End of Eternity 3 by Loretta Lost Page A

emotion. “Was it... Grayson’s child?”
    “Yes,” I hiss softly. Tears prick the back
of my eyes, but they are nothing like the other tears I’ve shed;
they are tears of anger. “She was your granddaughter. But now she’s
gone. It’s his fault, isn’t it?”
    Grayson’s mother stares at me
apprehensively. “You think that Brad might have...?”
    “Yes.” I feel bile rising in my throat.
Grasping the back of the sofa, I push myself into a sitting
position. “After the story you just told me? About Helen. Grayson’s
first love.”
    “Maybe you’re jumping to conclusions,” the
old woman whispers fearfully. “You have no proof that...”
    “No,” I whisper vehemently. “There was
something wrong with the whole situation. I know there was. I
shouldn’t have lost my baby...” Pausing, I have to take a few deep
breaths to try to compose myself. “He was there the whole time. I
let him get so close to me.”
    I can feel a deep and heavy rage building
slowly in my chest. It is only a small, black kernel of vitriol,
but I can feel it threatening to spread and consume my whole body,
inch by inch, like a cancer.
    I will do nothing to slow its progress.
    I know that I could try to let it go, like I
have let go of everything that has ever bothered me in my entire
life. The old Carmen would have tried to rise above this, but the
new Carmen wants to sink below. Something has snapped in me, and I
want to give in to the darkest parts of myself. I want to let them
come out to play, and be the cruel, vindictive bitch that I’ve
never allowed myself to be. Not once.
    After all, I have failed at being able to
create. I might as well destroy.
    “Let me make you a meal, dear,” Grayson’s
mother is saying as she rises to her feet. “When was the last time
you ate?”
    “I don’t need food,” I tell her sharply. “I
need to know why. Why did he do this to me? What the fuck is wrong
with him?”
    The old woman lifts her shoulders in a
shallow and empty gesture. “I—I don’t know, dear. Brad didn’t
really have anything against Helen. The poor girl was just standing
in the way of his plans for Grayson, so he disposed of her and her
child.”
    “They were collateral damage,” I muse, “on
his rise to the top.”
    “Exactly. That man would never let anything
stand in his way. Maybe your child was standing in the way of
Brad’s plans for you?”
    “What plans for me?” I ask with a frown.
Frenzied thoughts rush through my mind as my eyes dart around the
room rapidly. “What does he want from me?”
    “I don’t know,” Grayson’s mother says
softly. “You need to calm down, dear. It’s not good for your health
to get all worked up again. Let’s get some food in you. Do you like
pizza?”
    Something suddenly clicks in my brain. “Brad
lied to me. My daughter wouldn’t have been sick.” I grab one of the
small pillows on the couch and crush it within my hands. “Grayson
wasn’t a monster. If drug abuse and steroids led to his
schizophrenia... then my daughter would have been fine. Brad said
that she’d be born mentally ill, like her father. But all along, he
knew the truth.”
    “My son was never mentally ill,” Grayson’s
mother says defensively. “Brad is the one who made him sick. Brad
played with my boy like a puppeteer pulling on strings. He
controlled his entire life.”
    “And his death,” I add numbly. Closing my
eyes, I inhale slowly. Brad might enjoy controlling those around
him, but he will never control me. I will see to it that he learns
that. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to find a way to make him
regret that he ever messed with my life and my family.
    “I can’t believe this is happening,”
Grayson’s mother says quietly, and her voice breaks. “I always
dreamed that I’d see my son again someday. I thought that maybe
when I was sick and dying, he would finally come to visit this old
woman. I thought I’d get a chance to hold him one last time. I
thought