CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE PAST
“Another year,” I implored shakily. “Please, Oliver.”
I stood before his desk, my arms crossed and my face streaked with tears. At first, Oliver didn’t look up from the papers. His body was stiff at my intrusion.
I hadn’t knocked.
In desperation, I’d opened the door to his office and hurried in, my plea flooding out of me.
He finally looked up, and the frown on his face made me still. Fear shot down my spine, but I refused to cave. I couldn’t cower, even when every part of me wanted to.
I expected him to retort or dismiss me, but his voice came out shockingly soft.
“Daisy, you knew this day was coming.”
I shook my head. “It’s too soon, Oliver.”
“He’ll flourish—”
“He’s eight! He’s too young. It’s too soon. Please.”
Oliver turned his attention to his fountain pen. For several seconds, I watched him carefully place the lid over the tip and screw it shut. Then he set it down on the paperwork and leaned back in his leather chair.
It creaked beneath his weight.
He appeared so big all of a sudden, even as he sat there. Even as I stood on the opposite side of the desk looking down at him.
“The school he’s in now is an underfunded waste bin,” he finally said.
“The teachers are run-of-the-mill rejects who scraped together degrees because their former plans in life fell through. Do you think these incompetent idiots have a chance of helping the forty-something children wedged into their classroom like sardines?”
“There are better schools—”
“I thought you were arguing to keep him with his friends.”
“I want him here with me.”
As the final word fell, I knew I’d made a mistake.
Oliver’s expression deadened as he looked at me. My body shook as I tried to hold myself together.
“I’m his mother,” I said when the silence pressed in from all around me.
Another tear fell.
“He’s my son, Oliver.”
He’s not yours.
He’s mine.
I didn’t have to say it.
He heard the words anyway.
This was dangerous.
At the beginning of my punishment, he had made it clear that Rowe was also his now. That he could twist the narrative however he saw fit and make sure I couldn’t win if I ever challenged him.
He’d kept me in that fucking cabin for months.
Then I had returned, altered, to this house. To an existence that was just as confining as the cabin.
I still shook with fear.
Fear that never loosened around my limbs. That left me paralyzed and sick. I still waited for him to strike while he waited for me to falter. To make another mistake and wind up back there to waste away and die.
His displeasure showed immediately.
His nostrils flared as though he had smelled something awful.
Then he stood.
My heart pounded in my ears as he rounded the desk and came toward me. The closer he came, the harder my body fought the urge to run.
My knees wobbled as I forced myself to stay there and look at him.
My determination faltered as the fear grew.
Fear of punishment.
Fear of his anger.
Fear that he would lock me away until I died miserably.
But that didn’t frighten me as much as the thought of him having my son to himself.
To torment.
To alter.
He stopped in front of me and stared.
Just stared.
The seconds passed, and I found myself counting them. Thinking about how much time had already been taken from me.
How Seneca called it wasted, as though I had given it away willingly.
“He’s mine, too,” Oliver declared suddenly.
There was no feeling in his voice and nothing in his eyes as he looked at me.
“You gave him to me.”
“I did not,” I whispered, my voice breaking.
“He’s mine,” he repeated, his brows lifting a fraction. “Mine to teach. Mine to play with. Mine to enlighten.”
The word enlighten made me stiffen.
Images of the cabin tore through me.
The oil lamps burning out.
The hunger.
The thirst.
The goddamn thirst.
I swallowed hard to rid myself of the ache in my throat, but my shoulders shook and a sob threatened to escape.
“Oliver, please.”
There.
A plea.
Let him win. I didn’t care.
Just let me keep my son there with me to hold and love.
Oliver’s vacant eyes searched mine, giving nothing away.
“You want him for another year?”
“Please.”
My body shook so hard I nearly fell to my knees.
He watched me cry.
Watched the tears slide down my face, and there was nothing in him. Not a care. Just cold calculation. He watched every tremble. Every tear. The most disturbing part was how loving he had been until I barged into his office.
Sometimes, I almost believed him.
At my lowest, I wanted to believe him.
“He can stay for one more year,” Oliver relented.
For a second, my heart jumped with hope.
Then he added, “I want another lesson in return. Something more…educational than the last one.”
I froze.
Then I began shaking my head.
I had barely survived the last time.
The shadows still haunted me. I still heard whispers in the night. Voices inside my head after a nightmare.
Then came the feeling of claws.
Sharp claws from a dozen hands gripping me in bed, trying to pull me into the darkness with them.
Come, come, come.
Be with us.
My breaths came out in pants. Dizziness overtook me.
The thought of doing it all again left me speechless. Trembling. So terrified I could hardly form words.
I won’t survive it.
Not if he plans something worse.
If I died, he would have my boy all to himself.
If I died, my boy would think I had left him.
If I died—and goddammit, I would die, I knew it—it might be Rowe in that fucking cabin next, watching the light die out as he took his final sip of water.
Oliver didn’t wait for a response.
He turned around and returned to his desk. He resumed his grading, leaving the decision sitting between us, though he already knew what I would choose.
He whistled under his breath.
A cold smile spread across his face.
The horror sank deeper than my fear of death.
Once Rowe was gone, I would be entirely in Oliver’s hands.
And worse than dying was leaving my son at Oliver’s mercy.
“No,” I whispered.
Oliver’s pen stopped moving.
“No lesson?” he asked.
I stared at the papers beneath his hand.
The forms that would send my son away.
My mouth felt numb.
“Send him.”
Oliver resumed grading.
I stood there for another moment, waiting for him to look at me.
He never did.