Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 147801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Even before I told him Harper’s story.
He took me home, to his house, made me shower, and gave me a bowl of strawberries that I finished in record time.
I was hungry, or maybe empty, ravenous, gluttonous.
Since then, strawberries have become my comfort food, what I eat instead of fantasizing about blood. I told Grandpa about Harper and what David had done and that I didn’t regret it.
Not one bit.
My only regret was not doing it sooner.
I don’t even feel guilty that I’m the reason a man was erased from the face of the earth.
Grandpa just sat across from me and listened, his eyes flashing with both understanding and faint sadness.
“Why didn’t you turn me in, Grandpa?” I asked.
“Because you’re my grandson.”
“That’s all?”
“I don’t need another reason.”
“Will you tell Dad?”
“No, he’s not as fluid as me. He’ll have you diagnosed like Kill, and we all know what a shitshow that’ll be.”
“Oh. You already knew?”
“That both my grandsons are special?” He smiled and nodded.
“Is it good to be special?”
He ruffled my hair. “Of course. You’re strong and unlike any of these fools roaming the earth. My daughter was like you and I lost her. So I’m not losing any of you again. I’ll protect you from a world that doesn’t understand you.”
“Even if I kill people and feel nothing?”
“If they deserve to die, I don’t see why not.” He stood up and clutched my shoulders. “But you need to rein it in, son. Don’t get attached to the point of obsessing and then fixate about killing. I think that’s your trigger, so avoid getting too attached at all costs. You can never get caught, Gareth. None of them will understand.”
“Why not?”
“Because people like you are treated like animals. They’re abused and poked with needles. They’re probed and violated and eventually put on death row. Promise me you’ll never get caught, son.”
“I promise.”
Obviously, I failed my grandpa.
Not only did I become attached and obsess worse than all the other times, but I also got caught.
I let Kayden flow in my bloodstream, and I can’t remove all the blood. No matter how much I hit my head.
And Cassandra won’t stop laughing.
Mocking me.
And my inability to remove the obstacle.
Maybe because this time, the obstacle is me.
32
KAYDEN
Iwas born with a silver spoon hanging from my mouth.
Somehow, that spoon transformed into a blade, scraping, stabbing, and rotting my tongue.
You know, rich people’s problems.
My half-brother, Grant, never liked me. He was fourteen when I was born, and we grew up in different worlds. Jealousy was the undercurrent of his disdain, mainly because our father didn’t punish me as harshly as he did him.
Don’t get me wrong—I got my fair share of "discipline." Being kept in a well with snakes for three days, watching execution-style murders since I was seven, and undergoing poison and pain training weren’t exactly vacations.
But honestly, it was probably better than what Grant endured.
Courtesy of dear old Dad.
Harrod Davenport was the personification of a totalitarian monarch.
As the head of the prestigious Davenport family, he ruled with an iron fist.
Most people know us as pioneers in imports and exports. They think we’re just one of the four founding families of Graystone Ridge, an affluent town in the Northeast US.
But we run much, much deeper.
Like secret society deep.
The name’s Vencor—not that anyone outside the inner circle or conspiracy theorists would know.
The founding families—Davenport, Callahan, Armstrong, and Osborn—are Vencor’s Founder members. We don’t just manipulate power; we redefine it. Maximizing profit, planting politicians, reshaping society’s fabric—we’ve been doing it for generations.
From a young age, I was primed for my role within Vencor. Harrod made sure of that, subjecting me to every initiation and trial to prove my worth. Physical and psychological pain were just part of the curriculum.
If I died, well, that was that.
In our families, weakness is a death sentence. Offspring either prove their worth or get discarded like trash.
But I didn’t die.
I had plans.
Lots of them.
And, truth be told, I had an easier ride than Grant.
Harrod held him to a higher standard, and failure wasn’t tolerated. I watched as he broke both of Grant’s legs for planning to elope with his college sweetheart.
Then Harrod killed the girl.
One shot. Point-blank. Her brains splattered onto a kneeling Grant.
I was seven. And I had to watch.
To learn.
To never become a failure like my brother.
Something inside Grant died that day. His soul, maybe. His humanity. I don’t know what exactly, but it turned him into something unrecognizable.
He’d already been through hell—finding his mother hanging from the ceiling at thirteen—and now the love of his life was taken from him in the cruelest way imaginable.
The tragedy of it all must’ve been so bad that he just…turned the switch off.
Abuse has a way of breaking people. Some escape it through death, like Grant’s mom. Some run, like my mom. And others become the very thing they despise.