Page 14 of Lamb

Pot made me hungry, coke just made me paranoid, but Molly? She made me feel everything and nothing all at once. Couldn’t sneak a vibrator past my father’s men, but a couple of tabs in my pocket and they were none the wiser.

I should have been annoyed.I was annoyed. Not because my shadow man had dosed me but because he thought hecould do it without me knowing. Because he thought he had a hand up in this little game we had going on between us. Because he didn’t realize the only reason I was running was because I wanted to. Because I liked someone chasing me.

You didn’t grow up in the home I did, with a man like my father, without knowing how to keep one foot inside the box they put you in and one dangling out. I could be whoever they wanted me to be, while never being that at all. It was a delicate balance I had to constantly maintain or risk everyone finding out the truth.

I was smarter than them. Icouldoutsmart them. And I had. More than once. They were all just too dumb to realize it.

Just like my shadow man.

I stretched my arms above my head, groaning at the tightness in my limbs. I was used to this feeling. The chills and the blurry vision. The tension in my jaw that had my teeth clenching and the pounding in my chest. What I wasn’t used to was the slight bruising I spotted at the crook of my elbow when I finally pried my lashes open again. Yellow and purple with a miniscule red dot in the center. A needle prick.

I didn’t mind popping the occasional pill or even snorting some powder up my nose, but my veins were off limits. I wasn’t a junkie, and I couldn’t afford to look like one either.

I remembered his mask dipping between my thighs, thefeel of his tongue on my pussy, the heat of his breath and the weight of his heavy palms spreading me deliciously wide. What I didn’t remember was what happened after that. Or how he was able to slip a needle into my arm without me realizing it.

Then again, I was flying high after the multiple orgasms. They were unlike anything I’d ever done to myself before. Thigh-clenching, earth-shattering, mind-numbing. That must have been it. He tongue-fucked me into a coma.

I had to admit my head wasn’t throbbing all that much either, a dull ache—just like the one between my legs—but not the usual axe-through-the-brain I was used to feeling after a long night of indulging in all the things I shouldn’t.

It was nothing a few glasses of water wouldn’t fix. So I peeled off last night’s clothes, tossing them in the back of my closet and not the hamper, and threw on a pair of pink pajamas with long sleeves to hide the bruises before slinking my way downstairs. Past my father’s closed office door and into the kitchen. By the time I opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, and shut it again, my father was staring at me from the other side.

All the blood whooshing through my ears meant I didn’t even hear him approach. He must have heard me, though. He must have been waiting for me too. It was the only time he ever sought me out. Beratements and birthdays were all this man knew about being a parent. And today wasn’t my birthday. Not that he ever wanted to celebrate.

No, that little tic mark on the calendar wasn’t about me. It was about him. Every year came with another reminder that I was one year closer to having to pay off the debt I owed him for coming home from the hospital in a pink hat, instead of the blue one he was expecting.

I was pretty sure that’s why he insisted on surrounding me in it. All the pink. So I would come to hate the color as much as he did. The type of conditioning I learned about in that psychology class I took last semester. The one with the dog and the bell. My father was Pavlov and I was his obedient pet… until I sharpened my teeth enough to bite off his hand.

Another thing I had learned in that class? Back an animal into a corner, and its survival instincts would kick in. And right now, my hackles were rising to the surface, my pupils dilated by more than the leftover drugs in my system. The body sensed danger long before the brain did.

My father cleared his throat and I waited for him to address me before speaking. I was too tired and too dehydrated to provoke his temper.

“Dinner will be served at five o’clock sharp tonight, Mari,” he grunted.

Two hours earlier than usual. But that wasn’t what gave me pause. What had my heart plunging into my stomach and stirring up the waves of nausea that had already settled there. It was the way he smirked at me. The smallest break in his cold exterior that tipped up his mouth so that he appeared more disturbing than cordial.

“Don’t be late,” he added, his tone dryer than the back of my throat. “I have a surprise for you.”

I have a surprise for you.The most terrifying words to ever leave my father’s mouth, especially when his idea of a surprise was always more horror story than Hallmark.

20

MARISELA

His fork tapped against his dinner plate, and I watched as he shoved another piece of meat into his mouth. The juices splashing over his lips and dripping onto his chin before he used his free hand to grab the cloth napkin and dab at his cheek.

My eyes honed in on the sunken, sagging skin covered in little spots that spoke to too many hours spent on the golf course and swollen, shaky knuckles that told me he couldn’t properly clutch a club anymore. Hinting at the fact he probably did more drinking than anything else when he was there.

Then there was the way his jaw clenched as he chewed, the little hairs on his face sticking out like an electrified porcupine. It was nauseating. His teeth more yellow than white while his bushy eyebrows looked like two fat hairy caterpillars were ready to crawl off his face at any moment.

I was an observer. It was second nature. A survivalinstinct I’d developed at a young age when beingseen and not heardwasn’t just a suggestion. It was an expectation. So I lived in my head, spent so much time there I hardly realized anyone else was around. Until they caught me staring.

Like right now. Our dinner guest cleared his throat, and I smiled and quickly returned my attention to the bland chunk of steak in front of me. I never understood the correlation between tasteless food and rich people. As if they had an aversion to every seasoning other than salt and pepper.

My father was one of those people now. Which meant I was forced to adopt the palate of someone who looked like they belonged in a nursing home, rather than sitting across from a girl who was a quarter of his age for god only knows what reason. The same man who was currently gawking at me like he wished it was me he was gnawing on instead.

I might have looked away but he sure as hell didn’t. Nor did he seem to care who noticed.

He dropped his fork onto the table with a clank, his focus locked on me and my father’s focus locked on him. Assessing the stranger assessing me. “So,Mary, tell me,” the man sneered. “How are your studies going?”

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