Page 78 of Resilience

“Okay. Tell me what you need. I guess you want your mom to go—”

“I want you to be with me. If you’re okay with that.”

Despite the seriousness of their conversation, Sam smiled brightly at that. “Of course I’m okay with it. Thank fuck you want me there. Anything you need. Anything at all.” He made a frustrated gesture suddenly. “I hate how far away you are. Can I hold you?”

Athena wanted that as well, so she nodded and began to lean toward him. But Sam reached over and clasped her around the ribs. He lifted her, pulling her over to sit on his lap.

She settled in against his chest at once, and his perfect arms folded her up. When she felt his lips on her head, she also felt weeks of stress turning to dust and blowing away. She was so very glad she’d told him; this was the comfort she knew he’d offer.

Leaning back a bit, she met his eyes. “I love you, Samwise. So so so much.”

He pulled her even closer and kissed her.

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~oOo~

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Athena’s parents were at the clubhouse when Sam and she returned with the supplies, and Dad was waiting. He grabbed her at once and pulled her into his little office.

She loved this cramped, windowless space; in her mind, no other place in the world was so purely her father’s as this office. Two walls were filled, floor to ceiling and side to side, with grey metal shelving, and all those shelves were packed with tech: from wire crates of portable stuff to big blocks of electronics for the compound security system. His desk faced another wall, and above it hung a bank of monitors. His desk chair looked like he’d stolen it from the bridge of a spaceship.

On the back of the door was a star map, and leaning in one corner, in the space left between a wall and the side of a shelving unit, was the telescope he took on fun runs.

Her father, in every square inch.

Now, as soon as he closed the door, he spun around and grabbed her, pulling her into a crushing dad-hug. Athena swept her arms around his waist, grabbed the back of his kutte in her fists, and held on.

She’d thought she didn’t want her father to know what had happened, but his knowing gave her this. She hadn’t realized how alone she’d felt until the important people in her life all knew.

When she felt his lips on the top of her head, she was ready for the hug to end; Dad always ended his hugs that way. He set her back and peered deeply at her face.

“First thing: are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m okay, Dad. Really. I hate that he did it, and I want him to pay, but he didn’t hurt me.”

“Back when you and your mother were conspiring to keep this from me, you told me he got rough and you didn’t like it, so you dumped him. That’s a damn pretty package to wrap rape up in, so tell me now exactly what happened. There was a mark on your neck, like a big hickey. Was that part of it?”

She nodded. “He bit me. But he didn’t really break the skin.”

“Didn’t really?”

Dad wasn’t an overly suspicious person, but he was deeply curious. At the moment, his curiosity was supercharged by some suspicion. He didn’t trust that she was telling him everything, because he knew she’d been keeping something important from him. “Just a little, Dad. Really, he didn’t hurt me. I’m telling the whole truth.”

“I’m going to kill him, starlight.”

“Don’t, Dad. Not that. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t want something bad to happen to you because of this. Or anybody else I love. If you try to disappear him, people will look for him. Powerful people. Remember who his father is.”

“I know who Damon Cruz is. That changes not one damn thing. Nobody does this to my girl and lives. I’m telling you, Athena. I’m not negotiating with you.”

Athena stomped her foot. “Dad! It happened to me! You don’t get to take over like I don’t matter in what happens to the guy who raped me! Fuck that!”

Suddenly, her father’s expression shifted from determined anger to enjoyment. “You, little girl, are what my father would call a firecracker.”

“Don’t change the subject,” she insisted. “I know I can’t handle things by myself, but I deserve to be involved. And I don’t want him killed. I do want him hurt—bad enough that he never does it again. I want to be part of it.”

Instead of replying, Dad took her arm and led her to sit in his space-age captain’s chair. He crouched before her and gave her his ‘concerned father’ look. “I need you to understand something, Athena. If you want me safe, and Sam, because I assume he knows and wants to be part of it,” she nodded, and he went on, “then Hunter can’t be alive when we’re done. I can arrange a death scene that shifts blame away from us. I am very good at that. It’s much riskier to hurt somebody and leave them alive and able to communicate. Do you understand?”

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