Fractured Darkness Read online

  Jace might think himself in love with Mica like a fool who believes in such things, but he also wants to cause her pain. He wants to be the one to make her fucking scream. Deep down, Jace is a perfect mirror of me. He has my darkness, and what I want, he wants too. He can fight it all he wants, but it will come out in the end. Jace can’t hide behind those walls forever. My little brother is just like me.

  I know what he saw on my computer all those years ago, the same thing he saw when he walked in on Cathy and me, some time later. I know what it awoke in him too. He craves sex with a mix of pleasure, and a hefty dose of pain, just like I do only he hasn’t got the guts to actually fucking do it.

  I’m going to take all his heart’s fucking desires and show him how much fun it is to have total control over someone, how to make it hurt. Jace will be like me, even if I have to use Mica to shatter him and then reshape what's left of him. He's mine; my little brother, and my fucking blood.

  Mica hasn’t got a clue what’s coming, and I'm going to enjoy every minute of her agony and tears. She craves the pain, and I’m about to take her beyond what she can endure until she's begging me to stop. But I won’t.

  I’m content with my position in our lives. Jace belongs with me, and if keeping Mica and using her is what will ensure he remains here, so be it. I’ll stop at nothing to keep the balance of power I have over them.

  It was only too easy to manipulate and bend Mica to my will...with kind words, loving gestures, and everything she hasn’t been getting at home. Mica’s stupid bitch of an aunt sees right through me, but her clear disdain for Mica holds her tongue. She doesn’t care what happens to her niece, and her silence has only made it all the more easy for me to trap Mica in this web I’ve already cocooned Jace in.

  She is merely the latest pawn in the long-running game I’m playing to keep Jace in line and under my control. I know how much it pains him to see us together, and I have to be careful to keep the loving mask in place around Mica. It's exhausting, but I know by fooling her I'm taking even more power from him.

  She's in my bed and my grasp, and I get to be the one to plunder her body every night while he listens on in the next room, wanting what I have. I’ve heard Jace’s grunts and stifled groans when Mica is being particularly loud, and I know exactly what he’s doing behind his closed bedroom door. He doesn't realize how much more power he gives me with his incessant lusting over Mica, it's a fucking game, and I'm the one who holds all the cards.

  16

  Mica

  I think Caleb must be falling out of love with me; he’s been so cold and harsh the past couple of weeks. I don’t know what I’ve done to make this happen, and I don’t know how to stop it. I just want things to go back to the way they were between us.

  I catch myself thinking about Jace more and more as time passes, and the lonely pit I’m sinking into doesn’t feel like its encroaching on me when he’s around. Jace makes me smile, and it hits me hard when I realize I’d almost forgotten how. I don’t know what’s wrong with Caleb, and I’m really struggling to keep up with his hot and cold moods and I've almost given up trying.

  We’re still having sex, and it’s just as fantastic as always, but Caleb has been rougher with me. Some days he hurts me more than I can bear, and on at least two occasions, much to my absolute embarrassment, Jace has burst into the bedroom because he’s heard me scream out in pain.

  Tonight was the worst. It felt almost like he was tearing me in two with his cock, and I couldn’t stop an agonized scream from leaving me. It’s bad enough things are like this between us, but having Jace see us in such a compromising position, yet again, is even worse somehow. I can only imagine what he must have thought was happening with me making those noises, and it hasn’t escaped my notice how little Caleb seems to care about the whole situation.

  After Jace leaves, flustered and mumbling to himself, I tighten the sheet I hastily pulled up around my body when he threw the door open. I move over to where Caleb’s sitting on the edge of the bed, coming up behind him to wrap my arms around his sweaty body.

  “Caleb, what’s going on with you?” I ask, tears running down my face.

  I’m trying to understand why he's acting like this, but I’m coming up empty.

  Caleb turns, pinning me with a hard look. “What’s going on with you and Jace?”

  I pull back in shock and a small tinge of wariness sparks inside me, “What? Nothing is going on. Why would you say that?”

  His lip curls, and he pushes me down on the bed, settling between my legs and squeezing my wrists until I whimper. He moves his face close to mine, and the malice in his eyes, sends fear shooting through me.

  “I saw you both that night he came home drunk. I followed you out of the room. I watched the whole fucking thing. Do you want to lie to me again, baby?”

  My eyes fill with more tears, and my heart skitters in my chest at his accusation. “I didn’t do anything! He kissed me. I didn’t kiss him back. I'd never do that to you,” I plead.

  “Then why didn’t you say something to me about it?” he demands, shaking me, and I open my mouth to respond, then close it again, biting my lip.

  A look of dark triumph passes over his face, and he leans even closer until his lips are ghosting over mine.

  He whispers, his voice low and menacing, “That’s what I thought. You’re going to regret hiding it from me, baby. I’m going to make you sorry you ever fucking looked at him, and he's going to fucking watch me.”

  I whimper as ice chills my blood at his words, and the desperate need for an escape burns in my stomach. Caleb smirks, no doubt recognizing the craving in my eyes. His hands squeeze to the point of bruising as he closes the distance between our mouths, swallowing my gasp with a lip-biting kiss.

  The coppery taste of blood touches my tongue, and when Caleb pulls back, his lips are stained crimson with my blood. I attempt to move away, but he doesn't let me. His eyes are nearly black with anger, and I can feel his hardening cock. He grinds against me, and when I shake my head, he smiles.

  “That was just a taste, baby,” he sneers before getting up and walking out of the bedroom. He leaves me lying there, terrified and frozen on our bed, with blood in my mouth and bruises already blooming on my wrists.

  The rest of the year passes by in a blur, and it has now been more than a year since I began living with Caleb and Jace Scott. My relationship with Caleb is in tatters.

  Life here has become intolerable since he saw the kiss with Jace and confronted me about keeping it from him. He was right when he said his brutal kiss was only a taste of things to come. It’s been absolute hell living with him, but Jace and I have become closer than I ever expected or imagined we would become. Our mutual fear has drawn us together, leading us to seeking solace in each other.

  One time, I even tried to leave and go back to Aunt Sarah.

  I get to the front door and ring the bell. She answers, and I have barely opened my mouth to speak when she slams the door in my face. I’m standing there, bruised and bloody, with tears streaming down my face, and she doesn't give a shit. I’m nothing to her.

  I briefly consider going to the police about Caleb, and I’m actually halfway to the station when he finds me. Dragging me kicking and screaming into the back seat of his car, he then drives us somewhere remote before unleashing his fury on my body. Afterward, I struggle to walk back to the car, and when I finally manage to slide into the passenger seat, the pain is so excruciating I know I’ll never try to leave again.

  When Caleb finally shoves me back through the front door, Jace helps me up to the bedroom. The look of horror on his face mixed with desire shining from his eyes is one I’ll never forget.

  “I’ll get you out of here somehow, Mica. I promise,” Jace says, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips.

  Before I can warn him, he’s ripped away from me by Caleb, and I’m helpless to do anything but watch as Caleb punches him in the jaw. The sheer force behind

  Caleb’s fist sends J
ace sprawling to the floor. Since then, Caleb’s started diligently locking all the doors and the windows, so we can’t get out.

  I forcibly pull myself out of the past and look down at the self-inflicted mess on my thighs. The slow drip of blood onto the bathroom floor captures my attention, and I’m mesmerized by the sight. I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands, suddenly angry at how helpless Caleb has made me. I attempt to fight back the tears, but it's no use, and soon I'm sobbing freely as I sink from my perch on the edge of the bath to the floor.

  When I finally manage to get my emotions back under control, I pull myself slowly upright using the edge of the bath for support. I inch over to the sink and grab a washcloth, wetting it with warm water before gently cleaning the now dried blood from my skin. The water makes the still open wounds sting, and I hiss through my teeth as the blood starts to rise to the surface again, staining the white material red.

  Caleb knows what I'm doing, he knows and doesn't even care I'm breaking under his touch. He's fucking savoring it. The worst part is when he's feeling particularly malicious he will pin me down and slice my skin himself. All I can do is keep still in his grasp and try not to move, so he doesn't cut too deep. He knows it kills me when he does that, it's not a release for me when he cuts me open. It's a fucking curse because he's feeding the need in a way I can't cope with, taking that one last morsel of control from me and further destroying my fragile will.

  Jace doesn't know everything Caleb does to me and has no idea that only half of this damage is my own doing. He hasn't saved me like he promised all those months ago, and Caleb has only become worse since that day. My body and mind are raw from Caleb's continuous onslaught, and the only times I get any reprieve are when he’s sleeping, or when he leaves the house once a week to run errands.

  A glint in the light catches my eye, and I look to my right where the sharp, cold steel blade stares tauntingly up at me from the cabinet. My cuts throb with a painful reminder I’m not whole, and I’ve not healed. I’m once again torn open and falling back into an all consuming circle of darkness and pain.

  17

  Jace

  Some days it feels like a deathly silence has enveloped the house in a cold embrace. Mica doesn't really speak anymore, and I'm treading carefully on broken glass around Caleb, so I don't set him off. The only time noise fills the house is when he roars in a blind rage, or Mica's blood-curdling screams cut through the silence.

  He left this morning, which means that we can breathe for a few hours. I’ve grown to crave these reprieves each week. I neither know nor care what he does in that time; all I know is we're both safe for a little while from the wrath flowing through his veins. I’ve never seen him as bad as he has been over this last year. In the past he’s always shown some kind of control, but right now he’s so unrestrained it’s fucking alarming, and I worry about whether we’ll all make it out alive at the end.

  I wish I could take Mica and make a run for it, but I'm just as much a prisoner as she is. When our grandparents died two years after Caleb was born he inherited everything they had. Our grandparents had disinherited our mother for having a child out of wedlock, and in order to punish her they left everything to Caleb, including this house.

  He controls everything, especially me, and I don’t know how to escape from him. All my life, he’s been the only constant, the only one I could rely on. The moment he made sure our mother walked out and didn’t come back was when he transitioned from brother to jailor, and I became trapped without knowing why.

  Caleb doesn’t trust me and keeps me here all the time. I know he thinks I’ll talk or run if given the chance. Honestly, I might’ve considered attempting it, but I doubt I would’ve gotten very far. I’m lucky he let me finish high school, but it would have been suspicious if I’d suddenly dropped out for no reason, especially without enrolling at a new school. So many times I wanted to tell one of my teachers about Caleb, and what was happening in our home, but I couldn’t summon up the courage to admit how weak I felt.

  It’s been an hour since Caleb left the house, so I go and seek out Mica. We’ve gotten close in the wake of misery Caleb has created in our lives. I haven’t told her it’s my fault she's in this mess, and that Caleb is targeting her because of how I feel about her. A twisted part of me delights in the fact she's turning to me. Holding her close to me when she cries is my way of giving Caleb a big fuck you.

  I find her in the bathroom of the master bedroom they still share together, standing there, staring into the mirror with tears on her face and fresh, bloody cuts to her thighs. I don’t ask her about any of it; I just pull her silently into my arms and press soft kisses on her hair as she shudders and gasps out sobs. I can almost feel her breaking, and I hope she feels safe with me, trusting I can hold her shattered pieces together.

  I sit down on the floor with Mica in my lap and breathe her in. She smells like watermelon, tears, and blood...the essence of Mica. Beautiful even as she cries out her pain and fear. She looks up at me with agony-filled, red eyes and tear-stained cheeks, but a tiny smile curves her lips upward at the sight of me.

  I move my face closer to hers, brushing her lips with mine and when she doesn’t pull away from me, I capture them in a kiss. Mica’s mouth moves slowly against mine, testing and tasting as I do the same to her. I leave one arm wrapped around her slim body, holding her against me as my other arm moves up her back, so I can tangle my fingers in her hair.

  Sweet, tender, burning heat flies from our lips as they move against each other. I can’t stop the small groan that leaves my throat when Mica’s hands grip my arms. I shift until Mica is beneath me just like the night I first kissed her, and she gasps when I press my body against hers. A small hiss passes from her lips when I lightly run my fingers up her thigh, pushing up her dress as I do, and feeling the damaged skin under my fingertips.

  Her hiss of pain makes my blood pulse, and I harden against her body. When I reach the edge of her panties, I find them damp, and I slide my fingers under the thin material until I'm pushing them into her wetness.

  Her hand on my chest stops me, and her voice is thick with emotion when she whispers, “I can’t.”

  18

  Mica

  I have to stop this. If Caleb finds out and thinks I’ve betrayed him again, I have no idea what he’ll do to me. I’m not sure I can handle much more, and I'm terrified of setting him off. As Jace slowly pulls his fingers from my pussy a moan escapes me, and his deep brown eyes darken even further with desire at the sound.

  As Jace starts to move away, I bite my lip, tasting his kiss still lingering there. I’m torn between desperately wanting Jace and not wanting the results of Caleb’s wrath all over my skin again. An absurd little part of me still hopes my Caleb is buried in there somewhere, but after all this time that hope is barely a glimmer...a pinprick star in a night sky.

  “Wait,” I say, and my voice is hesitant, unsure.

  Jace pauses, his eyes never leaving my face, and he must see something in my expression because he crashes his lips back to mine in a furious kiss.

  I gasp at the passion he throws into it with his tongue diving into my mouth to tangle with mine, deepening the kiss. One hand cradles my head while the other moves down to rest on my waist as he curves his fingers around my body. I entwine my fingers in his chocolate brown hair, pulling at the strands as he kisses me like a starving man who has found nourishment.

  I break the kiss gasping for air, but he doesn’t stop assaulting me with his lips as he moves down my neck, sucking and nipping at the sensitive skin until I’m writhing beneath the weight of his body on mine. This time, he's the one to pull away, he presses his forehead against mine with his eyes closed.

  “I should go,” he says quietly.

  Standing up, Jace reaches down with an outstretched hand to help me to my feet. He kisses me softly, feathering his lips over mine before turning and leaving me standing there, watching as he exits the room. I move into the bedroom and sit
down on the bed, looking at my empty hands that have just been tangled in his hair. Hands that have painted my skin in silver and red.

  He didn't shy away from the mutilated skin on my legs, merely treated it like another part of me. I didn't miss the way his gaze darkened, and his cock stiffened when he touched me there before he’d even reached my pussy. It seems Jace might not be as different from his brother as he appears, but unlike Caleb, he hasn't sought out a way to ruin me. My already fragile soul is cracked...parts are missing, and Caleb will be the hammer that eventually obliterates it altogether.

  19

  Jace

  I burst back through the door of my bedroom and slamming it shut, I stand with my back to the wood, my head pressed against it, and face tilted up to the ceiling. My eyes are closed, and I'm breathing heavily, trying to get my body and emotions under control. If I hadn't gotten out of there, I'd have taken her right then. I can't afford to lose myself in her, but it's getting harder to exercise restraint.

  Caleb is determined to control every fucking inch of our lives. He prefers to lock us in while he runs errands and gets groceries, concerned that if he orders them to be delivered we might try to pass on a message. Late at night, I hear Caleb's loud voice and Mica's cries echoing through the house, and I find myself lying awake for hours even after the noises have faded. Regret gnaws at my stomach for not doing more, but I know if I try to intervene, it’ll only make things worse.

  A quiet knock rouses me from my thoughts, and I open the door, surprised to see Mica standing there. I quietly usher her inside, but before she can close the door, I’ve pushed her up against it, my lips already on hers.