father, and I screwed up. I killed because he hurt my baby almost as much as I’d hurt her and stolen any chance for me to make it right.”
Silence fell like rain, sizzling on the table-top while wounds were licked and truths were accepted.
“You didn’t screw up,” Pim finally muttered. “We were just different people.”
“Other daughters are different from their mothers, and they didn’t get sold or hurt.” Sonja swiped at her eyes, smearing tears over thin cheeks. “Other mothers are different, but at least they put their child’s well-being first.”
Pim smiled sadly. “You did, though. You never stopped hunting for me. You killed for me.”
“I would’ve burned the entire world to the ground for you.” She growled, sounding every bit a feral inmate.
I could understand why Pim struggled to see the caring parent in her mother. She spoke of avenging her daughter’s disappearance but with a righteousness born from an egotistical pompousness of getting her own back. She killed for her daughter—no denying that sacrifice—but she did it for her own satisfaction, too.
She did it to shout that no one could take what was hers and not suffer the consequences.
She was ruthless.
She was coldblooded as well as hot.
But there was also no denying she loved Pimlico with everything born of tragedy and regret, and now it shone brighter than the other parts of her.
She’d redeemed herself. And now it was up to Pim to recognise and judge if it was enough.
Pim leaned back a little, studying her mother. I had the strangest sensation that our thoughts were in sync—that she’d come to the same conclusion I had and mulled over such things.
Slowly, she leaned forward and placed her hands on the table, waiting for her mother to link fingers. The moment they touched, Pim spilled, “I’m going to tell you the truth because you deserve that. I’m going to be honest because that’s what you always demanded from me. And I’m going to be indifferent because that’s what you said a good psychologist must be to truly see the truth.”
My heart stopped beating, my eyes snapping onto her.
Was I prepared to be privy to this? What if Pim had forgotten that I might not be contributing but I still had ears—still heard things she might not want me to know?
But before I could stand and excuse myself, she sucked in a breath, looked at the ceiling for fortification, and visibly shuddered. When she spoke again, her voice was cool but passionate, lecturing but fragile. “He killed me only metres away from you, mother. He asked me to dance, and I went with him. Do you know why? Because you were the one to tell me not to judge others on appearances. That first impressions were often wrong and to grant him a piece of myself even though my instincts were screaming at me to run. He took me outside. He stole my Minnie Mouse watch. He wrapped his hands around my throat.”
My legs bunched with fury.
I wanted to fucking gut him.
Pim continued in her colourless narration. “I don’t know why he did what he did, and I won’t guess. Was it purely for money? Was it because of your need to crack open the minds of murderers and rapists? Was it because I liked to dawdle on the way to school and attracted the attention of someone I shouldn’t? We’ll never know, and no one is to blame.
“When he revived me—brought me back from the dead with his lips on mine and his rancid breath in my lungs and told me of my fate—I hated you. When he dangled Daddy’s watch and told me he’d keep it for safe keeping, I cursed you. When I was imprisoned in a hotel waiting to be sold, I screamed for you. And when I was auctioned off like a piece of meat and that bastard Alrik flew me to his home and stole my virginity, I cried for you. I cried for me. I cried for everything that’d been stolen because I knew no matter what happened from that point on, we could never be the same.”
Tears spilled down Pim’s face, but she didn’t cry. It was as if her soul purged everything in that moment but didn’t affect her outwardly. She was stronger than I’d ever seen and more broken than I could stand.
My heart thundered to see her torn between so many different things.
I wanted to slay every memory and erase every pain.
I struggled to stay in my chair and not scoop her into my arms and kiss her, make love to her, do whatever it took to take her thoughts somewhere else.
Anywhere but here.
This wasn’t what I had in mind when I arranged for her to see her mother.
I hadn’t meant her to slice deep and carve out the blackness still suffocating inside.
Fuck!
Pim bowed her head for a long moment, her breathing harsh and tortured; when she looked back to her mother, she whispered, “For two very long years, I will admit I cast a lot of my hurt and pain onto you. I wrote letters. So many letters. I purged my thoughts and fears—just like you taught me in one of our many lessons about being the master over our emotions. I made the choice that no matter how much he hurt me, I would never speak a word to him. I lived in silence, Mother. I endured every one of his beatings and rapes. I let him break me, brutalise me, all the while screaming at me to speak to him. And not once did I do what he asked.”