Destroy

Chapter 8

And for just a second, I thought I saw someone standing across the street.

Charter 9

It looked like Nathen-

Shoulders slumped, alone in the crowd, watching from a distance.

He didn’t come over

He just turned slowly and walked away, disappearing into the blur of traffic.

Moments later, I heard the distant screech of brakes-

a loud crash.

I never found out if it was him.

I didn’t want to know.

From that day on, Nathan never tried to contact me again.

And as for Caleb and me

We finally stepped into the quiet, beautiful life I’d yearned for all along.

Chapter 1

I was locked inside Hollow Creek Psychiatric, eyes glued to my sister’s wedding livestream.

She was glowing. Beautiful. Naive.

Then all hell broke loose.

A woman–naked, drenched in blood–crashed the scene like a horror movie. She dropped to her knees, slamming her head on the marble floor again and again.

“Lily, please! My face is ruined, my clothes are in shreds–you’ve destroyed me. I’m no threat now. Don’t send me back to the asylum. I’ll stay away from Grayson, I swear!”

My baby sister stood frozen at the altar.

Grayson Whitmore, Lily’s new husband, exploded with rage.

“Hit her,” he ordered. “Now.”

Dozens of slaps followed, brutal and fast.

All for show. All to protect that bleeding woman–Aubrey Hayes.

“She’s lived under other people’s roofs her whole life,” Grayson growled. “She’s kind, quiet. And you–you–can’t even make room for her?”

“You’ve been spoiled for too long. It ends today. The Whitmores don’t keep venom.”

The wedding died right there. The string quartet stopped. Lily was yanked away, shoved into a black car, and hauled off to some mountaintop monastery to “repent.”

When I saw her again, she wasn’t Lily anymore.

Her face was carved up. Her chest collapsed like something had been broken and never set right. Fingers curled unnaturally, twisted into angles that don’t exist in the living.

No sparkle left in her eyes.

Just silence.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I walked straight into the office of the facility director, wrapped a restraint strap around his throat, and tightened until he agreed:

Scarlett Moore was going home.

When I opened the door to our house, Mom flinched so hard she dropped her keys.

9.60

1

She yanked me inside like the walls had ears.

Dad lay on the bed, stiff and still. The kind of stillness that only comes after heartbreak each body before death does.

“Lily’s gone,” Mom choked. “Your father went to confront Grayson”

He never came back whole.

Grayson didn’t even try to hide it. When he heard Lily was dead, he blinked like he hadn’t expected the game to end so fast.