Chapter 28 Elias
TWENTY-EIGHT
Elias
Nothing has gone right.
Instead of coming to meet me himself, my father sent men to pick me up, and they took my gun.
I really thought he would come. I thought there would be an opportunity. But five years made me forget—no, Andre made me forget—what it really means to be invisible.
But sitting in this office in the lodge, not even having been taken to the house, I’m starting to remember.
One of my father’s men is in the room, but he won’t look at me or speak to me.
None of them would, though a number of them are present in the lodge.
But my father isn’t. I’m beneath his notice.
It doesn’t hurt me like it used to, but it does scare me. If he doesn’t come, there will be no opportunity to kill him. To try to kill him, I should say. Without the gun, I don’t have much hope.
There’s an antique pistol mounted on the wall behind the desk, but I’d have better luck with the letter opener.
It makes me think of all the opportunities I surely had over the years. Guns lying carelessly on tables. Steak knives. Kitchen knives. Scissors.
How long will it take for me to have such opportunities again? Days? Weeks?
Years?
When I decided to do this, I only thought of the action, the end result. I didn’t consider any timeline but now. And I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t leave a note. I barely even looked at Andre as I left because I didn’t allow myself to consider that I wouldn’t be back.
God, what will Andre think when he wakes up?
Will he think that I was working for my father after all?
With the tracking on my phone, he’ll know where I’ve gone.
I thought my phone might be taken with the gun, but I guess I’m not really under suspicion.
A gun is pretty standard in my family after all, and I’m the pathetic one that ran away. I’m not considered a potential threat.
I hear a door somewhere in the lodge, then my father’s familiar footsteps come tromping my way. It’s my second time hearing them today, but when he walks into the room, it’s the first time I’ve seen him in five years.
He’s wearing a suit like it’s not three o’clock in the morning, but that doesn’t surprise me. He’s a little grayer with a little bit of a paunch, but he otherwise looks the same. Handsome. Cold. Remote. He stops in the doorway.
“So,” he says. “You’re back.” He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t care. “I’m sure you realize that you don’t get to slide back into the comfortable place you once enjoyed.”
It’s not a question, so I don’t reply. He doesn’t want words from me. And I find that, once again, with him, I don’t have any. I’m frozen. Invisible.
“You’ll stay here until I decide what to do with you.” To the guard, he says, “Strip him of everything and lock him in the timeout room.”
As my father turns to leave, I see my chance vanishing. I see how I am about to vanish.
“I saw Ernesto,” I call out.
My father spins back my way, and I see the difference in his eyes. I see that he sees me, now.
“What are you talking about?” he demands. It hurts that he comes stalking my way for that, summoned by something he cares about.
Why? I want to ask. Why do you care about Ernesto and not me? What’s so wrong with me that you don’t want me, that you chose to replace me with my cousin?
But that thought freezes inside me—and it dies. Because I don’t want to be chosen by this man. And I’m glad that he doesn’t like me, that he doesn’t respect me. I’m proud that he knew there was no point in trying to make me like him—because why the hell would I want to be?
It sickens me that I’m related to him. I don’t know if he himself abused Andre. I don’t know if I’ll ever know that. But men like him did.
So no, I don’t want him to like me. I don’t want him to love me. I just want him to come a little closer.
“I saw Ernesto,” I repeat.
“Where?”
I’m afraid, trembling slightly, but I don’t mind it. Fear is good. It means that something will happen.
“In a pool of blood,” I say.
My father grabs the front of my jacket. He starts to lift me from my chair, and I let him. I rise with him. I reach for the letter opener as he demands, “What the fuck are you talking abou—ahhh!” He screams as I stab the letter opener somewhere near his groin and yank it out.
He slams me to the ground before I get a chance to stab him again. I slash wildly, catching his face and ripping open a bright red line before he wrestles the letter opener from my hand. The guard is shouting, rushing over—
A huge boom shakes the house, rattling the windows.
It freezes my father and the guard for a second, long enough that I knee my father in the groin.
He falls off me, and I bolt up, darting for the door.
I expect a bullet or a hand on my back, but there’s nothing.
My father and his guard are breaking the windows to shoot out. So I just run.
I race down a hallway, heading toward the front where I was brought in, but I hear gunshots, so I dart into another room.
It’s a billiards room, and I run past the pool table, racing toward a set of double doors.
I fumble with the deadbolt and get it unlocked.
I yank open the doors and bolt out onto a patio.
I seem to be on the side of the house. There’s a fire somewhere in front, and gunshots are cracking everywhere. Men are shouting. Some scream.
When shots fire close behind me, I nearly jump out of my skin.
I bolt into the woods.