Chapter 18 Elior #2
“Father!” My voice cracked. “Father, I’m here—I’m here!”
His head turned towards me, and for one desperate beat, I thought he’d reach for me.
Instead, his face contorted with pure hatred—red and twisted and ugly.
“You!” he bellowed. “You Judas! You—you Jezebel!”
I jerked back like I’d been slapped. “Father—I don’t—I didn’t—”
I tried to get closer, but arms locked around me from behind—Daddy’s arms—hauling me back against his chest. I fought him without thinking, struggling in his hold. He didn’t understand. I needed to get to Father. I needed to—
Father’s gaze sliced past me.
To Daddy.
“It was you!” he snarled, bearing his teeth. “I should have known! I should never have taken a chance on you. You did this—you brought them here!”
Daddy went rigid behind me, his grip tightening protectively. I could feel his heartbeat against my back—badump, badump, badump.
I reached toward Father again, even though Daddy was holding me too tightly to move forward. “Father—please—I don’t understand—why are you—?”
But Father refused to look at me again, keeping his furious glare fixed on the man at my back.
“Father, please—” I tried again, my voice breaking.
“Shut up!” he roared, finally tearing his gaze from Daddy to look at me with disgust. “I should’ve known you’d be a goddamn back-stabbing whore, just like your mother!”
His words didn’t just hit me—they split me open.
For a second, I didn’t understand them—not really. My mind tried to twist them into something else, some other meaning, because he couldn’t have said what I thought he said. Not Father. Not my Father. Not the man whose approval I’d starved for, whose voice had shaped my entire world and existence.
But his face—his face left no room for misunderstanding.
“Father—w-wait—” My voice came out in a whispery gasp. “No, I-I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me!” he spat, lunging against the strangers holding him. “After everything I did for you? After everything I forgave? This is how you repay me?”
My stomach lurched. My breath stuttered out in short, broken bursts.
Forgave?
Forgave what?
“I didn’t—” My throat tightened, the words scraping painfully. “Father, I swear, I didn’t do anything—please—please don’t say that—”
“Whore,” Father hissed. “You betrayed us. Betrayed me. You let him corrupt you.” His chin jerked toward Daddy. “You’ve been rotting ever since your mother put you into this world, and I should have cleansed that stain years ago.”
I felt Daddy stiffen behind me, heard a dangerous rumble in his chest.
But I couldn’t even look back at him.
The world had narrowed to Father’s words.
Father’s face.
Father’s hatred.
My lungs felt like they were folding inward, collapsing like burned paper. “P-please—Father, please—don’t—don’t say that,” I begged, tears flooding my vision, burning my already stinging cheek. “I can do better, I can—just tell me what I did, tell me, and I’ll fix it, I promise, I—”
“Fix it?” He laughed—a horrible, broken, mocking sound. “You think you can fix this? You think you can fix what you are?”
My entire body went cold. My ears rang.
“I didn’t mean—Father, please—please—I didn’t know—”
“You didn’t know?” he thundered. “You didn’t know?!” His voice cracked, violent. “Did you think I wouldn’t see the way you look at him? The way he looks at you?”
I froze.
The way—
The way he looks at—
“I wasn’t—” My voice was barely a breath. “I wasn’t—doing anything wrong—”
“LIES!”
The word shattered something inside me.
I flinched so hard I stumbled backward into Daddy’s chest.
My mind was trying to keep up, trying to glue itself together, but the pieces kept slipping. My thoughts were frantic, disjointed.
I didn’t do anything wrong.
He doesn’t know what happened.
He doesn’t understand.
Or maybe I don’t.
What did I do? What did he think I did? What should I have done?
Daddy’s grip tightened around me—and only then did I realize I was shaking violently.
Father kept talking, kept throwing words at me harder than any strike of his cane. “I made you! I spent years molding you! I was determined to make you into something worthy of me!” he yelled, his lip curling. “And this is how you repay me? By letting that outsider defile you?!”
I whimpered—actually whimpered like an animal—as heat and humiliation and terror all crashed over me in a single choking wave. “I—I didn’t—Daddy didn’t—” My breath hitched. “We didn’t—nothing happened—please, Father, please believe me—”
Father’s expression twisted into something monstrous. Something I’d never seen before. Something he’d probably always kept carefully masked until now.
“What did you just call him?” he asked, his voice suddenly deadly calm.
“W-what?”
“I asked, ‘What. did. you. just. call. him?’”
Daddy spoke from over my shoulder. “You heard him.”
“W-wh—” I stammered.
“Your very existence is a sin, Elior,” Father spat. “You and that goddamn faggot traitor deserve each other.”
The words struck me harder than the cane. Harder than the blows. Harder than anything he had ever done before.
I sagged back into Daddy, my legs finally giving out.
He caught me instantly, arms wrapping fully around me, pulling me tight against him. “Stop,” he snarled, his anger not directed at me. “You don’t talk to him like that. Not ever again.”
Father lunged at that, fury twisting him into something feral. “Don’t you touch him! Don’t you touch my—”
My?
My what?
My son?
My burden?
My stain?
The strangers forced him back, slamming him to the dirt. He fought like a wild thing, teeth bared.
“You’ll burn for this!” he screamed at Daddy.
“You’ll burn for turning him against me!
I warned you!” Then his gaze cut back to me—sharp, vicious, condemning.
“And you,” he hissed. “You will answer for this betrayal. God sees you. He sees what you’ve become.
Nothing more than a filthy, demonic whore. ”
Something inside me broke.
Completely.
I didn’t even have words anymore.
Only trembling. Only tears.
Only the horrible weight of Father’s hatred pressing down on me until I couldn’t breathe.
Daddy’s arms wrapped tighter around me, shielding me, turning my face into his chest. “Don’t listen to him,” he murmured, voice shaking with barely controlled rage. “Elior, look at me—look at me, cherub. You didn’t betray anyone. You didn’t do anything wrong. None of this is your fault.”
But Father’s words—even being dragged away, even muffled—echoed and echoed and echoed inside my skull.
“You Judas.”
“You Jezebel.”
“You back-stabbing whore.”
“Your very existence is a sin.”
I clutched at Daddy’s shirt with weak fingers, unable to stop myself from sobbing. “Daddy,” I choked. “Daddy—help me.”
“Always,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’m not letting anyone take you away from me. It’ll be okay. He won’t hurt you anymore. Never again.”
Daddy guided me away from the screaming, away from Father’s voice still cutting through the chaos like broken glass. My legs barely worked. I think the only reason I didn’t collapse was because he kept me upright with an arm around my waist.
“Elior,” Daddy murmured, trying to angle my body so he could see my face again. “Elior, I need you to look at—”
But instead of reaching for my cheek this time, his eyes dropped lower.
To my hands.
My fingers were curled in the fabric of his shirt, knuckles white, trembling uncontrollably. The skin on them was swollen, split in places, bruised in others—bloated purples and sick, furious reds. The cane had struck there over and over and over. I’d forgotten. That all seemed so far away now.
Daddy’s jaw tightened so hard the muscles jumped.
“What happened to your hands?”
I stared at them stupidly, like they belonged to someone else.
“Elior.” His voice dropped, lethal-soft. “Tell me.”
“F-Father…” I whispered.
His nostrils flared. “Fuck, I knew I shouldn’t have let you go. Fuck!” Daddy stepped closer, lowering himself to my eye level, gripping my wrists as gently as he could without letting me pull away. “Where else?” he breathed. “Did he hurt you anywhere else?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. The words stuck, blocked by panic and shame and the echo of Father’s voice calling me Judas, Jezebel, whore—
I shook my head helplessly, chest tightening.
Daddy’s eyes softened even as fear and wrath burned in them. “Baby, you have to tell me—”
A voice cut in sharply. “Agbayani.”
I flinched so violently I smacked into Daddy’s chest, instinct making me hide behind him before I could think. His arm came around me instantly.
One of the strangers stood a few feet away. I vaguely recognized him as the one who’d grabbed me earlier. He was handsome—skin a little darker than Daddy’s, a full beard, and short black hair that framed an angular face.
He stared at me too long—like he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. His eyes narrowed, confused, almost… unsettled. Then he tore them away and focused on Daddy.
“Agbayani,” he repeated, clipped. “We need the kid in the van. Now.”
Ag…what? My confused thoughts snagged on the name.
I looked up at him, but Daddy’s expression didn’t shift—only hardened.
“He’s injured,” Daddy said flatly. “He needs to be seen by medical.”
“He can be checked later,” the man snapped. “Right now, he needs to be transported with the others—”
“No, Patel.” Daddy stepped between us more fully. “He’s hurt. I’m not sticking him in the back of a cargo van with thirty other terrified kids so he can bleed on the floor.”
The man Daddy called Patel scoffed. “Bleed—? Look at him, Agbayani, he’s in shock. That’s exactly why he needs to be with the others.”
“He needs me,” Daddy shot back, voice edged with steel.
Patel’s jaw twitched. “I heard what the kid was calling you.” His gaze slid to me again—strange, unreadable. “That’s not appropriate. And it’s sure as hell not continuing during federal custody. That shit won’t fly with the SAC.”
Daddy bristled, his grip on me tightening. “If you want him coherent enough to report anything, then I stay with him.”