“What did they make you do?” The drastic change in subject didn’t go unnoticed. Parents were a sore spot for her though she cared enough to hide her pain.

Just like her parents were a taboo topic for her, talking about my days of enslavement was or should have been forbidden. After spending time in my father’s company, I felt like I owed her at least a condensed explanation. I would never be able to bare myself enough to reveal everything. Besides, after today, I was letting her go.

“I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.” I ignored the increasing pain in my chest. No amount of mental preparation could make what I had to do any easier. “I made my first kill for them when I was six.”

“How? You were so young.”

She stared at me in disbelief. I wasn’t surprised by her reaction. No one was willing to believe in anything other than the perfect image of innocence that children projected, but with the right conditioning… anything was possible. After all, ignorance is a person’s greatest enemy. It makes you weak and vulnerable, but it’s better received than knowing because no one wants to allow the darkness of the world to enter their lives. So, instead, they choose to ignore what’s happening right in front of them.

“It’s amazing what you’re willing to do when you’re starving and don’t know a way out. They used anything they could in order to control us. Before long, I stopped noticing the hunger pains or thirst, and the scars healed before I knew they were even there.”

The way I grew up those first eight years put a new meaning to the idea of a privileged lifestyle. Compared to what I endured, kids on the streets near our homes were considered privileged.

I could see the questions in her eyes along with the pity, but thankfully, she didn’t interrupt. “They started me off small. First, it was other kids they wanted me to punish until I made my way up to adults. After two years of training to be a murderer, I became one of their best students. I was a fucking eight-year-old kid. I stopped thinking, and I stopped feeling. It kept me alive.”

“That isn’t living,” she argued.

“How would you know?”

My defenses went up at the look in her eyes and the way she spoke those words. She was judging my choice to live rather than die. Sometimes I wondered why I didn’t give up. Was it hope for a life that I’d never known, but only heard of from the others that kept me going?

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I could only nod and continue. Looking at her standing there, I could picture Lily. Always Lily. Lake was her ghost and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t disconnect them.

“She came in the middle of the night like a bad fucking dream.” I stared at her, imprinting her to memory as I recounted the night my fate was sealed. “Just like you, except you were much more real. I spent weeks ignoring her while they beat her endlessly. She was so small and so innocent. I thought she was weak when she wouldn’t do what she needed to survive. One day, I guess the hunger overrode her fear. One of the runners caught her digging through the trash for food and he beat her. He beat her so badly that day, I finally did something I shouldn’t have.”

“What did you do?”

“I stopped him from caving her head in with the heel of his boot as if she was nothing.” I shook my head to escape from being trapped in the too real memory. “Two years of work went down the drain because of one wrong move. I still didn’t regret it, at least not at first. She clung to me after that and looked to me as her protector. Every day I took her beatings and mine and often, I was too weak to make any kills so they became crueler. I began to hate her after a while. I blamed her for making me weak again even though all she wanted me to do was care about her. I didn’t want to care so I don’t know why I helped her. I just did.”

I was sitting down at a desk before I realized I had even moved. I dug my fingers in my fist for the pain—to remind myself that I was alive.

“What happened to her?”

“One day after a run, they told me I had a job to do, one that would cost me my life if I didn’t do it. What they didn’t know was I didn’t care if I lived or died, but I accepted anyway. They took me to a room I’d never seen before. Lily was there, waiting. She was naked and crying, and I saw the bruises and gashes all over her body.”

“Why was she naked?”

“They wanted me to—we had—they wanted me to fuck her for some sick fantasy a lot of sick, old fucks were paying a shit load of money to get on camera.”

“Oh, God, Keiran…”

I didn’t let her finish. I rushed through so I wouldn’t have to hear her words of pity. I didn’t need another reminder of what I almost became wasn’t supposed to happen. “She looked so broken, and I could tell she had nothing left. I couldn’t do it. Out of all the jobs and people I’d hurt, this was something I couldn’t do. That’s why I was relieved when she asked me to do it.”

“Do what?”

“To save her.”

“But you were in danger, too.”

I finally met her eyes. “I didn’t care what happened to me.”

“How could you have saved her?”

“The only way that mattered.” The horrified look in her eyes told me I wouldn’t have to explain.

“I took away her pain, and I took away her fear. I went to her, and I laid her down and closed her eyes. In that space of time, I tried to find another way, but in the end, I kept coming back to the same answer.”

“You were only a child.”

“I was never a child, Lake. For ten years, my decision has haunted me. When I saw you for the first time, I thought you were Lily, and then I thought I was hallucinating. You looked just like her. But when I finally realized it wasn’t her, I knew I was being punished. You reminded me so much of her.” I couldn’t stop myself from asking my next question. It didn’t matter how much it exposed me. “Are you here to punish me?”

“I never wanted to punish you, Keiran.” I didn’t miss the look of surprise that flashed over her features.

“I think I was punishing myself and looking for someone to blame.” That was only partly true, but how did I tell her I had punished her because of a ghost?

“Did you love her?”

What the hell?

“No.”

It took everything in me not to scream my denial. What I felt for Lily was the need to protect the small light I had in my dark, dark world. What I felt for Lake was… indescribable but I knew without having to define it that it was dangerous.

“Because you don’t believe in love?”

Wrong. It was because someone like me would never be capable of love, but still I asked, “Would you?”

“How did your father get you back?” she asked instead. “Wouldn’t they have killed you when you ruined their plans?”

“I wasn’t killed for disobeying them by a stroke of luck named Mario. It seems his only vice was child prostitution and pornography. He saved me from being killed and severed his business ties with his partner shortly after. However, not before leaving me a way to contact him if I ever needed anything or, more so, if I ever wanted to work for him. I didn’t fool myself to think he cared.”

“And your father?”

“A couple of weeks after Lily died, I was snuck from the compound by one of the runners my father had in his pocket.” It just went to show anyone could be bought for even the smallest of prices. If my father was broke, then I knew what he paid the runner was next to nothing.

“I was with Mitch for a week before Sophia showed up, though. I didn’t know who she was—not at first. He told me who he was right away. I didn’t know who she was until after she died.”

“Did you really kill her?”

“Yes.” I watched the hope die in her eyes and gritted my teeth. She wasn’t supposed to have any expectations of me. I am still the monster hiding under her bed.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Because she was innocent.”