Page 51 of Feed Your Fiends

“He’s your father, Elle. My husband. I can’t just throw him out when he’s vulnerable.”

I stab my sternum so hard it throbs dully beneath my finger. “I’m vulnerable. I was when I was nine, and he almost let me drown. I was when I was eleven, and he left me at the petrol station for anyone to do anything to me. And I was vulnerable when he came to my dance studio, the only place that was just mine, my safe if imperfect little haven and he infiltrated that too just to fuck Madame Auclair.”

“Elle!”

“It’s true! He chose everyone over you, over us, and you chose him over me time and time again.”

“That’s not true!”

“Prove it.” I stomp back into the carpeted hallway, ignoring my throbbing feet and throw the front door wide open. I’m greeted with a frosty gust of wind that tickles my scalp and covers me with goosebumps. “Kick him out.”

“Elle.”

“If he stays, I won’t.”

She looks at him, at the way he sickeningly licks the floor. “Just wait for him to come down first—”

“If he stays, I won’t.” I reiterate. “Him, or me?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Anything could happen to him out there!”

“Anything could happen to me. I’m a woman, alone on the streets, in a corset and stockings.” Not that it mattered if I was wearing a sack. Nothing I did or wore would matter. The only thing that mattered was that I had a vagina and I was all alone in the dark.

She gasps at my outfit as if finally noticing it. As if finally noticing me and not her fucking new lapdog. “Where the hell have you been dressed like that, Eloisa?”

“I’ll tell you where the hell I’m going dressed like this if you don’t answer me.”

She tries to shut the door, but I stick my leg against it firmly, the cold night air making more goosebumps erupt beneath my stockings.

“Elle, it’s not just the elements out there. It’s the Auclairs-”

“They’re somewhere lurking out there,” I say confidently because somehow the Auclairs are intertwined in this coincidence, too. “I know they are.” I know, like I know, like I know. “Me, or Jarett?”

Jarrett lifts his head at his name, and he stares at me, really stares at me, and one word leaves his lips. “Elle?” he mutters. “Elle. Elle. Elle.” Then his eyes slide back to the water that he dips his tongue into again.

I gaze back at Jaime. She won’t answer, but we both know who she’s chosen.

Swallowing the hard lump in my throat, I pivot into the dark, but not before I hear Jarett mumble.

“Elle. The letter L. Double L. One L. E L. Isn’t that funny?”

I slam the door, my heart accelerating at the words, but it’s masked by something humming even louder the second I make it to the street. The heavy vroom of an engine.

The flash of white lights is like heaven’s gates opening. And as Gant emerges from the coupe, as pale as death itself, I swear they have.

And I… I run towards the light, toward my torturer’s arms that open wide for me. Cold fingers, ghostly white and shaking uncontrollably, slip around my waist and pull me off the ground just like the little doll he always says that I am.

One moment, we’re vertical, the next we’re collapsing onto the hood, and he’s pulling me tight against his thundering chest, his fingers tangling in my hair.

It’s only when his pounding tempo matches mine do I pull away to look up at him, and to my surprise, he isn’t looking at me at all. He’s staring at my old hellhole. There’s no way he saw me emerge from it. I was already five houses up and halfway across the pavement when I spotted the car.

But he knew. He always knows. He always wins.

For now.

I follow his glance, and there’s no one on the porch screaming, pleading for me to come back. There’s not even anyone in the window watching us. It’s just him and me. Good or bad. He’s always…always there, waiting, reaching, trapping us together. I need together right now.

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