Bury Me(54)

He chuckles to himself as he relives his kills, his explanation sounding more like a simple chat about the weather than about taking lives. I have so many questions, so much more I want to know. Did he stare into their eyes as they died and smile when they took their last breath? Did he sleep soundly that night because the thoughts in his head had finally been quieted? Did the first pound of the hammer into his father’s skull sound like music to his ears, music that he still hears to this day?

“Tanner was a fool for thinking that keeping me away would stop what was inside of you,” Tobias says with a smile. “I see it in your eyes, little girl. I can feel it in the air. You like the way it makes you feel, don’t you? You need it just to breathe, and you want it just to feel alive.”

My heart beats faster with every word he says, and my head nods slowly in response.

“Don’t fight it, girl. Fighting it will only make it worse. Let it live and breathe inside of you until you can’t hold it in any longer.”

I feel the corner of my mouth tipping up into a smile, matching the one currently on the man seated across from me. My father, the cold-blooded killer.

The door suddenly opens behind Tobias, and the guard rushes back in and pulls him up from the chair. I’m not ready for our visit to be over, and I want to pound on the glass, beg the guard not to take him away. I need his voice. I need his words. I need to savor this feeling of belonging.

“You have my eyes,” Tobias suddenly tells me right before the phone is snatched from his hand and slammed down onto the receiver.

I keep the phone pressed to my ear and watch him dragged away. Smiling, he stares at me over his shoulder the entire way, until he disappears from sight.

Slowly lowering the phone and hanging it up, I rise from my chair and walk wordlessly away from the booth. I hear the scrape of Nolan’s chair against the tile, and he rushes to catch up with me as the guard standing next to the door holds it open for us.

“What did he say? Did he confirm that he’s your real father?” Nolan asks as I walk in a daze down the long hallway, back the way we came earlier.

“His eyes gave me chills. They were so cold and dead,” he adds, grabbing the keys from the guard we left them with and moving on.

We drop our badges onto the front desk and head outside where the rain continues to fall. Running to the car, Nolan quickly opens my door and I wipe the wetness from my face when I get inside.

“My name is Ravenna Duskin. I’m eighteen years old, I live in a prison, and I have my father’s eyes.”





Chapter 19





Nolan dropped me off at Gallow’s Hill with a promise to come back once he checked on his mother. I’m happy for the solitude after an hour of him asking me every few minutes if I was okay. Am I okay knowing my real father is a psychotic killer with no remorse for what he did? Am I okay knowing my parents lied to me about who my father is? Am I okay that I suddenly feel normal, like the things I feel and think make sense and have a purpose?

I’m more than okay. I’m giddy with excitement and wish I’d had more time with Tobias. He saw something in me. Something I’ve kept hidden, but that is such a huge part of who I am that I’m choking with the need to talk to someone about it, someone who could listen without judgment. Someone who could understand.

I told Nolan I was fine and just needed time to process things, but I’d already processed them the moment Tobias opened his mouth, and I heard his voice. Now I have a reason for never feeling like I fit in with my average, boring family, other than the clothes, the hair, and the constant perfection. I have Tobias Duskin’s blood flowing through my veins, and it all makes sense now.

Kicking aside one of the empty bottles of whiskey that still litter the floor outside my father’s office, I walk into the spare bedroom, stopping at the edge of the bed. Lying in the middle, folded in half is a single piece of paper I don’t remember being there earlier.

Snatching up he paper, I flop down on the bed and unfold it above me, resting my head on a pillow. The handwriting is immediately recognizable, and I realize it’s one of the ripped-out pages from my journal.

I rush to read the words, once again feeling like I’m seeing them for the first time, having no memory of thinking them or writing them down.

It’s been two weeks of this nonsense, and I’ve had enough. Not only was my life flipped upside down when finding out my parents had lied to me all these years, now I have to face the product of their dishonesty everywhere I turn. I don’t understand the constant questions about my daily life, my family, and the prison. So many questions that I feel as if I’m going insane, reliving everything from the last eighteen years.