33. Malachi #2
“Fucking hell.” He paces the floor. “You two are being total fucking downers. I’m trying to find ways forward here, and all you’re doing is pointing out all the ways it could go wrong.
I’m trying to keep our heads above water and stop us from collapsing into a toxic stew of doom and self-pity, and all you can do is keep pointing out all the negatives. ”
I’d always thought of Cain as being more well-adjusted than me, but now I know he likes to get beaten up on the regular as well as kick the shit out of other people, I understand differently. His temper is obviously an issue, and he’s just given us an example.
“Listen, we need to bring this down a notch,” Roman says. “We’re on the same side, and we want one thing more than anything, which is for Ophelia to be safe.”
“Did I hear my name?”
The woman in question walks into the room, and my breath catches. She’s wearing a satin slip dress, her long, pale hair hanging down over it like water. Fuck me .
“Where did you get that?” I choke out.
“One of the closets. Why? Is it all right? Cain said we could wear the clothes in the guest bedrooms, and I went rummaging and found this. It feels so nice against my skin.”
“You look enchanting, Ophelia,” Roman says.
Enchanting? How very old school of him. Fuckable is more like it.
“You said my name?” She looks at us all, one at a time. “You were talking about me.”
“We are trying to figure out how to keep you safe,” I say. “Cain here thinks your father will listen to reason, but I don’t. He hasn’t so far.”
She bites her lower lip, as is her habit.
“He loves me, but he’s not been acting like himself.
I think the worry of it all has him panicking.
Ever since Daisy’s letter arrived, he’s been reacting, not thinking things through, but making kneejerk decisions.
I do know he loves me, deep down.” Her voice is small as though she’s trying to convince herself.
“He does . He’s just overly worried about me, and it means he’s gotten all extra authoritarian with me. ”
“Do you think he’ll speak with us?” I ask. “Listen to what we have to say?”
She hesitates for a moment. “I think he’ll want me back, and that he’ll entertain speaking to the three of you if he believes you can make that happen.
But he didn’t listen to me when I said I didn’t want to go to the facility.
I don’t know how much he’ll listen to me now.
” She thinks of something, lines appearing across her small brow.
“How did you guys even find me? I never thought to ask.”
“Your mom,” Cain tells her. “She slipped me a note.”
A smile touches Ophelia’s lips. “Thanks, Mom.” She seems to think of something. “What if, when I go back, he tries to make me go back to the facility again?”
“He won’t do that,” Cain assures her, “not after he finds out what happened there.”
She bites her lower lip again and nods.
Cain looks around at the rest of us. “Should I turn my phone on so Ophelia can call her father and say she’ll be coming to see him?”
I take a deep breath and nod. Rome does, too.
She puts on a brave smile. “Okay, let’s do it.”
Cain takes out his phone and turns off the airplane mode that we’ve all got switched on. All our location services are switched off, too, so no one can track us via GPS.
Cain’s device buzzes on the counter, and he frowns as he looks at the screen. It buzzes again. And a third time.
“What the fuck?” He swipes at the screen and lifts his gaze to us. “It’s my father. I’ve got voicemail messages and three texts from him.”
He’ll be calling to rail at his son for daring to leave college, I’m sure. The same as all our families will be. The thought makes the headache pounding behind my eyes even worse.
“Ignore it for now,” I say. “We’ve got other things to worry about.”
He’s reading something, though, and when he looks up again, his expression is lighter. “He says he wants to help.”
Suspicion fills me. “Why the fuck does he want to help now when he didn’t before?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he feels bad?”
“He’s a goddamn psycho, Cain,” I point out. “He doesn’t feel bad about shit. I’m sure of it.”
“Maybe we should at least listen to his messages,” Roman suggests.
Cain nods his agreement. He flicks to his voicemail and plays the first message.
“Son, I’ve had a call from the dean of Verona Falls informing me you’ve left. That won’t do.”
I almost laugh. So far, so predictable. Next comes the rant about Cain getting his ass back there or else.
“I think it’s dangerous for you to be off the campus grounds right now, if there are people after you and that girl.”
“That girl?” Ophelia repeats, her face a scowling canvas of pissed-off attitude.
“I’ve thought about it, and your actions have made it very clear to me that you are willing to risk everything for this girl. Including your life.”
Here it comes.
“So, I’ve changed my mind. If you won’t listen to reason, and clearly you won’t, then my job as a father is to protect you. I don’t want you to face danger without backup. I’ve organized to send you some men, as you asked.”
Wait, what ?
My heart picks up speed as hope races through me.
The message continues. “I’ve spoken with the dean, and he’s agreed to let me have some of our men positioned at the college, so long as you limit their activities to around the water tower you’ve turned into your hangout.
They’ll meet you at Verona Falls. Call or message me ASAP.
Your mother is worried sick, and I need to know an ETA for you returning to the college, so I can send my men there to meet you. ”
Cain stares at the phone for a few long seconds after the message ends. “Well, fuck me.” He shakes his head.
Lifting hopeful eyes to us, he focuses on Ophelia. “Will this persuade your father?”
“I don’t know.” She walks up to the counter, but she doesn’t sit.
Instead, she leans forward, still standing, her elbows resting on the granite.
“Before this past week, I would have said yes. Now, I feel as if I don’t know him as well as I believed.
One thing I do know, he will be angry when he finds out I was almost raped at the facility he sent me to. ”
“See, that alone will probably have him agreeing to what we suggest,” Cain says. “He’s going to feel like shit when he finds out.”
He knows so little about human psychology. I open my mouth to speak, but Roman beats me to it.
“Cain, that might be exactly why he goes nuclear on us. People find it hard accepting blame, especially if their actions have put a loved one at risk. It might make him see sense, but it might simply provoke him to double down.”
Ophelia sighs. “Normally, I think I can figure out how he’s going to react, but right now, I truly can’t. He’s not behaving like his usual self. I do know my mother, though. She’ll want me to be where I’m the happiest and safest, and that’s with you guys.”
I don’t tell her that in most families like ours, what the mother wants is almost irrelevant. It’s a patriarchal system—misogynistic, even. Her mother would need to stand up to her husband in order for her views to count, and I don’t know if she’ll do that.
She did help us find Ophelia, but that was behind her husband’s back.
The smell of coffee wafts over the room, and I sigh in relief at the idea of a cup. The coffee machine here takes an age to brew.
“First things first. Coffee, anyone?” I grin at them.
“Coffee first, then we plan,” Roman says.
“I’ll call my father back to thank him and make sure this offer is on the level,” Cain says as he stands and walks to the door.
It sucks that we trust our families so little, but that’s the world we were raised in.
It makes me want to throttle Ophelia’s father for the way he’s behaved, because, out of us all, she should be trusting her parents the least right now.
The fucker sent her to a dodgy institution where she was almost raped, and she still believes in him.
It makes me realize how loyal Ophelia is, and how once she’s given her heart, she’s given it forever.
The impact of her telling me she loves me truly hits home then. I swear to myself I’ll always put her safety and happiness first. She’s the best thing in my life, and I won’t fuck this up like I do everything else.