Page 197 of Adam
“You were always weak,” he says, backhanding me so hard my cheek splits open. “But at least now you’re useful. Even trash has its purpose.”
Adam forces his head up again. “I’ll tear your throat out with my teeth.”
My father steps in and punches him across the face.
“You sick, fucking shit,” Cain hisses.
“You know, I can still be merciful. I can still give you a fucking choice.” He nods toward the chair without taking his eyes off me. “Kill him yourself.”
He can’t be serious …
He holds the knife out to me.
The same knife he took from him.
His voice stays calm, bored even. “Go on. Prove you love him. Or maybe you want me to peel him apart while you scream andpiss yourself.” He steps closer, the knife digging into my palm. “This is what your love costs. You opened your legs for a dead man. You made the debt. Pay it.”
“Isabella,” Judas barks, as if he’s commanding me to stand back.
I take the knife, swallowing against the bile crawling up my throat, forcing my fingers to close around the handle. My mind tears itself apart, searching for hope that doesn’t exist.
I can’t kill him, I can’t save him, and I know my father will enjoy either outcome.
I kneel beside him.
The wires buzz inches from my skin, and the heat licks across my face and hands. The air smells of burned skin, plastic, and copper. It sticks to the back of my tongue and makes every breath feel contaminated.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, as more tears run down my face. “I’m sorry I brought you here. I’m sorry you got hurt because of me. I’m sorry I was selfish enough to think I deserved you.”
He lifts his eyes to mine, strands of blood-matted hair clinging to his face, and smirks. It’s faint, crooked, smeared in pain and blood, but it’s there.
Why the fuck is he smirking still?
“Hesitation is mercy,” he whispers weakly. “Mercy is death.”
There comes a point where you stop resisting what people pushed you toward, and you accept the shape they forced onto you.
Every insult, every dismissal, every moment of being overlooked hardens into something darker. You stop trying to be understood and start existing as something that makes others uneasy. Something that carries anger and pride without hiding it.
The patience you once had corrodes and leaves behind distance, and a willingness to let others feel the weight of what they created.
I was convinced everything changed when Adam entered my life, and I believed that was the moment my mind hardened. I believed that was when tolerance died.
What’s building inside me now goes further than that, and it strips away whatever hesitation was left.
I grab the wire running into Adam’s side and rip it out.
He screams. The sound tears straight through me. Blood runs instantly over my fingers.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, shaking, pressing my hand over the wound for half a second. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
The wire jerks in my hand, still connected to the box. Still live if the button is pressed.
My father rolls his eyes. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
I pick up the knife.
My burned fingers barely close around it. I press the blade to the exposed copper. Sparks spit against the steel. The metal hums. My skin sizzles where I’m gripping it too hard.
