Crooked Heart (A Death So Sweet Book 2) Read online

  Crooked Heart

  A Death So Sweet: Book Two

  Candace Wondrak

  © 2021 Candace Wondrak

  All Rights Reserved.

  Book cover by Melony Paradise at Paradise Cover Design – Premade Book Covers Group

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  Chapter One – Lola

  Chapter Two – Lola

  Chapter Three – Maddox

  Chapter Four – Lola

  Chapter Five – Lola

  Chapter Six – Lola

  Chapter Seven – Viper

  Chapter Eight – Lola

  Chapter Nine – Sylvester

  Chapter Ten – Maddox

  Chapter Eleven – Lola

  Chapter Twelve – Lola

  Chapter Thirteen – Lola

  Chapter One – Lola

  It was not the first time I’d sat in my room, staring at the floor. It was the first time, however, I wasn’t wondering why me? The strange thing was, I wasn’t thinking at all. My mind was a blank slate, the cold grip of dissociation taking root in my mind and my heart. That silly little heart of mine still beat… but it might as well have stopped years ago.

  No one cared about me. Mother and Father had made it clear, beyond clear, that their chosen angel was their son and not their daughter. Even though I was their first child, I meant nothing to them. I was just a body, just a beautiful face they could present to society and get compliments for.

  Aiden, though? Oh, they loved him. Their darling son could never do any wrong. Born a year after me, he’d grown up fast.

  Too fast.

  So fast that, sometimes, I caught myself wondering why I had to be born at all. Mother and Father still put pressure on me, even though it was pointless. It was all pointless. Couldn’t they see that by now?

  I wore the same clothes I’d worn to school. High school. Surrounded by the people who should be like me all day, but they weren’t. They were nothing like me, because they hadn’t had their lives stolen from them. Their innocence. Their very will to live.

  And Aiden? He went to the same school too, a grade below me. Really, I couldn’t ever get away from him. Not his lovable grin. Not his bright blue eyes, which were a lot like mine. I could never get away from the feeling that crept over me when we were alone—which was too often. Way too often.

  I sat on my bed, eyes on the floor. I couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t hear anything. The house was quiet. Aiden was gone, with his friends, one of the only times I was free of him, but even then, everything in this house was a reminder of my dear, sweet baby brother.

  A devil in disguise, he’d been born and everything had changed. The darkness swallowed this house, my parents, me… especially me. It had chewed me up and swallowed me whole, refusing to spit me out. I would never be able to reclaim what had been lost all those years ago.

  Fuck. Years? Yes, it’d been years. I really tried not to think about it, but sometimes even your thoughts betrayed you.

  I set a hand on my stomach, as if I could feel it through my clothes. The giant, ugly scar that was the only imperfection on my otherwise flawless body, my flesh having been peeled open and my insides scrambled. All to protect their little darling. All so he could do whatever he wanted with me with no repercussions. Nothing but me losing my sanity.

  But I’d already lost that so long ago. So long, in fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I had it. Maybe I was born to lose my innocence and my naivete. Maybe I was never meant to be anything more than a plaything for my brother, something to be used by my parents.

  My skin itched. My skin itched so badly I wanted to dig my nails beneath my flesh and peel it off. If I was ugly, maybe it would stop. Maybe everything would go back to the way things should’ve been. But then… they’d never really been that way to begin with, had they? Everything had always been fucked up in this family.

  The Hardings. The Hardings of Lionsgrove.

  What a fucking joke.

  It was all a joke, wasn’t it? A joke, or maybe hell. Maybe this wasn’t life but instead a miserable hell that I would never be able to escape from. Some days I found myself wishing I would have the strength to end it all, to cut my wrists and bleed out in the tub. Some days I dreamed of escaping and leaving my family behind, never to see them again.

  Tonight, though, my mind dreamed a different dream. Tonight my mind, my willpower, turned to unbreakable steel. This life was no life. I would not sit in this house until my parents or my brother killed me.

  Instead, I was going to kill them. Beat them to the punch. Yes, I think I’d rather like to see them bleed out, the look in their eyes as they stared up at me, disbelief and shock written across their features. I’d stain the walls and the carpet with their blood, and I wouldn’t feel a single thing while doing it.

  Sometimes having no feelings was a blessing, I guess.

  I slipped off my bed, my bare feet shuffling against the fluffy carpet of my room. I pulled open my door, almost in a trance, heading down the hall. Father was in his study on the third floor, as he usually was after dinner. Mother would be lounging around, having her second glass of wine as she watched the news. They had a routine, and that routine included letting my brother do whatever the hell he wanted with me whenever the hell he wanted to.

  I could not go on like this anymore. I hoped they would understand in their final moments I did not forgive them, nor would I ever. They had created the unfeeling, cold thing I was today, and this vile, vicious, crooked heart of mine would have its revenge.

  They say revenge was a dish best served cold, but I wasn’t sure. I was about to find out.

  Down the stairs I went, taking each step as quietly as I could, moving down to the first floor, still unable to feel the heart in my chest. I was a robot, moving mechanically, like a horse with blinders on, seeing nothing but what lay ahead of me. Into the kitchen I went, and I grabbed the sharpest, shiniest knife I could find, lifting it in front of my chest as I studied my reflection in the steel. It mirrored the light above, glimmering, whispering promises to me, promises my parents had never once given me.

  The knife told me it would help me. The knife said it would do everything it could to make sure I got out of here, and then… then I had no idea what the hell I’d do. One step at a time.

  The handle felt almost out of place in my palm, yet my fingers curled around it easily all the same. The tile was cold below my feet, and I turned, moving out of the kitchen and into one of the many sitting rooms in the house, the one that housed the giant, flat-screen television. Oh, we had dozens of those, practically a TV in every room, but my mother seemed to enjoy reclining on the couch in this room, her feet kicked up and wine in her hand as she listened to the local news of the day.

  As if she cared. As if she cared about anything or anyone other than herself. My mother was a lying, conniving bitch, a snake through and through, and snakes get what they deserve. She would not live to see another night.

  I made no sounds as I moved into the living room, stopping behind the couch. It sat, not against any wall, which allowed me to approach her from behind without being seen. My lungs breathed evenly. I had no nerves to speak
of, no angel on my shoulder telling me I shouldn’t do what I was seconds from doing. Once I did, I would be past the point of no return. But of course, I think we’d passed that point years ago.

  Years. This had gone on for years. I had become a shell of what I should be, a zombie going through my life day to day just so my parents could funnel all of their love and appreciation to my brother, to Aiden. What did I ever do to deserve this?

  I knew the answer to that. I was born. I had the misfortune of being born to the Harding family, being their first-born child. I was unlucky from the very day I was conceived, so I supposed this was a long time coming.

  Oh, Mother, I thought, I won’t miss you at all. You bitch.

  Stopping just behind her sitting form, I gripped the knife’s handle harder as I watched her head bob back as she took a sip of wine, her attention solely focused on the news before her. The volume was up, so I doubted she was aware she wasn’t alone anymore. Such an unsuspecting death, but that’s fine. She would get what she deserved in the end.

  Death could be sweet. It could claim you in the middle of the night, in old age, after you’d had a long, fulfilled life. It could be so sweet, so gentle… and yet it could also be horrific and painful. My mother was seconds from getting the latter.

  My other hand lifted in the air, fingers outstretched. My mother’s hair was not unlike mine, though quite a bit shorter. Its blonde color was highlighted and angled and layered—she went to a salon every other week to get it touched up. I wanted to yank her hair out, make her scalp bleed, but that would invite mistakes. No, I had to do this in one blow, at least for her.

  Mommy, dearest. How terrible you’ve been to me. Goodbye.

  My hand shot down, violently clutching the back of her hair, tilting her head towards me and revealing the tender underside of her neck. Her eyes widened, her mouth opening to ask me what I was doing, but then she saw the knife. Before she could speak a single word, before the bitch could scream, I dragged the sharp edge of the steel along her throat, from ear to ear, cutting as deeply as I could.

  She dropped her wine glass, the drink spilling on the floor, the glass shattering on impact, and I stood there behind the couch, keeping a firm hold of her head as she looked upwards at me, starting to choke on her own blood. What did she see? I wondered. Did she see the dead expression on my face? I sure as hell saw the way her pupils glazed over, how they dilated once her body and the couch were covered in her blood.

  It happened so fast, it was almost unreal. Like a movie scene. Like a crime scene from a horror film. The blood was everywhere, a bright red, grisly and ghastly, and yet, as I stared down at the liquid covering my mother’s body and the white leather couch, I had never seen something so beautiful, something so serene.

  Blood painted such a pretty picture, there really was nothing like it.

  I let go of my mother’s head, letting her body loll to the side, collapsing. It was then I moved around the couch, and I stood, barefoot, in the wine on the floor. My feet stepped on shattered glass, the shards cutting into me, but I didn’t feel them. I’d become numb to the pain so long ago.

  Mother was perhaps the most beautiful she’d ever been. Her body slumped over, a thick, garish wound on her neck. It still bled, but since her heart had stopped, it was lessening. Blood coated her whole front, having sprayed out from the wound as I’d dragged the knife along her throat. It got everywhere, such a stark difference to her skin and the leather of the couch.

  They say a picture was worth a thousand words. I wished so badly I could take a thousand photos of this scene, just so I would have them to remember this night by.

  That was, of course, assuming I survived the night. Who knew? Maybe my father would put up more of a fight. Or maybe not. He was always so focused on whatever it was he worked on in his office. I bet he wouldn’t even see me come in.

  I breathed in, the air having a metallic, heavy twang it did not have before. I was almost smiling as I returned to the stairs, gripping the knife at my side. Deliberate in my slowness, I walked up to the third floor. There was no way my father had heard the wineglass fall; this house was a mansion, a labyrinth, and in it lived lost souls.

  Me? I didn’t know whether I had a soul. People would probably say no, how could I have a soul after doing what I just did, with what I was about to do? People with souls could be saved, but I was too far gone, too far lost. I had wandered away from the path of God and his forgiveness. I should’ve been my parents’ angel, but they had ripped the wings from me years ago and watched in silence as my brother tainted my body again and again.

  I was no angel. I had been made a monster, the thing good, sane people wanted to see locked up and tried for their crimes. There would be no happy ending for me, but that was okay. As long as I got to take my family out with me, I’d be fine with it.

  People like me, people like my mother and father—and especially people like Aiden—we did not deserve happy endings. We were made for misery.

  I neared my father’s study, and as I walked to stand beneath the door frame of his office, I held the knife behind my back, the steel pressed against my spine. I didn’t have too much blood on my clothes from mother’s death, so unless he tore his eyes off the laptop before him, he wouldn’t notice.

  And he didn’t. Father didn’t glance up, didn’t even look at me. It was like he was in his own world as I walked in, trailing bloody footprints.

  I stopped only when I stood beside him, when I gazed down at him. He sat in a high back leather chair, hunched forward as he read whatever was on the screen before him. “Daddy,” I whispered, my voice soft and hushed.

  He still didn’t look at me.

  “Daddy,” I spoke again, firmer this time. “Look at me.”

  His eyes closed, and he leaned back in his chair, slow to turn it towards me. It was almost like it pained him to move away from his laptop. Such a silly man. He was about to discover what true pain felt like, and I was going to watch. This time, I was going to get bloody myself.

  “What—” He started to speak, his eyelids lifting.

  He saw the knife too late. I stabbed him in his chest, digging the steel as deep as I could, all the while staring into his eyes. He grunted, he tried to push me off, but I yanked out the knife and stabbed him again. Over and over, again and again, my arm took on a life of its own as I went nuts on my father’s chest and stomach.

  I lost count, my eyes seeing nothing but red as I bared my teeth. Hot, wet blood splattered on my face, coating my arms. His clothes were completely torn up, his mouth oozing maroon. I’d gone at him so hard and so fast I had forgotten to gaze into those cold, unloving eyes and watch the life drain out of them.

  Pity.

  But, as I finally took hold of myself and stepped back, gazing at my handiwork, it was worth it all the same. Other than his face, my father was unrecognizable. He didn’t bleed as much as mother did, but that didn’t matter, because he was still dead.

  He was dead, and in death he was as hideous as he’d been in life.

  I smiled at his corpse, feeling, for the first time in so long, something stirring in my heart. A warmth, a happiness, a feeling of contentment. Even though my brother was still out there, even though this story was not yet over, it felt so fucking good to rid myself of these people, these horrible, terrible people.

  They weren’t parents. Not to me. They were nothing more than monsters themselves, and they got their comeuppance in the end. Killed by their own daughter, the daughter they treated like shit.

  Oh, yes. There was no other way for my parents to leave this world besides at my hands.

  I left my father’s office, after that. I started to pace the hall, still clutching onto the knife. I didn’t know what to do. Waiting for my brother was one option, but I didn’t know what time he was coming home, and surprising my brother would take more now, now that I had so much adrenaline pumping through my veins. I didn’t want to make a mistake. I didn’t…

  My feet stopped, a
nd I stared at the bloody footprints from my pacing. The bottoms of my feet had been cut by the shards of the wineglass downstairs, and though I didn’t feel pain from them, it was like I was thrown into another memory, another time. A time when I felt fear and pain and anger.

  Hands, all over my body. Choking without hurting, stifling without pressure. I couldn’t breathe, and yet doing anything but that was out of the question. I couldn’t scream, because it was pointless, couldn’t fight him, because he was stronger than me. He was stronger, and they’d only take his side anyway.

  Tears trickling down my face, tickling as they went. I felt both too enclosed in my body and too far gone. The face above me wore a smile, but it was a lie. A pretty lie everyone else believed. Everyone loved him. He told me he loved me. He said he loved me too much, because I had the face of an angel. We were all sinners here. There was no God. No light. No peace.

  You could not have peace when you wanted to die, and that’s what he made me feel, even though his words told me, time and time again, that he loved me.

  My back slammed against the wall of the hallway, and I dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor, its steel stained red from its use. My breathing became shallow and frantic, and for a while, I couldn’t get ahold of myself. I didn’t feel like me.

  You see, Aiden had a way of doing that to me. How else could I explain why I’d been so silent all of these years? Why I hadn’t tried to tell anyone else? If my parents didn’t care, why would anyone else give a shit about me? Why would anyone look at me twice, especially when everyone who ever met Aiden immediately fell under his spell?

  He would have me put into a mental hospital. He would find out a way to make the rest of my life miserable. He would still want me, want to keep me, keep using me, so how the hell could I stay and wait for him to come back?

  No. No, I had to go. I had to go right now, get out of this house before he got back. I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t stay here. To wait was to tempt the devil himself, and after what I did to our parents… he’d make sure I regretted it. As hollowed out as I felt and as dead as I was inside, I still didn’t have the strength to face him.