“I did.” I took a seat and crossed my legs. “But I was never really free. I was still imprisoned, just in a different place. Forneus was always around, always looking for a way to take me back.”
“You didn’t go to the police?”
I told her that hadn’t gone anywhere and that there was no real way to ever be free.
“Then how did you stay out for so long?”
“Claire’s father, Benton.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“He protected me…for a while. But then Forneus took Claire, and he didn’t have a choice but to make the exchange.”
Even though she’d been trapped this entire time, she still managed to have some pity for me. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m happy that Claire is free. I’m happy that this will officially be behind her. She can live a normal life now. I always knew I was on borrowed time. I was always running from him, even when I was still. He was creeping up behind me, getting closer and closer. It was more like a vacation…a very short vacation.”
“What’s your plan now?”
“Plan?” I asked.
“You want to do the boats again? Spring is coming, so the snow will melt. The rivers will be full, and we won’t freeze to death.”
I shook my head.
“Then what’s your idea?”
“I don’t have one.”
Her eyes shifted back and forth.
“You were right, Laura. There’s no way out of this place. Just gotta make the best of it…”
I stopped for a moment to look at the moon.
It was full, luminescent, powerful.
All my surroundings shook as if there was an earthquake. Trees swayed left and right. The ground trembled beneath my feet. The starry sky spun in a circle, and the only thing that remained was the moon.
My heart raced harder than it ever had before. My brain thudded with a migraine. But I kept myself calm…at least I tried. The moon was my north star. The moon was real—but everything else wasn’t.
“An-gel.”
I heard his voice but didn’t look.
“Look at me.”
I tore my gaze away and met his eyes.
They were black. They were the same. But everything else had changed. Horns protruded from his skull. Sharp fangs hung from his jaw. His face was bigger than it used to be, more grotesque, with a smile so big and so sinister.
This isn’t real, I told myself over and over again.
“Let us ascend.”
His hand reached out for me, his claws digging into my flesh.
It’s not real.
I did my best to erase the demon, to erase the hallucination, to calm my heart before I collapsed. The only thing I could picture was blue eyes in a different face, short blond hair, a hard jawline that was soft when it wanted to be.
Benton formed in front of me, strong and proud, looking at me like it was just the two of us. “This is real.”
“This is real…”
Twenty-Two
Benton
Claire wasn’t the same.
Not because she was scared or traumatized.
But because Constance was gone.
Days passed, and I took her to school every morning, picked her up afterward, just like old times, but it didn’t feel like old times at all. A piece of us was missing. Our family was fractured.
Claire used to be all I needed, but now I was incomplete.
I couldn’t sleep. I’d lie there thinking about Constance, worried about her, drowning in self-loathing for allowing it to happen. I didn’t put up a fight because I couldn’t. I had to sacrifice one girl for the others, and that choice couldn’t change.
But I still felt like shit anyway.
We sat together at the dining table. We ate the dinner I’d made, grilled chicken in a light sauce with rice and vegetables.
Claire chose to play with her food instead of eating it.
I didn’t give a damn anymore, so I let her do whatever she wanted.
“Daddy—”
“No.”
She looked up at me, her face scrunching up like she would burst into tears. “You can’t just leave her there!”
“Claire.”
“No!” She slammed her fist onto the table, and I’d never seen her do anything like that. “She took care of me, Daddy. We’re supposed to take care of her. You said we were a family—”
“And I meant that.”
Now she started to cry. “Then we have to go get her—”
“Sweetheart, you don’t understand.” I wouldn’t tell her about the threat Forneus made. I wouldn’t scare my little girl with that information. I’d just have to swallow it and look like the bad guy.
“I thought you cared about her…”
It took all my strength not to let my eyes water because she didn’t understand all the turmoil in my heart every second of the day. “I do…very much.”
“What if that was me, Dad? What if I was stuck there—”
“Nothing would stop me from getting to you—”
“Then why not her?” she asked through her tears. “I’m family…so is she.”
“Claire, stop it.”
“No!” She grabbed her plate and threw it on the floor.
The shatter was so loud, and then it was engulfed by the silence. The sheer silence.
I didn’t move, because I couldn’t believe that had happened. Claire had never acted out that way—not once.
She stormed off and ran to her room.
The door slammed a second later.
I didn’t go after her. I didn’t clean up the mess. I just sat there.
I just sat there because there was nothing I could do.
When Claire was at school, it was just me at the house.
I stopped working out. I didn’t start up the construction company again. Honestly, I just sat on the couch and drank.
My nights were restless because she wasn’t there, and her clothes and her smell…just tormented me. My mind always shifted to her, wondering what she was doing at the camp, if she was high on acid, if she was even alive.
I used to be the one thing she trusted to keep her safe.
But I was the one who handed her back.
If she’d resisted, I would have drugged her, restrained her, done anything necessary to hand her back to Forneus. Fortunately, she made it easy on me, walked right up to him without being forced. Claire was everything to me, and I would sacrifice anyone in a heartbeat for her. I knew that made me a monster.
A fucking monster.
Now my daughter thought I was a monster too.
I sat there with my scotch and watched the fire burn. I didn’t know how to move on from this. I didn’t know how to get up and walk away. How did we go back to our normal lives like nothing happened, when we both knew exactly what Constance suffered?
The front door opened.
I stayed on the couch and didn’t rise. I didn’t expect company, and I knew Forneus would keep his word now that he had Constance, so that could only leave one person.
He rounded the corner, dressed in his jacket and black boots.
I held his gaze for a moment before I turned back to the fire—and kept drinking.