There’s no doorknob on this side, nothing to wiggle or pry. There’s not a window for me to escape through. Nothing but dark wood surrounds me.
My hand drops to my chest, my finger grazing over the scars from the men who I hate and… don’t hate…
I sigh and glide to the floor, my back resting against the door.
How long before my wait is over, and my father gets what he wants? Or perhaps he figures out his mistake and lets me go…
A shattered laugh rips from me, my shoulders moving with the sound.
Let me go… what a joke, he won’t do that. He would never.
The sounds of a door creaking open and footsteps make me hold my breath. I perk up, my body unmoving as I listen in. Some rustling, perhaps from bags. A sharp cough followed by some mumbling. The footsteps come closer and I force my body to move, to scamper away from the door.
The lock turns and the door opens with a grumble. Light shines in and my vision blurs. I squint my eyes, trying to see anything. But the door slowly closes.
I’m not alone anymore.
He’s here with me.
The monster.
“Dad, just let me go…” My voice sounds so soft, so weak, almost the same as when I was younger.
“You hid from me,” he snarls, and my sight slowly adjusts back to the dark. His figure stands a few feet away from me and I shuffle further away until I hit a wall.
“I had to—you hurt me, over and over again. Dad, please…”
I don’t see it coming. My head whips to the side, my cheek throbs. His slaps might as well be punches with the thickness of his hands.
“Silence!” he bellows. “I’m done with your whining; you belong to me. Not those three!”
I keep my head down, fear spreading under my skin. “I don’t belong to you, not in that way. You’re my dad, you’re supposed to keep me safe from the monsters. You’re not supposed to become one,” I whisper, afraid to speak any louder, even if I want to scream it at him.
I can never win against him. I can never beat him.
He scoffs at my words. His weight shifts as he bends closer. His fingers wrap around my throat and I try to move away but I’m too weak as he lifts me up. The sharp wood cuts into my back and rips my shirt as he keeps me pressed against it.
“I’ll help you remember who you belong to, don’t worry.”
I try to squirm, but I know escape isn’t possible. Not if he’s here. There’s only the two of us.
And Dad always gets what he wants.
JAXON
I still see red. I can hardly breathe. Thinking of Hope with her father after everything we’ve learned and what I’ve seen… It shouldn’t happen. How did it happen?
Dimitri won’t answer a single question. He doesn’t know. That’s the common theme which makes him useless. I bite my tongue hard, trying to ground myself.
If he knew how it happened, if he knew it was going to happen, that itcouldhappen, he would have stopped it. I would have stopped it. Knox would have beaten the shit out of Coach and left him alive for me to finish him off.
Hope doesn’t belong to him like that. He doesn’t get to take her. She has a life here. She has us. There’s no room for him anymore. I don’t know why he doesn’t get it. I don’t know why he thinks he has any right to touch her at all.
Because we didn’t stop him before. Because she had to run and hide to escape him. Because we brought him back to her.
My anger, shame, and guilt mix into a cocktail that’s nearly too strong for me to swallow. It clears the red from my eyes all the same.
I don’t know where Dimitri is heading, I just remember insisting on getting in the car. I couldn’t stand not doing something. Even the illusion of making progress is better thanstanding still. I glance around and clear my throat. “We need to go to Jared’s.”