“No. She loved me. I fuckin’ loved her.”
“I know you did. But she blinded you. The signs were there. We just never saw it, until it was too late.”
Numerous times she’d appeared out of nowhere, her cheeks flushed, dress and hair in disarray. I’d thought she was blushing because she’d seen me. That she’d been hurrying to greet me. I’d thought it was sweet that she was nervous around me.
No. She hated Ulrich—she told me she didn’t trust him—that he looked at her weird. Could it all be a lie?
I shook my head. “No. He tortured her. I heard her screams.” But without the rage filtering through me, I saw the truth. Ulrich never tortured her in front of me. All I heard were her screams. If Ulrich wanted to make me suffer, why hadn’t he tortured her in front of me?
“Tell me the rest,” I said to Tye. Rayne was right, I had to hear this whether I wanted to or not.
Tye smoothed out his shirt and winced when his palm touched where I’d held him against the wall. “We thought you were dead. Ulrich and Gemma played it so well, the remorse, the tears. I’m a Taster and I could taste sorrow all over Gemma. Found out later that they’d killed Gemma’s mother so she’d feel sorrow and we wouldn’t pick up that it wasn’t you she was sad about. Ulrich, being a Reflector, could take on any emotion, so there was no way to tell.
“A few weeks after you disappeared, Gemma asked to be taken to where Ulrich found your horse’s body and where he said you were thrown over the cliff. Ulrich was the only one to know where it occurred, so he was the logical choice to take Gemma.”
“While I was being tortured in some hellhole.”
Tye nodded. “None of us trusted Ulrich, so I followed them, to make certain she was okay.” I jerked at the knowledge. He had? Fuck, I’d hated Tye for so long. Blamed him for Gemma being killed. “That’s when I saw them. They were laughing, and then, fuck man, he kissed her. Ulrich must have heard me. He was a Reflector, so he probably felt how fuckin’ pissed off I was. Gemma—” he raised his shirt and I saw a small scar just below his left pectoral, “—threw a knife at me. It went right through my chest. I fell and knew they’d be on me any second. They couldn’t risk leaving me alive, so I slowed my heartbeat. Your brother stabbed me again in the abdomen then hid my scent by dousing me in horse shit. My horse saved my life. It galloped home and they sent a search party to find me.
“When Ulrich heard I was alive, he and Gemma took off. We didn’t know if he’d lied about your death, and we weren’t taking the chance. So we contacted Scars everywhere and we began our search for you.” Tye bowed his head and said quietly, “We found Gemma’s body about a year after they ran off.”
Fuck. Gemma screamed for weeks then nothing. But after a month or two, the screaming started up again. Ulrich taunted me with her supposed torture. After a while, it ended again.
“Even Waleron couldn’t control you long enough to make you listen once you escaped.”
He’d put me in Deep Sleep twice and Rest once. After ten years of torture, just mentioning her name or Ulrich’s sent me into a wild rage.
Tye continued, “None of us wanted to have to kill you just to force you to listen. So we decided to let it be, that maybe it was better you believed Gemma loved you.”
I’d been crazed when I finally escaped Ulrich. Destructive. Alone and filled with hatred and loss. Mourning Gemma. I spent so many years mourning that bitch.
“Jesus, Kilter, I’m sorry. I don’t know if it’s better you know the truth or not, but it’s the truth. We never abandoned you. You were our strength in the Talde.” Tye shook his head and headed for the stairs. He paused, hand on the railing. “We fuckin’ loved you, man.”
I WAS SHOCKED. AND hurt. Hurt because of Kilter’s pain. Being abandoned by those he’d protected for years. He thought they’d left him to die while his brother tortured him for years. Then believing that the woman he loved had suffered a horrible death.
God, no wonder why Kilter was so crass. Why he mistrusted. Everyone he cared about had betrayed him. His brother, the woman he loved, and he thought the Scars, his friends.
It was at this moment I knew I loved him, not because I pitied him, but because I understood him. I found the piece of Kilter that had been broken off. Fragmented. The piece that cut so deep that he’d been unable to repair.
But his past—my past—that made up who we were now. We were both broken in different ways by those we trusted. But it’s what brought us together.
I laid my cheek on his chest and traced the tatts running down his arm with the tip of my finger. “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t much, but there were no other words, and Kilter wouldn’t want anything more.
“Yeah. Me, too,” he replied quietly. He rested his chin on the top of my head and his arm snaked around my back, holding me close.
It had been a long time since I’d used my ability, and I’d never planned to use it again. But seeing Kilter holding Tye up against the wall, the rage so intense, I felt it like a suffocating fog in the air. It had been overpowering, and the pain ran so deep that he couldn’t even see clearly.
As soon as I touched him, his emotions hit me all at once in brilliant colors, but there was no beauty in it. It was violent, like a rainbow set in flames. I’d never been so overwhelmed by such intense emotions before, and I’d been uncertain if I’d be able to calm him.