At twenty, I poisoned my stepfather’s cup, only to be caught by Easton Hammond, the Christian devotee. I glared at him, even imagining dying together, but he turned instead and stabbed my not-yet-dead stepfather ten more times.
The robe was soaked with blood, the prayer beads scattered in broken pieces. As the police dragged him away, he looked back at me with a grin.
“Tisha Trevino, never again in this life will a beast torment you. I will always protect you!”
Ten years later, Easton walked out of prison. Once devoted to Christ, he had become my blood-soaked avenger, guarding me like a shadow.
He could have stepped into the mortal world and married me fully, yet he clung to the last commandment, never once touching me. But not long after our marriage, a woman with a swollen belly came seeking me.
“Easton doesn’t keep the commandments because he won’t touch you. It’s because he doesn’t love you. He despises you as filthy. He only loves me.” Her hand stroked her belly, pride gleaming in her eyes.
Easton rushed in, his face flustered, but I lifted a stick and brought it crashing down on the woman.
My gaze rose, cold. “I don’t mind being a widow.”
——
“Tisha, there’s no need. She’s just a young girl.” Easton tried to take the stick from my hand, gripping me tightly as if to calm me.
“I promised you, in this life until death, I’ll stay by your side. Others, I don’t care about at all.” His tone was sincere.
Yet that pitying glance, those faintly trembling shoulders, and those nervous eyes betrayed him.
“You don’t care? Fine, then the child in her belly has nothing to do with you either?”
My eyes narrowed with anger as the words came out.
I seized a bowl, forced Emma Meyer’s jaw open, and manically poured the abortion medicine into her mouth and nose.
She sobbed, choking, and cried out to Easton.
“Easton, save me! Save me!”
At her plea, his eyes reddened, his knuckles turning white. With a sudden force, he slapped the bowl away, his gaze nearly splitting.
After knowing each other for over ten years, never once quarreling, this was the first time Easton shouted at me.
“You act like this, how are you any different from your stepfather!”
I froze. His face, too, was dazed, only then realizing what he had said.
My stepfather was the only damp shadow in my life.
In the dark storeroom, while my mother watched coldly, my stepfather’s cruel grin and sticky touch haunted me.
Night after night, in that endless dark, I grew thin and my hands shook as I poured poison into his cup.
At that moment, Easton rushed in; caught in the murder, I had already imagined many ways we might die together.
Yet I never imagined Easton would turn and stab my stepfather ten more times.
When the shackles closed on him, he said he would take the guilt for me so I could see the beauty of the world for him.
He should have known clearly what that scum did to me, but then he said I was no different from that beast, and the next second, I grabbed a knife and drove it into him without hesitation.
“Who’s the beast? Speak properly!”
With a wet sound, Easton leaned closer into the blade. “Tisha, it’s my fault. I spoke wrong. That’s not what I meant.”
Slowly, he wiped both his blood and Emma’s from my hand. I tried to push him away, but he only held me tighter.
The knife had gone straight through his shoulder blade.
His face was white as paper, yet he let the knife stay in him as he lowered his chin gently onto my hair.
His hand patted my back softly, calming me with quiet strokes.
