Although her head was downturned, it failed to hide the twinge of uncertainty coursing through the tense set of Megan’s body. She was struggling to gather herself enough to tell me about her past.

When she lifted her head to meet my gaze, she couldn’t hide the deep well of pain that lingered in her eyes and snatched at her rigid body. She released my hand and gripped her own. Her right hand gripped her left hand tight enough that dark green veins protruded at the back of her hand, straining to break through the skin.

“My caseworker placed me into the home of Carlos and Marina Dominquez. Carlos’ nephew, David, lived there as well. I lived there for a month before my own personal hell broke loose. They seemed like nice enough people. They didn’t beat on me and told me they liked that I was quiet and not a bit of trouble for a pre-teen. I was twelve going on twenty in street age and in life. I knew how to cook for myself. I had no trouble getting myself up and to and from school. I knew who I should and shouldn’t hang out with. As a product of the foster care system, I’d witnessed all manner of crime and violence. I’d quickly learned how to stay invisible and out of the way, but more importantly, I’d learned how to gather information, how to plan, and analyze.”

A crease lined my forehead as I listened to Megan start her story. The foster parents’ last name was ringing a bell for some reason, but I quieted my mind and continued to listen.

“I’d just started to settle in and assumed that everything would be okay when my foster father walked into my room one night and climbed into bed with me. Before I could get away, he pulled me against him. I fought him. I yelled, kicked, and screamed for help, but my foster mother and brother never came.”

Her head fell to her chest as she rung her hands, the memories obviously hard for her to talk about. She inched her words out robotically, like saying them normally might be too much. Like if her emotions merged with the words she spoke, it would break a dam that had taken years for her to build.

“The more I fought, the more Carlos liked it. He laughed through my struggling and took my innocence like it was nothing. When I finally got around to pulling myself from under the covers, I grabbed whatever clothes I could and ran out of that house with hair all over my head, crooked clothes, and no shoes. I looked every bit as crazy as people likely assumed I was.”

No wonder she was all messed up in the head. I wanted to comfort Megan, but she seemed to want to get this story off her chest more than she needed my comfort or pity, so I sat and listened.

“My foster parents called the police after I’d been out and on the streets for three days. I didn’t care how I lived. I had no intention of ever returning to that house. But, they told the cops that I was an out of control pre-teen that had run away because they refused to let me out of the house to go and see my nineteen-year-old boyfriend. It was all a lie they’d fabricated to take suspicion off my foster father and paint me as the bad girl. When the cops found me, I couldn’t even speak up for myself to tell them what had happened to me.”

Megan cleared her throat and closed her eyes for a silent moment. Her past was what was haunting her, to the point where she’d lost track of her mind for a moment.

“When the cops dragged me back into that house kicking and screaming, they asked my foster parents to explain the bruises all over me.”

Megan’s sad eyes lifted and stared into mine once more. The depth of her sorrow touched me and left me uncharacteristically speechless.

“They knew how to lie well. They claimed I’d bruised myself and threatened them with the idea that I’d pin it on them if they told the cops what I was up to. It should have been clear to the cops that I was in some type of shock, but people see what they want to see. For all the lies my foster parents told, I never said a word to defend myself because I believed it wouldn’t do a bit of good. I was in such mental anguish over being raped that my mind wouldn’t or couldn’t think past it. It seemed the only way to keep my anger at what I felt towards my foster parents from consuming me, was to stay quiet. I became obsessed with the idea of killing them. Knowing that my foster mom knew what was happening and freely helped a rapist, made me want to hurt her as badly as I dreamed of hurting my foster father.”

Megan took a sip of juice and picked at her eggs. My plate was empty. I was about to tell her she didn’t have to finish the story until she was ready, but she started up again.

“After weeks of silence and me not eating, I was not only an abused child, I started to look like one. A thinning body, dark circles around my eyes, and disheveled clothing, I went through the motions to school and back home. There wasn’t a lock on my bedroom door, so I couldn’t lock myself in. The days and nights went by in a blur, and fifteen days after my first attack, my foster father returned. He took what he wanted, and again, I fought desperately, but he was too big, and my fight was useless. I remained in my silent state, and although I went to school, I stopped paying attention in class and doing my homework. Nothing outside of what was stuck in my head interested me. All I could think about was him raping me and me killing him for it.”

I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t sit there and watch Megan struggle through what was undoubtedly the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Reading about what had happened to her and listening to someone else tell it secondhand was not the same as getting the story straight from the victim’s mouth. The emotions and omitted details made what I’d once thought of as a horrible story, real.

I didn’t know how close Megan was to the end of her story, but what she’d shared so far, had anger raging through my bones and igniting my body.

I reached for her hand and couldn’t help asking, “So this fucking foster mom knew what was happening and didn’t do a damn thing?”

“As loud as I screamed, the neighbors should have known what was happening to me. The third time it happened, David, my sixteen-year-old foster brother, cracked and peeked into my bedroom door. I guess he wanted to see what he’d been ignoring. I wasn’t sure if Carlos noticed him peeking, but I saw him and even pleaded for him to help me. David left me there after seeing what was happening to me. Three nights later it wasn’t my foster father, Carlos, who crept into my room and climbed on top of me.”

My head fell into my free hand as I squeezed my throbbing temples. I hated every part of the fucking story Megan was telling me. I bit into my bottom lip, but it did nothing to stave off my building rage. The inside of hell had been poured all over her young life, and she didn’t have anyone to turn to for help.

“After about the tenth time, I stopped fighting them, but internally, I was keeping count. I kept count of how many times they raped me. The silence and my tears helped get me through it. Locking my pain in seemed like the only way to keep my mind and body from ripping apart. I dreamed about killing myself a lot. Laura and Beverly were the only girls who would talk to me at school. They would do silly stuff to get me to laugh. They were the only two people in the world who could temporarily take my mind off what was happening to me. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they pitied me. I didn’t have to tell them the details of what was happening to me, but they were smart enough to figure it out or at least guessed.”

At this point, I didn’t know if Megan wanted my comfort or not, but I continued to grip her hand. Megan was like a fucking puzzle to figure out, a jigsaw with parts that never stopped moving. I was learning her slowly, but I was learning. There was more there than she was telling me about Beverly and Laura.

I could tell by the way she’d broken down when she thought I’d killed them. You don’t break down like that just over friends. I was willing to bet that Megan was more connected to them than she was letting on. But, I had to be patient with her because her fragile mind was likely one crack away from shattering.

After a deep, steadying breath, she continued the story but kept her eyes aimed at the table.

“The abuse went on for months, and if that wasn’t bad enough, I found out that the sexual abuse was only the beginning. Carlos was a monster. He started taking me out on weekend drives and forced me to lure other girls into the car with us. The first few times he asked me to do it, I was brave and denied his request. But denying Carlos only made the situation worse. He beat me so badly and forced me into sex so rough that I ended up in the hospital for a week. I ended up with a broken wrist and bruises all over my body.”

She raised her arm and showed me the scar on the inside of her left wrist. The huge gash I’d assumed was the result of a suicide attempt was instead the result of her being raped and beaten. I glared at the jagged line of the scar with a pinched brow until she dropped her wrist. My hand slid over hers until my thumb skimmed lightly over the puckered line of the scar.

“The hospital didn’t even do a rape test. Until this day, I have no idea what kind of story my foster parents fed the police or the hospital staff, but they fixed it so that no one was willing to listen to my side of the story.”

My grip tightened around Megan’s hand as I pulled her towards me. This shit she was sharing with me had me wanting to kill motherfuckers that were already dead.

“Come here,” I said as I urged her closer to me.

She shuffled around the table before I directed her to sit on my lap. I tucked her into my arms and hugged her, rocking with her in my tight embrace as I buried my face in her neck. Her story helped me fully understand why her mind was twisted up like a knotted rope.

When I loosened my grip on her, she rested her head on my shoulder, and her words bounced off my neck. “He raped four girls in a two-year timeframe, and I’d helped lure them into his car. I sat in the front and listened to him have sex with those screaming girls in the back seat. Hearing them scream, beg, and plead for him to stop tore me apart worse than him raping me ever did. He wanted them young, like me—eleven, twelve, and thirteen-year-olds.”

Her trembling arms squeezed tighter around me as she took in a heavy and shaky breath. She attempted to talk, but she became so overcome with grief, her words remained lodged in her throat. Hearing Megan’s weeping cry fractured the strength of my resolve, and I closed my eyes to contain the sting that had started in them. I’d never experienced this level of empathy before. Megan was dragging emotions out of me that made me realize that I was still human. It also made me realize how deeply I cared for her.

My hand swept up and down her back, trying to ease the pain of what she’d endured. I didn’t know what to say to her. There was nothing I could do to take this horrible shit out of her head. There was nothing I could do to make her not have those horrible fucking experiences. I couldn’t do shit but hold her and hope she had won or would one day win the battle over her pain. It was a pain etched so deep, it had soaked into her bones.

She pushed words through her sobs, but I could hardly understand her.

“Megan, I didn’t fully understand what you said, but it sounded like you said he killed those girls.”

She sniffed and wiped her eyes, but no matter how much she wiped them away, the tears continued to flow. Her hands trembled so hard when I took them between mine, the movement shook my entire body.

Her bottom lip quivered as she fought to maintain control over her upset nerves. My throat tightened. Hearing and imagining the amount of pain she’d endured and seeing the amount of hurt that was still coursing through her body had my fucking nerves upset. She shut her eyes tightly as tears seeped out and fell, leaving a trail down her cheek. She forced her words out.

“He killed them, Aaron, and he made me watch. He raped them with me in the car listening. Afterwards, he’d marched me into the woods with them. He made me watch him while he killed them. He told me it was what he’d do to me if I told anyone or didn’t do what he asked me to do. The suffering they endured at his hands was the scariest thing I had ever seen. He strangled one girl to death and got off on it. He came on her while he was strangling her. She screamed and hollered for me to help her, but I was too scared. All I could do was watch, cry, and scream right along with her. He strangled the next two and stabbed the fourth when it took too long for him to strangle the life out of her.”

My body was so alive with rage, hearing Megan’s story that I had to take deep breaths to calm myself. “God, Megan, baby.” I blew out a long harsh breath. My mind struggled with the images of what she’d gone through. None of what she was telling me had been in the news articles. This was the part of her horror that she’d likely not told another living soul. This was likely the part that had fractured her mind. This was why she was able to endure being around my MC. She’d already experienced hell on every level. She’d felt it, smelled it, tasted it, heard it, and seen it.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through shit like that.” I leaned my forehead down until it touched the side of her head and rested against her curls. “Fuck,” I growled as I clench my fist.

After another deep breath that I blew out slowly, I was ready to speak again.

“I’m glad you killed that motherfucker, Megan. I thought I was touched by darkness, but anyone who preys on innocent girls deserves their own room in hell. I promise you if he weren’t already dead, I’d hunt that dead-dick bastard down and kill him myself. I’d kill him slowly.”

A small smile curled Megan’s lips after I revealed to her that I would kill Carlos if he was still alive. A touch of the pain drifted from her eyes as well.

“Over a two-year period, I was raped by Carlos and David while my foster mother did nothing to help. I lured four other girls straight into the hands of a monster who raped them before killing them. I may as well have been killing them myself. I couldn’t take it anymore. If it had been only me, I probably wouldn’t have killed my foster parents, but I couldn’t let another innocent girl die.”

Megan shook her head, seemingly shaking away the bad memories as she swiped at the tears leaking from her swollen, red eyes. Now, I had a better understanding of why Megan wasn’t bothered by witnessing death, especially the death of a man.

“I couldn’t allow another girl to be raped and killed. Laura and Beverly came up with different scenarios on how I should go about handling my situation. Like lacing their drinks with antifreeze or cutting the brakes on the vehicle. I assumed that they meant their suggestions as jokes from teen girls talking about things they would never really do. But, it was Beverly who had shoplifted the switchblade I used to stab my foster family to death. She’d given it to me to protect myself with. She told me her real father, before he passed away, had made her carry one. She showed me where to stab a man in his inner thigh that would end him. I’m sure she’d had no idea I’d been daydreaming for months about ways I wanted to kill my foster family.”

This explained Megan’s loyalty to those women. They had attempted to help her and listened to her when no one else would. They had given her a weapon to protect herself against monsters.

“Two weeks after Beverly gave me the blade, Carlos came into my room. Marina and David were used to my screams, so I knew that they wouldn’t bother to check out what was truly happening between Carlos and me. I waited until he took his dick out. The knife was in my hand the entire time. When he climbed on top of me, I jammed that blade in his neck with all my might. At the library, I had studied the different places to stab someone and what type of damage the wound would cause the body. While other teen girls were chasing boys and shopping for party dresses, I was studying effective ways to kill someone. I also made a habit of stopping at the various crime scenes that were a dime a dozen in my neighborhood. Seeing gunshot wounds and stab wounds on the streets also gave me an idea of what would kill a person. My situation had turned me into a freak, a teen who studied death more than I studied text books.”

A deep breath seemed to give her enough strength to continue as her body rose and fell against the tight grip I had on her.

“I must have hit the right artery on Carlos that night because blood squirted from his neck like I’d opened a faucet. He was in such shock that he’d bled all over me before he realized he was dying.”

Megan’s tears had stopped when she spoke of killing Carlos. Good.

“I kept stabbing him everywhere, not caring where the knife landed as long as it was going into his body. I stabbed him until my hands became too slippery to keep going, but that didn’t stop me. I wiped my hands on the parts of my bed covers that weren’t covered with his blood before I climbed on top of him. I sat, staring down at him whimpering and gasping in pain. I enjoyed seeing him suffer. I didn’t harbor any remorse for what I was doing to him.”

Her warm breath kissed my cheek when she lifted her head from my shoulder and glanced into my eyes.

“I felt more in my right frame of mind while I was killing Carlos than I’d felt every time he’d raped me. He had the nerve to apologize, but I kept stabbing him. I didn’t stop stabbing him until his body went cold. Although he was likely long dead, I didn’t stop stabbing him until I reached the number of times he’d raped me.”

Megan sucked in a deep breath after dropping her gaze from mine. She had no idea how glad I was to hear that that bastard had suffered.

“When I walked into David’s room, I found him lying in his bed asleep. I climbed into bed with him and started stabbing him through the covers. I didn’t say anything to him as I took his life. He screamed and yelled loud enough to wake the neighborhood. He fought for his life, hitting and scratching me, but I was so consumed with rage and anger that I didn’t feel his licks. I expected that Marina would at least check to see why David was screaming, but she never came. Once I was done with David, I turned the blade on her.”

Megan glanced up and searched my face. I assumed to see if I was viewing her differently. I was sure all she glimpsed in my eyes was hate for the people who’d hurt her.

“After the police arrived, they found me covered from head to toe in blood and muttering to myself about how I wanted to keep killing them. The authorities must have automatically assumed I was crazy. They cuffed me and drove me to the Pinewood Mental Institution where I spent a month before they transferred me out of the state of Texas to Ravencrest in Arizona. I don’t know how the authorities were able to process me without a hearing or a trial or the legal processes that I’d expected, but they did. They sent me to one of the most secure mental institutions in the country, and I was glad for it.”

Megan eyed me for a silent moment. My eyebrows rose as her story continued to claw its way into my brain. I shook my head, attempting to shake off the gripping tugs the story had on my heart.

“That was some story. Jesus,” I uttered. I glared into Megan’s eyes. “I’m so glad you killed those motherfuckers. How the hell did the state place you in that house with a fucking rapist, serial killer, a teenage rapist, and a wife who condoned it all?”

Megan shrugged. “I don’t know. I never heard much else about it other than the authorities questioning me a few times each month for nearly a year. They left me alone after they were unable to get me to talk.”

“Fuck. That’s one of the sickest, coldest, stories I think I’ve ever heard,” I expressed. My voice was thick with emotion. “I keep picturing you younger and smaller, going through all that hell. I’m sorry, Megan. I’m sorry you had to go through shit like that. There are some people in this world that deserve punishment, but not you, and especially not innocent, young girls who had never done shit to anybody.”

Curiosity had me wanting to ask her if she knew anything about her real family’s background, but I left the subject alone for now. D hadn’t found any family ties to Lacey Daniels. The space for the mother and father’s names on her birth certificate had been blacked out, and Megan had been labeled a ward of the state. From the looks of things, Megan didn’t have a history outside of foster care, so I was essentially the only family she had.

After carrying her into the living room, I sat on the couch before I folded her into my chest. She’d seen and experienced some shit that had chills running up and down my spine for hours. That shit sank into a person so deep, you would never get it out and you’d damn sure never outrun it. She had seen and experienced enough to drive anyone crazy. Megan had fooled a lot of people and she’d fooled me once, but she wasn’t going to do it again.

I believed her story. I believed every word of it. I’d seen the emotion behind her suffering force its way out of her body. I’d heard the pain and anguish in every syllable of her words, but my gut was telling me that there was more. I sensed it just as I’d sensed something off with her the moment I laid eyes on her.

She wasn’t ready to tell it all. She was keeping some secrets to herself. Just as it had taken time and a death threat for Megan to tell me about her horrible past, she was going to need more time to tell me the rest of her story.