I had only one guess as to who called them.

“ My girl, Keenan.”

“My mother, brother .”

It was the last words I would speak to him for a long time.

* * * * *

I should have left town when I walked out of that house and away from my only family, but I was hell bent on a course to wreak havoc, which is how I ended up in Sheldon’s bedroom. “Keenan, why are you doing this? This isn’t you!”

“Yeah?” I stared down at her body splayed out for me as an offering I had just recently finished devouring. “You think you know me?”

“What?” She looked around disorientated. “Of course, I do,” she whispered softly. I didn’t like the way she gazed up at me with love in her eyes.

Her love was a lie.

Love was just that.

A lie.

“But you don’t know me. You never did.” She tried to lift up, but the belt wrapped around her neck and tied to the rails of her headboard stopped her movements. “I watched him do this to her one night.”

“What?” I ignored the confusion in her eyes and continued.

“I wanted to see what he was doing to her. I wasn’t looking for pleasure. I was curious. Just me trying to be a good guy. I actually thought I might have been willing to protect her if need be because she couldn’t protect herself. But then she fucking took him. She actually decided to be with him thinking he could change, but he won’t and she won’t realize it until it’s too late. She’s already trapped.”

I knew I sounded like a crazy person rambling, but anyone with eyes and a brain would know it was true. Keiran was not only dangerous. He was possessive, too.

“Keenan, please let me go.”

“I always wondered what kind of desire he could get from someone he claimed to hate. Now I fucking know.” The slump in her shoulders and the way her eyes rounded told me she knew exactly who I hated.

“You hate me?”

“What I feel for you goes far beyond hate. I needed you, Shelly, and you turned your back on me just like she did.”

“I am not your mother, Keenan!”

“Oh, I know that. The difference between you and her was that I actually believed you loved me.”

“I do!” she cried out and struggled against her bonds.

I gritted my teeth. My internal fight was threatening to surface. I needed to stay levelheaded. “Then prove it.”

“How?”

“Run away with me.”

Son of a bitch… That wasn’t what I was supposed to say, but I wasn’t going to take the words back either. With each second that passed, and the fear growing in her eyes, the idea began to sound better and better.

“What?”

“You’re either going to run with me or run from me. Make your choice.”

I held my breath and kept what I hoped was a blank expression while my stomach twisted to the point of pain. I couldn’t put a word on what I was feeling.

“I do love you.”

Hope. That’s what I felt. I was glad I could still feel at all.

“So you’ll come with me then?”

That was until she took it away.

“No, Keenan. I won’t.”

* * * * *

The one person who could make me stay or who could make me feel whole again—if I ever was—turned me away. There was no way I could stay. She wanted to be free, and I would let her, but not before I made her a promise.

If I ever returned—if I ever saw her again—I would keep her—and I would make her sorry.

I risked coming back to my father’s house because there was one thing I couldn’t leave without. I had made it to the landing before I heard the lowered voices. My footsteps lightened as I crept closer to the bedroom door left slightly ajar.

“I know you’re pissed, but you can’t give up on him. He needs you now more than ever.”

“Keenan is capable of taking care of himself. He had no issues helping himself to you a few hours ago.”

“Do you really think that was about me? He’s fucked up right now, but he wouldn’t go that far. He wouldn’t hurt you like that no matter how much he thinks he wants to. He thinks you’re choosing me over him.”

“What if I am? He’s made his feelings about me clear.”

“Just like you made your feelings clear for me all these years? But even then, you still felt something for me.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you were good at running and you ran because you were confused.”