Page 12 of Wanted
The young woman waited until Fylox was out of reach. Then she inspected my pulse.
When she finished, I said, “I should probably go to my room. I don’t want to bother you two.”
“Don’t be silly. We’ll just pretend we’re having a serious medical conversation.” She leaned forward. Her voice was comfortably deep for a female. She sounded smooth and lively.
I asked, “What’s Fylox’s deal? He seems… off.”
Shifting on the sofa, I noticed Fylox was wasting away in the kitchen harder than my silly brothers, and their spoiled rich boy asses ever had.
“He actually is off,” she told me, tearing up. With her face away from mine, she hid her trembles. Her breathing was hard. “Forget what I just said.”
Fylox had started the dishwasher, so we stopped discussing him. I memorized what she told me. I didn’t want to trigger anybody, much less a guy who didn’t seem to be my enemy.
The shaking started again, and I was glad Maia Callie was too preoccupied with her brother to notice. She kept glancing at him like he was the one who hung the moon. There was fear in her eyes, too.
At least I had stopped sweating. I sighed, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
When Fylox returned, he made us explain what had happened to me. I told them everything. “… and then I panicked. It has occurred before. The first time I stopped using, my brother had me hospitalized for my seizures. They’re not serious, though. I never get more than one or two at a time.”
Maia Callie discussed the medical details with Fylox. She warned him not to leave his medication lying around easily accessible. My reaction was somewhat expected, she claimed. She also said he had to be very careful with me in the first weeks. Weeks. Where was Weston? I sniffled. I hated myself for letting him down.
Before Maia Callie left, she offered to bring me some clothes. Her brother declined the offer. “Nobody’s supposed to know she’s here.”
“I don’t know her,” Maia Callie uttered, raising her hands in innocence. She hugged her brother, and he had a strange reaction to it. He flinched like he was uncomfortable. Then, she turned to me, hugging me, too.
I watched her leave.
When I turned to glance at Fylox, he was already watching me. I felt a shiver run down my long spine. “You know, it’s rude to talk behind somebody’s back.”
I nodded.
“Why do you have all these drugs in your home?” I asked. I grabbed the water from earlier, taking another sip.
He didn’t answer. He simply glanced at me with an intense look that got me drunk off cognac.
I cleared my throat. “Since you won’t say anything, let me speak my mind. I feel like a selfish piece of shit. Excuse my language. I know you don’t like cursing. But I’m the worst human being ever.”
I took a deep breath.
“You’re not.”
I rolled my eyes because I could hear he didn’t believe a word he’d just uttered. “For the sake of my argument, I am. The day before my wedding, my friend opened up to me about some things she found out about my family. My plans to leave Katantia were already in action, and things were moving along smoothly until she told me how everything went to shit in my life. I was eighteen, almost nineteen years old. My mother had died five or so years ago, and I was already on and off drugs, driving my younger brother insane.”
“I don’t remember the first time. I just remember that one day I was a normal troubled teen, and the next, I was a filthy whore that fucked somebody she shouldn’t be fucking. I’m sorry for all the cursing. Being a whore isn’t bad where I’m from. It’s actually a good thing, very esteemed. What I was doing wasn’t good. I started hating on the woman who was suffering just as much as I was. She was older than me by many years. She had two children. I was just a spoiled brat.” I let out a short sob. He sat far away, unaffected. “I didn’t know this until my friend told me the day before my wedding. Supposedly, my father asked this woman to choose between her daughter or me. Who did she want him to fuck?”
My heart thundered as I recalled the events.
“The daughter was eleven years old,” I blurted out. Fylox’s eyes darkened. “I got upset because a mother decided to protect her child from this perverse man who is my father. I don’t deserve to live. I should just walk out of here and take what’s coming for me.”
“He never had sex with that girl?” There was a warning in his voice. It alerted me. I should fear this man.
I shook my head. “No, we did what we could do to spare her. My brother married her eventually. They’re quite happy with each other, annoying the fuck out of everyone around them. They have sex all the fucking time. I mean, on Katantia, that’s normal. But they just overdo it.”
“Do they have sex with underage kids where you’re from? Is that something your country stands for?” He poisoned the air with venom. I felt it engulfing me.
“No,” I responded, trying to calm my offended tone. “We have different laws than you guys. People are of age at 16 over there. I… There are rumors. I hear lots of things, shameful things. I never participated. At least, my father had some decency in him left not to make me do such things. Like every other country in the world, we have pedophiles. But Aram refuses to make it legal. He doesn’t see a profit from it. He wants traditional families that produce tax-paying children and so on…”
I gulped down more water because the look in his eyes was scaring me. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes were screaming at me.
