Hi everyone! Thanks for all of your reviews CharlieSMarts12, Justice237 and Dark Heart 945! Thanks again to all of you who read and favourite and follow this story! Warning: Boyxboy, violence, swearing, mentions of abuse, ratings may be turned up and etc etc etc.
The room was quiet as the sun slowly slid it's early glow sliding across the morning table surface. The only faintest sound was in the corridor as the piano was being played carefully, each key pressed was accented by a sharpness in the gaze and a glare as both woman and brunette boy stared each other down from each side of the table. The wind battered harshly as oncoming clouds spread across every corner of the horizon.
Persephone stirred her cup of tea carefully and slowly, the silver spoon pushing a single slice of lemon beneath the scolding liquid. Ryan's eyes traced the movement of her wrist, smooth and perfect. Her nails pointed and sharpened like crimson claws... ironic, that was the natural colour that they should be in Ryan's opinion, with the sheer amount of blood on the bitches hands, it was the least of the dark marks which belonged on the cow.
Her harsh eyes looked over at him as her thick mascara lashes blinked their midnight shade towards him, the eyeliner around her ruthless orbs didn't strike the fear into Ryan like they would with anyone else... no. This bitch didn't scare him any more. Her expensive hair style of curled golden hair that was thrown down the side of her shoulder, around her expensive black and white dress. Her clothes, her money, her appearance... after all that she had put him through, what else could this bitch do to him to scare him?
She had already done the worst possible thing to Ryan that she could have done. She had cost him some of the best memories he had in his life, the memory of his first kiss with Jack. She had cost him two years of feeling alone, two years of spending every day in a hospital scared that the boy he loved would never wake up. This woman could beat him, threaten to kill him, try to rip him apart, but she could do absolutely nothing else to terrify him any more.
Because now as he sat lent forward in his chair, with his chin resting on his laced fingers, his brown eyes boring back into her, he knew that she couldn't hurt him any more. He could see it in her eyes, the same pain that he had now spent the last half year working through, of course it hadn't actually set yet, of course the cow was smart, but even she seemed to be trying to find any logical reason or explanation. She was trying to solve a puzzle with only half the pieces in front of her.
And Ryan loved every single amount of pleasure that came to him from watching her suffer in trying to figure it out.
"You should be dead."
"Always with the pleasantries." Ryan smirked, his brown eyes glittering like prize winning diamonds as he tried not to laugh, his glare reigned by his smile and his relaxed posture already getting underneath skin. He could see it. The way she was tensed, notably trying to relax her shoulders but failing as it seemed the lack of understanding as to what was going on was driving her mad. "Now, to what do we owe the absolute unfortunate luck of ours, for you to visit us."
"Still the sharp tongued little bastard." She snarled.
It was then in that moment that both ripped free the concealing masks that they had been wearing.
Ryan's glare exploded like a case of lit magnesium, flaring brighter than the most brightest firework. His jaw set tightly but his smirk remained as dominant and unyielding as his resolve. His heart was racing but only of the thought now of Jack. He had to keep Jack safe now, he had failed him once, he would never fail him again. He slowly raised his cup to his lips and took a sip as he watched Persephone's knuckles turn a harsh and pale white as her grip closed so tight around the porcelain cup, Ryan was just surprised the cup didn't shatter in her hands.
Her rouge lips wound back almost like a wolf barring it's teeth in a snarl. "Don't play games with me! Two years I haven't heard from my baby, two years I've spent searching for my little Rose Sirena. Then all of a sudden I get a call from one of my children-"
"I'd say Rats, but we'll use your phrasing for now." Ryan stated casually as he could just even now still feel the unrelenting rage at the thought of Thomas and his actions.
"Stop playing games with me little boy."
"Aw, but didn't you ever learn? The dead love to toy with the living." He grinned, letting out a sharp and harshly cold laugh, unable to help himself. His eyes glittered with deep amusement as he watched her patience growing thinner and thinner. Her eyes practically radiated the sheer hatred that was growing.
Finally though, it was enough of toying about.
It was time to slowly lower the dangling knife and watch this bitch suffer.
Ryan's smile became as cold as it was beautiful, like a shark would look if it could possibly do so... and Ryan could imagine how it would look from the amount of time that Jack had him watch Finding Nemo with him. But he didn't care, because god he was the one with the power this time. So much of these last years, so much of all those time, he had been powerless or at least felt it, because of those around him who thought that they were the power that ruled over him... no more. Now he was the one with the power, he was the one who had everything that they all wanted.
"You stupid cow." He scoffed coldly and let out a harsh and sharp laughter, shaking his head slowly with disbelief as he was unable to restrain himself any longer. Letting out harsh and loud cackles, even at one point slamming his hand down on the table, unable to stop himself, his shoulder shook as the emotion overwhelmed him. He couldn't believe it. "You never could put it together! The most simplest of things because you was so arrogant and so sure of yourself!"
"Excuse me?"
"Checkmate." Ryan bellowed with laughter, smiling from ear to ear. "The most obvious thing and you never even thought about it!"
"And what exactly was that!" Persephone snarled.
Ryan's laughter turned into quiet and harshly cold chuckles. "My obituary." Ryan smirked, watching how suddenly Persephone froze and stared at him. "A report of me missing? Anything! You were so swept up in getting rid of me, that you never spared a second thought to following up and making sure that the job got done."
"Who do you-"
"Instead, your pet rapist decided to carry out the attack on the wrong target."
Ryan tossed a line of photos across the table watching the colour drain away from Persephone's face slowly.
Silence followed, a silence which carried the wight of everything Ryan had wanted her to feel. Every ounce of dread, horror and agony that should have been felt from the first moment she had tried to mess with his life. He could see the dawning realisation, the pain slipping out of her like an engraving in stone as her hand began to reach out towards the faced down photos. Each time the tips of her fingers neared the paper, she wrenched her hand back, as though she had been scolded by an invisible flame.
Of course she hadn't seen Jack up in the attic, Ryan had been stood in front of him and the shock of him being alive had been all that Persephone had been able to focus on. Of course she hadn't noticed the blue eyed blond who had stood behind him, staring at the woman with a look similar to that of pain. Maybe it had been Jack's mind struggling to try and place yet another face that didn't fit. But of course Persephone didn't understand it had been her 'little rose' she had been looking at.
Jack's own mother could look him right in the eyes and truly not understand it was him that she was looking at. The way the fragile boy looked was but a fraction of a reason as to why Jack hardly looked like the same person any more.
"Look. At. Them." Ryan whispered softly, like the teasing voice of a lover. He was taunting her and he knew it. He was pushing her mind to the limit as with what he had just done. Persephone's prize had been Jack, her 'little Rose', her adored little boy that she had loved above anything and everything else. Ryan knew that Persephone had only one weakness, one weakness at all if any. Jack was the killing strike of a knife to her heart. Anything that hurt him was inflicted tenfold on her.
"LOOK AT THEM!" He roared, his voice going so strong and loud that he was unsure whether he'd actually make his throat bleed.
Even Persephone was taken back at this point, startling back suddenly in her seat like she had just been struck in the face, but Ryan wasn't done... no... god no. He was going to finish this, once and for all. He was going to make her suffer. He was going to make sure that any pain he had felt in the last two years, would now be felt by her.
Ten fold.
And he had suffered enough to break any man or woman.
"The second thing you forgot." He whispered softly as he had enough of watching her tentative hand begin to half turn over the first picture, before he finally slammed it down brutally onto the table.
The police and hospital had come and taken pictures within the first few days and weeks. Every picture that Ryan had taken had been taken in for evidence... the ones he had printed off for them and helped the hospital take. But he had made sure to get his own copies... he had plans for each and every single one of these photos. So now slamming the first of a boy with razors sticking out of his wrists, just before where the words had been engraved into Jack's skin, now showed the deep and almost completely open vein picture of blood pouring out.
Traitor, Pyscho, Bitch, Slut, Queer, Monster, Rose.
Those words were so far engraved into Ryan's own mind that he could already see Persephone's own eyes forming that mirror thought of them as Ryan slammed over the next picture of a pale exposed torso, long lines of deep and open cut skin showed to reveal various almost tribal like lines. Along each rib was a wide crimson gap, almost completely cut down to bone. Every line made as a permanent marking... it had meant to have been as slow and torturous as possible.
"Sirena." He was careful immediately only to use that name. He may have been enjoying his victory of watching Persephone agonise over what she had done, but this was still a careful game. "He was smart... he knew just what a evil bitch you was-"
"MY SON LOVED ME!" Persephone screamed, but fell silent as Ryan slammed over the next photo making her sob out and slam a hand over her mouth as she was forced to look away from the picture of Jack after they had shaved him, face soaked in blood and deep purple bruises. The black circles set deeply around his eyes like brands, his cheeks slashed harshly, blood dripping down from still recently split lips.
"Your son saw you for the vindictive and evil bitch you are." Ryan stated so harshly that for a moment from the deep loathing and horror set in her eyes as makeup ran down her cheeks. "But he wasn't your son... he wasn't even his mother's son... after everything, everything that had been put through." Ryan snarled and slammed down picture after picture. "He still loved someone... after you taught him to be a monster and he believed himself to be. He was beautiful, incredible, amazing... we were happy together! We were in love with each other!" He shook his head, his voice rising to a scream before he slammed his chair across the kitchen and stormed around to take a stance next to her as he held onto the last picture.
"He was... was amazing and..." Ryan's voice broke as it became nothing more than a pained and gentle whisper.
He stared at her for a long minute before letting the last full body picture of Jack crashed out after having being seen to. Every engraved word standing out in weeping crimson. Every cut, every mark, every ounce of the attack as clear on him as the summer sun on a cloudless July day. It was a picture Ryan had only looked at one other time since having taken it. On the day that Jack had woken up from his coma, he had looked at the photo to remind himself of why he had waited two years, of how far the boy had come in two years.
"And you destroyed him." Ryan whispered. "You. Destroyed. Him. Multiple and near completely fatal wounds sufficed. He nearly bled out on the way to hospital, by the time they found him, they were surprised he hadn't died already. He was concuss, he was all but dead, multiple stab entries, anal tearing, he had hypothermia. Multiple bruises around the throat and the rest of his body, they were stabbing him as they raped him. They knew that it would have been easier to kill him... but they left him in an alleyway to bleed out himself."
"What pet rapist."
The brunette blinked for a minute, glancing down to the woman who for the first time seemed to look incredulous herself. Tears were running down her face, almost staining her cheek. Her nails were dug so tightly into her palm and thin lines of blood welled up across her hands, dripping faintly onto the wood of the table.
Time for the killing blow.
"Look at those pictures." He whispered softly, letting his voice be the lulling poison as the knife point of his words dug into her soul. "Look at the words they engraved into him."
"You think that one of mine would rape him?!" She snarled. "My children look out for each other! They are all each other have! They obey their Mamma, but they look out for each other-"
"By the point of the first stabbing, they would have realised it wasn't me!" Ryan purred, leaning back to sit casually on the table. The first incision slice was made to the cheek. Besides, don't you think that from the screaming, or when they put him on the floor and raped him, they would have seen it wasn't me and stopped." Ryan pulled out one last photo from his jacket pocket and threw it out onto the table. "And if you needed any more evidence." He nodded to the picture as Persephone turned it over and stared down at the image of Jack's oldest scar; Rose
Her face paled, looking between the writing on the old scar compared to the new one.
"Same hand writing."
"Ho-how could you be sure-" Persephone began in a growl but cut off as Ryan lowered his face down to hers and looked into the pits of her eyes. The darkness of his pupils was blacker than midnight. The coldness, the sheer and deadly serious of the look.
"I stared at each mark till the moment I lost Sirena. I know the writing of those scars more than I know how to breathe." Ryan whispered, his voice so harsh and yet gentle that the woman before him even felt a cold chill run through her blood. "And I had... other means of finding out." He slowly brought his phone out of his pocket and slid it onto the table. "After all... I may not have been playing the game as long as you." He glanced back into the depths of her eyes, looking in that moment more daunting and more deadly than most. "But I play it better."
"I would have made sure you was the one I destroyed in the alley way and not that little bitch."
Persephone froze, her eyes widening even further had it been possible as King's voice poured out of Ryan's phone.
"You got him to date his rapist." Ryan's voice came out of the recording while the brunette glared down at the phone.
"Well it was easy to do." King's arrogant voice continued gloating.
"Stop it." Persephone whispered.
"Yes I plucked Persephone's little rose made sure that everyone else around knew what a pretty little petal he was."
"Stop. It." She voice slipped into a growl slowly.
Ryan glared at her and just turned it up louder so there was no hiding from it.
"Oh you should have heard him screaming, and that was before I even started cutting him."
"STOP IT!" She screamed standing up and back away from the phone, but Ryan had the recording on repeat. Every sickening admission that King made played over and over again, Persephone was falling apart, petal by petal. It was like watching a rose torn apart in a gale force wind.
"He tried to rape me... he failed. He raped Sirena. Twice." Ryan closed in on her as it came the point to finally destroy the last of her. He stood above her, dominant and unwavering. "And if you think about it..."
"No." She said, backing away from him like he was an unleashed and deadly animal and she was a defenceless child.
"Then if you have to ultimately put it down to a reason that Sirena is now gone?"
"STOP IT!" She screamed again, pushing herself against a wall and looking down into those harsh eyes bore into her venomously.
"It's all because you sent the guy to finish a job that he started years before." Ryan whispered, almost smiling as he thought he could visibly see her soul breaking apart in her eyes. "Sirena is gone." He purred. "Because. Of. You."
Before the words were even gone and finished escaping out his mouth, she was already turning away and making fast for the door, grabbing her bag, grabbing her coat. Her impeding sense of victory in coming in and hunting Ryan down had now been flipped. He had just shown her, her worst fear, defied her and now destroyed her.
So with one last shout reminder and call after her, he let his own victory set as she fled.
Rain began to pour and hammer down against the windows, the crest of the sky lighting up with sparks of brilliant lightning, forking and lashing like a whip across the distance. He bit back a smile and stared out across the glass panes for a long minute, watching as the rain pelted the the windows like bullet fire. He stayed in the view of them only long enough to watch the car presumably Persephone had arrived in, sped away sending a rain and hail of gravel behind it.
"Check mate." He stated, and turned on the heel of his foot and walked away, back to love the boy he promised he would keep safe till the day he took his last breath.