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“I taught you.”

The rage that comes after that is so violent I barely recognize it as mine. “You fucking destroyed me!”

My entire body is trembling now. I want to tear his face apart, I want to vomit. I want to wake up…I want my mom.

And then he says something that makes the world tilt all over again.

“You know, my son was always so fond of you. Ethan did talk about you the moment he met you at school. Raven hair.”

His son?

“Ethan wanted me to stop for years,” he continued, almost amused.

Ethan. Ethan ?

Ethan…Ethan…My friend.

“He spent a long time pretending he’s different from me. But you know what they say about blood.”

I can’t breathe.

“He’s just as sick as I am,” he adds, as the lights go out. “I thought he’d tell you eventually. I guess he didn’t. Did he play with you too? Because he loved to watch.”

A large projector hums to life in front of me. and suddenly a white flash booms onto the concrete wall. I don’t know what I’m looking at. Then there’s a girl, alive, terrified. Then another one, a woman crying as a person strangles her. Then another one again.

Different faces, different places, same camera angle, same pain.

“No…Stop this,” I say, voice breaking.

But it doesn't stop. The footage keeps changing. Chains around a woman’s neck. Someone is crying. A voice begging for someone to stop. Then another recording again.

I squeeze my eyes shut, yelling over and over again, “Turn it off.”

He doesn’t.

“Turn it fucking off!”

Nothing.

The images keep coming. A lot older. This time she’s drunk, saying incoherent things as he forces her to do something.

The next one appears. I know this room. My dorm. My bed. My own body curled beneath the blanket. I’m asleep. The image changes again. Another night. I’m crying in my sleep, and someone is touching me. Him.

I want to throw up.

The next one appears, the academy, then the rooftop, the classroom…My heart stops. Then I see him. Damien. His hands on me, his mouth against mine, and I can see the way I look at him afterward. The complete absence of fear.

“Your dad… your dad knew and he didn’t care, Raven hair,” he starts. “Because your mother was just like you, broken and scared. And she was easy to manipulate. One mistake was all it took for your father to see her in you and hate you for her own actions.”

Die. Die. Die.

“You realize how easy it was to torment you? To watch you exist and destroy every moment of joy because you, my beautiful pristine Raven hair, let another man have you.”

Die. Die. Die.

“Mister Porter, my son, your father, no one cared enough to stop us from meeting every fucking day of your life. And you had no clue…”

Die. Fast. Die. Now.