Came Back Haunted (Experiment in Terror #10) - Karina Halle Page 0,91
says, his grip tightening.
I rip my arm out of his hand. “I saw your phone! I saw what you’ve been hiding from me! About my father! About my mother!” I scream that last part, not caring if anyone hears. We seem to be alone in the park so far, not that people yelling in downtown Seattle parks gets anyone’s attention. “I know it all!”
Dex’s expression collapses. Now he knows.
He displays his palms, as if that’s going to calm me down.
“Let me explain,” he says in a low voice.
“Let you explain!” I yell. “Explain what!? What?!”
He reaches for me again and I lash out like a snake, smacking his arm away with my purse. “Don’t touch me!” I snap at him.
He backs off an inch, panic running through him. “Your father told me not to tell you,” he says. “I thought I was doing what was best.”
“Tell me what, Dex?”
He takes in a deep breath through his nose, looking to the side. “He’s been seeing your mother. A lot.”
“I fucking gathered that. Why was I not supposed to know?”
He rubs his lips together, eyes now on the ground, the space between us. Then closes his eyes. “He thought…he wanted me to keep an eye on you. He said…your mother keeps saying don’t let her. He doesn’t know what it means. I don’t either. It might not even be you, it might be Ada, and—”
“Fuck you,” I sneer.
His eyes open in shock. “What?”
I can’t stop it. All this anger in me is uncontrollable, like it’s taken over me, like I was so easy to discard. I’m nothing but fire and hate and loathing and I want to take everyone around down with me.
“Fuck. You,” I say, jabbing my finger into his chest. “You’re a piece of shit, you know that? Of course you do. You knew exactly what you were doing when you decided not to tell me. Don’t let her? Don’t let me what? Go into the fucking house? Have a fucking baby? Which is it? Which fucking part is it? All this time I’ve been fucking haunted by that bitch and you’ve sat back and you’ve kept this from me. You could have told me and I would have played it safe. I wouldn’t have done anything. But you didn’t. No, you didn’t! And now look where I am!!”
I turn my back to him, trying to breathe, trying to shake out my arms that feel so coiled up and tense that it’s just adding to the terror inside me.
“I was doing what I thought was best,” he says quietly.
That does it.
The rage spikes through me like a shot and I whip around, slapping Dex right across the face with an open palm. The sound fills the air.
His eyes go wide, mouth dropping open. His hand goes to his own cheek where I hit him as he takes an unsteady step backward.
And I can’t stop what’s happening inside me, can’t stop what I need to say.
“I hate you,” I seethe at him.
He chokes on his breath, eyes wide with hurt, looking like he’s going to be sick.
Good.
“I fucking hate you,” I say again, then start walking off, the anger inside me an inferno, even though I know it isn’t true, even though I’m starting to hate myself instead. Maybe I’ve always hated myself.
But Dex doesn’t let things go easily.
And for my sake, I hope he never lets me go.
He grabs me by my wrists and spins me around, pressing me so my back is up against a tree, the bark digging into my leather jacket.
“You don’t mean that!” he cries out, his face inches from mine, eyes burning. “I know you don’t fucking mean that. You love me, Perry. You love me.”
Part of me is breaking down the middle from seeing the pain and desperation igniting his eyes, like my soul is being split into two.
The other part of me is this endless pit of anger and frustration and sorrow that I can’t keep under control. I don’t know why it has me like this, why it’s taking over, if it’s Samantha or if it’s just me, if there’s something truly fundamentally wrong with me, all this shit I thought I’d dealt with but I hadn’t, and it’s finally coming out.
I clamp my jaws together, the muscles straining and sore as I try to keep everything back, to stop hurting him, but fuck, I am so hurt myself.
“You lied to me,” I manage to say, breathing hard. “Why did you keep