Chapter Thirty-Six

Nina

“Why did you do that?” I begged Dad tearfully. “Is he dead?”

“Oh, look who cares about Laurence.” Dad cast down an oily little smile to me. Unbelievably, he hoisted his box of leather bound books into the air, ready to carry them downstairs. As if nothing happened. As if he didn’t brutally maim his own best friend for absolutely no reason.

No, for one reason: to make a point. To make a point to me. To hurt me.

“He’s probably not dead,” Dad explained casually. “He’s probably mildly concussed.”

I remembered what Eli told me about his mother’s death: a fractured skull. I knew it was no fall, he said. A chill ran down my spine.

The door behind Dad fell quietly open. I didn’t hear anyone coming up the stairs, but then, these carpets muffled a lot of the sound downstairs.

Maybe I was in shock, or maybe a little part of me was starting to give up hope. For whatever reason, I didn’t even think that it might be Eli.

A broad shadow fell across the carpet from behind Dad.

But then a thick, tattooed forearm wrapped around Dad’s neck, and my heart leaped into my mouth. “Eli!” I cried.

“Hey, baby,” he panted down at me, grinning.

All my doubts melted away at the sight. In that moment, I knew the feeling of complete trust.

Dad dropped his box of books. The floor shook with the weight of that box, and all the books spilled out across the floor. Dad sent an elbow hard into Eli’s ribcage. His grip softened, and my father tore free from the hold.

He spun over the stack of books incidentally, losing his footing and landing on his ass.

Even still, he laughed. He looked up at Eli and laughed.

“Eli,” Dad greeted him, in a tone so boisterous and welcoming, it made my skin crawl. Didn’t Dad remember what he did to this man when he was a boy? Didn’t he care? “I figured you’d be washed up in the gutter by now, son! Probably dead!” Dad panted and pushed himself to a stand. Eli stood in a ready position, his boots firm on the ground and his thighs powerful in their stance. He didn’t move to help me, and I didn’t want him to. Dad would take advantage of that moment of weakness in a second. He was probably counting on it. He exuded confidence now. “Whatever became of the great, proud Eli Connelly?” he asked, unable to disguise his breathlessness.

“He’s kicking your ass right now,” Eli said, launching himself toward Dad. Even with that fair warning, the man moved too quickly for Dad to defend himself from the attack. Eli snapped into the air like some Tae Kwon Do master, and his boot vaulted into Dad’s face at high speed and with all Eli’s weight behind it. He landed, coiled for a counter, but Dad flew back against the far wall, nose gushing freely.

The eeriest light dawned in Dad’s dark eyes. His shark eyes. He grinned at Eli, even though the blood would get into his mouth. Even though he should’ve been in a lot of pain, and he should have been scared, because none of his Freaks were coming. Eli must’ve taken them all out.

Still, Dad grinned at him. He grinned like a madman.

“You’re not going to do anything, you pussy,” he spat. His voice was icy, in spite of the light in his eyes. “Do you know how I know that?”

Eli held his position and said nothing, waiting.

“Because you didn’t kill me when you had the chance. You already had your chance, you overgrown twerp. My back was turned, for Christ’s sake! Don’t you want the girl?”

“The girl?” I shrilled from where I was still tied to this goddamn chair. “The girl, Dad? Like I’m some thing? Some fucking diamond in a heist movie?”

“At best, that is what you are,” Dad rasped without breaking eye contact with Eli. “At worst, you’re a dead bartender’s pregnant ex.”

That snapped Eli’s attention away from Dad. His eyes fluttered to me and he gaped. He stooped and grasped the sides of my chair, hauling me upright again. Finally! “Is that—?” His eyes gleamed like gold, like he was so happy for us. “Are you pregnant?”

“No, I said that I—” Dad gripped one of his trophies from the opposite shelf and came running at Eli with zeal. “Look out!”

The trophy smashed into Eli’s face and cut a gash over the bridge of his nose. Dad crashed into him at full force, and they rolled. I screamed and thrashed, feeling useless still in this damn chair. Dad raised the trophy again, probably intent on literally killing Eli, but Eli’s strong hand came up and gripped Dad’s wrist. They rolled again, and Eli rammed Dad’s arm with his kneecap until he dropped the bloodied trophy.

Eli snatched it up, and Dad spat blood at him. His eyes were manic now.

“Do it,” he sneered. “You must want to. You must want to. Do it.”

“I’m not going to kill her father in front of her eyes,” Eli spat. “That’s the difference between us, old man! I don’t traumatize the people I fucking love.”

“Love,” JP repeated with a little laugh. “Well, then.” He looked down at me. “You two only met, you know. And he’s your stepbrother, darling. You’re filthy for that.”

“Leave her out of this,” Eli snapped.

“I would have loved to!” JP roared. “You brought her into this game, you son of a bitch! You made me do this to her!”

Dad surged up against Eli again, and they rolled together across the floor, knocking into Laurence as they went. He was still unconscious.

During their tussle, something must have happened that I didn’t see. There was a grapple, and Dad came away with a gun in his hands, directed at Eli. Eli sprang instantly away from him and held his arms up. He laid on his back, vulnerable and submissive.

Oh god. Dad was going to kill him. Dad was going to kill the love of my life in front of my eyes.

“No!” I sobbed. The world spun around us. “No!” I thought that I had hated my father before, but what I felt for him now was pure. There was no love left between us. If he fired that shot into Eli’s head, I would kill him myself. I would.

Dad depressed the trigger, pointed directly at Eli’s face.

The gun clicked. Nothing happened.

“What kind of idiot,” Eli asked, whipping his leg in another tight arc and hitching his hand up into his boot, “do you think I am?” He grinned at Dad, and there was real light in his eyes. Could he see the end? Were we going to get out of this soon? “I’m not going to leave the fucking safety off.”

There was a knife in Eli’s hand. It happened so quickly, I didn’t see it at first. There must have been a knife in that boot, and its blade is wide and curved. He whipped the knife end over end, and it sank into Dad’s dominant arm with surprising precision. He was forced to drop the gun onto the floor.

“You think you’re so smart,” Dad panted. His entire face glistened with sweat now. He was a vigorous fighter, and he was in good shape, but he was still in his fifties. He was nothing compared to Eli’s tight, young body, and nothing compared to Eli’s true, pure fury. “You think I can’t hurt you if I can’t fire a gun?”

Dad grasped the hilt of the hunting knife and pulled it free from his arm again. My jaw dropped.

“There are other ways to make a man bleed,” he rasped.

Dad shambled toward me, and even still, in the middle of all this, I didn’t believe that Dad would hurt me. I believed that he would take any opportunity to kill Eli. I believed that he might even kill one of his Freaks. But not me. I was his princess. I was the special one. Wasn’t I? Hadn’t I always been?

Everyone is expendable to me, he had said.

Dad hooked his bloody arms around my neck and pressed the blade of his newfound hunting knife into my throat. I swallowed and felt its edge prick my skin. Oh god. Oh god. I couldn’t move. My eyes bulged and seemed to go blind with panic. I stared at the wall. I couldn’t even bear to look at Eli. I couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes as I died.

Would Daddy kill me? Just to make a point? Just to hurt Eli?

It must have worked.

Eli dropped to his knees and extended his hands, palms out, into the air.

“Anything you want,” he rasped. “Do anything you want. Just don’t hurt her.”