26. Chapter Twenty-Six #2
I pinch my knees together to ward off the memory and focus on shooting an invisible laser beam straight through his temple instead.
“It got you here. With me. Where you’re safe.”
“I thought we established you don’t know the meaning of that word.”
“Have I done something that’s made you feel like you’re not?”
“Oho! You want to open that can of worms, buddy? Alright. Let’s do this.
” I begin counting down on my fingers. “You’re the hitman hired to kill me.
You’ve stalked me. Broken into my apartment while covered in blood.
Tackled me to the ground in a cemetery and restrained me.
Kidnapped me. Handcuffed me to your bed and left me there.
And don’t even get me started on all that”—I wave a hand in the air—“stabbiness. Call me crazy, but I think all of that might imply that I am, in fact, not safe.”
He nods in acknowledgment and says, “All of that may be true, Harlow. But facts don’t always align with emotional responses. Despite everything you just said, you don’t fear me the way you should.”
I stew in that for a moment before responding, “Fearing you wouldn’t change the outcome. So what’s the point in doing so? It would only be a waste of energy.”
He glances at me once more, pity entering his expression.
“I’m not some sad, helpless little girl, Lynx. So don’t look at me like I am.”
“No,” he drawls. “You’re certainly not.”
A tense moment passes, the air in the cab growing stifling hot as we sit there quietly. Him gripping the wheel like he’s trying to strangle the life out of it, and me imagining what it would be like to pluck every single hair from his beard with a pair of tweezers.
But when we turn off onto the road that leads to my father’s old church, all that tension snaps like a rubber band, and I’m sent tumbling back into a state of panic.
And I just know I’m going to regret not killing him when I had the chance.
Three. Two. One.
Breathe.
My Doc Martens clomp on the paisley-carpeted aisle of the church nave as I storm straight toward my lying, deceiving priest of a father. He’s standing behind the altar, reciting his prayers and practicing his speech for tomorrow’s service. The final service before the city condemns the building.
He doesn’t spare me a glance. Not even when I come to a stop in front of him, fists balled at my sides and a look so foul it could peel the paint off these goddamn walls.
“You promised me,” I snip out, glaring up at him. “You said I could finish out the school year and graduate with my friends.”
He slides his middle finger into the bible and flips it open, scanning the pages for a scripture I’m sure he intends on reading to me to shut me up.
But it won’t work. Not this time.
“If you pull me out of school right now, you’ll never see me again,” I threaten. “I’ll pack my bag and run away.”
This gets his attention.
He peers down at me over the bridge of his nose, judgment wafting off him like a bad stench as his dark brown eyes flick over my black jeans and tank top.
He hates that I wear all black. So naturally, I make a point of doing it often.
His sigh is long and filled with boredom. “I’m sorry, Harlow. But it’s already been decided.”
“You can’t do this!” I shout, my voice echoing off the church walls. “Mom would never agree to it.”
His round jaw ticks in irritation at the mention of his dead wife. My mother. The only woman who I had in my life to look up to. Ever since she passed away, my father has been on a mission, trying desperately to mold me into the perfect little church girl.
News flash. I’m not putty. And I’ll never conform to his unrealistic expectations.
I am me. And that’s never going to change.
He sighs. “Your mother is gone, Harlow. I make the rules now. And this is what’s best for you.”
“Gah!” I flail my arms in the air. “I hate you.”
“Hatred is something only sinners are capable of experiencing, Harlow. Now go help Mr. Fitzgerald carry the boxes in my office down to the basement.”
A fury I’ve never felt before ignites within me as my heart skids to a stop.
“You’re putting her things in the basement?” I screech, heat pricking at the edges of my eyes.
When he simply stares at me unblinking, I bolt past him and down the hall to his office and barge through the door to find Mr. Fitzgerald hunched over, his back to me as he tapes up one of the brown cardboard boxes labeled Eloise Kraemer.
The old cripple stands to his full height, leaning on his cane as he turns to face me.
“Oh, hello there,” he greets politely, offering me a small smile.
When I don’t respond, just stand there sniffling and wiping the tears as they fall, a pitiful look washes over him.
I ignore it and glance around the room, my heart breaking with every empty shelf and blank space where my mother’s trinkets used to be.
It’s as if she never even existed.
On wobbly legs, I walk toward Mr. Fitzgerald and croak out, “Can I at least go through it all first?”
He angles his head at me. “Of course.”
Sobbing quietly to myself, I begin plucking items out of one of the open boxes. Scarves. Hats. A yellow file filled with legal papers that I don’t understand. A pair of her shoes.
When I find her rosary lying haphazardly in the bottom, as if it weren’t her favorite thing in the world, I snatch it up and fall to my knees on the hardwood floor.
“I miss you already, Mom,” I whisper, bringing the cross to my lips and closing my eyes.
“Your mother loved you very much, Harlow. She wouldn’t want this for you,” the elder says from behind me.
I glance over my shoulder at Mr. Fitzgerald. At his warm expression and kind eyes. And I wonder why someone as patient and caring as him couldn’t have been my father instead.
Standing, I bow my head in respect and say, “I know it’s a lot to ask, but could you talk to him?
I don’t want to be homeschooled, Mr. Fitzgerald.
I need my friends right now. I need to feel normal.
I know he listens to you. Respects you. Maybe you could help me convince him to just give me some time. ”
A warm hand settles on my shoulder, squeezing gently.
“Come with me. I have something to show you.”
I peek up at him through wet lashes.
Mr. Fitzgerald has always been nice to me, understanding when most others aren’t. He doesn’t approve of my attitude at times and often scolds me for being petulant, but he’s always given me grace and forgiveness when I needed it.
I may be seventeen and full of defiance and rebellion, but I’m also mature enough to recognize right from wrong.
Despite what my father believes, I’m not a bad person.
I’m just … lost, I think.
And now I’m motherless, trying to navigate my father’s world alone.
“Okay,” I mutter, looping my mother’s rosary over my neck before following Mr. Fitzgerald out of my father’s office and through the nave.
My father is still at the altar, rehearsing his final speech. A ripple of satisfaction moves through me at the prospect of his church closing. Perhaps it’s selfish of me to think this way, but at least I’m not the only one losing something I love.
I flip him the bird and follow Mr. Fitzgerald down the second hall.
When we approach the basement door, a thick wooden slab with several locks, that satisfaction dissipates, replaced by a strange fizzing sensation in the pit of my stomach.
The old man pulls a key from his pocket and begins unlocking each of the dead bolts.
They must keep financial and legal records down there or something. Why else would the basement be locked up like that?
He opens the door and gestures for me to go first.
I glance back at my father. At the dark look on his face.
Fuck him.
Exhaling a shaky breath, I step over the threshold and head down the creaky wooden stairs.
Just as I’m hitting the bottom step, something in the corner moves and I scream.
“Rats, dear,” Mr. Fitzgerald behind me says. “You’ll get used to them.”
Used to them? What does he mean by used to them?
Before I have a chance to ask, something hard cracks against my skull, and I topple sideways onto the cold concrete floor.
The second and third blows come just as fast and twice as hard.
I realize far too late that it was his cane.
And then everything goes black.