Hush (Black Lotus #3)(54)

“I’m going back out to the car,” her brother announces as he takes his smoothie with him to the exit. “Hurry up; I don’t want to be late to school.”

“And that,” Hailey says, “Is my annoying older brother, Steve.”

Steve. My dad passed his name down to that little f*cker.

“You look like you’re all ready for school. What grade are you in?” I ask while we wait for her drink.

“Fifth grade.”

“Wow. Big girl on campus. So how old does that make you?”

“Eleven.”

Her perfect voice, her perfect hair, her perfect clothes all make me want to ball my fist up and slam it through her perfect smile.

“Hailey,” the employee calls out, and I fight the overwhelming urge to grab her and run.

“I gotta go. Thanks for the smoothie, Erin.” She’s so polite it irritates me to the point I want to claw my own skin from my bones.

She practically skips out the door, leaving me to watch their car as it pulls out and drives away.

I snap around when there’s a tap on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the employee says as he holds out a cup. “I called your name, but I guess you didn’t hear me.”

Without a word, I turn away from him and walk out the door as he stands there like an *, still holding my drink.

I hate everyone in this shit town.

Sitting in my car, I can’t bring myself to drive just yet. She’s eleven years old and has the life I was supposed to have. I was supposed to be the bubbly and polite girl who wore the pretty clothes and grabbed a smoothie before heading off to school. I was supposed to be her. Instead, when I was eleven, I was tied up to a garment rod and locked away in a closet for days on end. I was in the darkness with no food or water, left to piss and shit on myself. And when I wasn’t in the closet, I was down in that dank basement being molested, raped, sodomized, pissed on, beaten, and whipped. I wasn’t skipping out the goddamn door with my Raspberry Paradise smoothie. Her biggest struggle in life is having an annoying older brother.

I should’ve grabbed her when I had the chance.

Anger does nothing but ferment in my bones. It aches and pricks from the inside out, and I ball my hands, pounding them against the steering wheel as I growl between my clenched teeth. When I look up, I see an elderly lady staring at me in horror as she walks on by.

She has no idea that she’s staring at a monster.

Smoothing my hair back off my forehead, I straighten myself and start the car. It’s edging on eight o’clock, and I need to get back to the hotel.

I stand outside of our room and prepare myself for the wrath of Declan before opening the door.

“Where the f*ck have you been?” he seethes as soon as I walk in. “Tell me it’s not what I’m thinking. Tell me you didn’t go back to that house.”

Keeping my cool so I don’t rile him up any more than he already is, I admit, “I went back to the house.”

“Jesus Christ! What were you thinking?” he snaps, grabbing my arms and shaking me.

“I don’t know, but I had to go. I knew you wouldn’t allow it, so I snuck out.”

He shoves me over to the couch and pushes me down, releasing my arms. I watch as he paces the room a couple times before walking back over to me. He takes a seat on the coffee table and faces me. His jaw is locked, a tell to his immense anger. I knew how much my sneaking away would affect him. Declan has to hold all the power for him to feel safe, and I stole that from him this morning.

“It’s not what you think.” I attempt to mollify him.

“Tell me, since you seem to know everything about me. Tell me what it is I’m thinking.” He throws his derisive words in my face.

“I had to see them. I had to know more.”

“Them?” he questions, growing more irritated. “You mean his kids?”

I nod.

“Christ, Elizabeth,” he barks, standing and walking away from me.

“Stop yelling at me!” I snap, getting off the couch and stepping up to him. “You’re pissed, I get it! But the expectation you have for me to just sit and be patient is something I can’t do.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I’m not apologizing, if that’s what you’re after.”

I watch him grind his teeth as he glares down at me, and I turn this around on him, saying, “Why don’t you tell me something . . . If this were reversed, and it were your mother in this situation, tell me you’d be okay just hanging back. Tell me you wouldn’t act on every single one of your instincts.”

His eyes pierce mine, and I push him even more.

“Tell me you could restrain yourself and stay away.”

We meet each other’s opposition, neither one of us backing down.

“He’s my dad, so don’t you dare yell at me and belittle me for acting on my desperation, because you’d do the same thing.”

I turn to walk away from him, and when I do, he finally speaks.

“You won’t defy me again. Do you understand?”

I look back at him and respond, “Then I need you to bend and trust me. I snuck away because I knew you’d refuse to allow me to go. All I’m asking is for you to at least try to see things my way every once in a while.”