Hansel 4 by Ella James Page A

get comfortable with them. He rubs his hand along the bottom of the steering wheel and speaks in a low rumble.
    “One day, after we— One day, I slipped her some of her own medicine. I got her to sleep, and I went looking around. I went all around the house, in some places that I’d never seen before.” The color drains from his face, and his right hand, moving lightly along the steering wheel, locks around it.
    I try to imagine what he’s going to say. I wish frenziedly to stay a step ahead of him, but I can’t even guess. “You looked around…” I prompt softly.
    “And I found someone I’d never seen before.” He swallows, and still, his voice cracks when he goes on: “It was a little girl. Not very old, like only one or two. One,” he corrects.
    His gaze grabs onto mine, but quickly flits back toward the field. His hand, around the wheel, tightens, and he speaks through gritted teeth.
    “She had my eyes. My eyes and dark blonde hair, like Mother’s.” He puts a hand over his face and breathes in deeply. “She was living in a closet. In that room where—in a big closet off that bathroom. And Mother was passed out in the tub and Blue was in the other room and she was crying. And her voice was hoarse. So hoarse I almost couldn’t even hear her.” He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep, long breath. “It was disgusting, Leah. Filth. The way they cared for her…” He grits his teeth so hard I hear it. “I saw fucking red. I found some food and fed the baby. Cleaned her up. She was so sad. So fucking beautiful. She was my child. Mine . A child I didn’t even know I had—neglected like that.” The last word squeaks. A lone tear falls from his eye down to his knee, and my hands flutter with the want of touching him.
    “I got her to go to sleep, and when I did, I found Mother, waking up in cold bathwater.” He turns his upper body, so he can look right at me. “I didn’t do it fast, Leah. I made sure she was scared.”
    He broke her neck. He called the cops. And then he came to me.
    “It had gone on too long,” he says. “I was weak, or else I would have done it sooner.”
    “Luke, you killed her. That’s not weak.”
    “I was crazy,” he says, from low down in his throat. His voice drops so soft that I can barely hear it. “For a long time, I wanted that bitch to love me.” He turns his blood-shot eyes to me. His mouth wavers before he presses his lips into a small, hard line.
    More silence drifts as I try to absorb what he’s told me. It’s…so shocking.
    “I have a daughter, Leah. She is fifteen now. She loves Grape Ape donuts from Voodoo, and once a month, I bring them to her.”
    Holy shit. It hits me, where we are now, and I’m floored. “She got adopted.”
    He nods.
    “Her parents don’t mind you coming by?”
    He shakes his head, his eyes now focused on the grassy lawn where a group of people a little younger than us have assembled with a bag of soccer balls.
    “A few years ago, I did a paternity test. Kinda came clean to them. They were nervous at first, but it’s been so long now…” He shakes his head. “I’ve even baby sat a time or two. Not that she needs it now. She’s growing up. Her name is Kinsley.” He points out my window at a large, two-story brick home. “Her house is that one.”
     

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Lucas
 
    I pull Kinsley’s ninth grade yearbook picture out of my wallet and pass it to Leah. She looks so much like me. So much better. Maybe it’s all in my head, but I swear to God, I don’t see Mother in her. Not at all.
    “The details of Kinsley’s birth and her existence at the house were sealed, to protect her. Her parents just told her recently about who her bio parents were and how she came to be with them—the man and woman who are raising her. Even without all the details, it’s been a little rough on her. More than a little,” I admit. “One month, she didn’t want to see me.” I stop and swallow as my eyes ache with the pressure