It’s been used to hurt people.
It’s been used to keep me and my sisters caged. To control us.
I plant my feet and try to steel my spine. This won’t be easy. “Father.”
He doesn’t look up from his computer. “I am not ready to see your traitorous face, Zurielle.”
I embrace the flare of anger. It gives me the strength to ignore the anger in his voice and shut the door. “I don’t care what you want.”
“You made the abundantly clear when you ran off to Carver City and fucked my enemies.” He sits back and levels a look at me. Faced with the same expression, a younger me would have fled the room until he calmed down. A cowardly me. My father looks me over, something brittle in his gaze. “I’ll admit I didn’t expect to see you again whole. The Sea Witch doesn’t often leave her victims so intact.”
“She has a name.” I swallow hard. “And I’m not Ursa’s victim.”
“How would you know? She’s manipulative and vindictive.” He sighs and shakes his head. “You’re an innocent, Zurielle. She had no business laying hands on you.”
I was prepared for his anger. I was not prepared for him to try to shove me right back into my old self the same way my sisters did. I reach up and grip my necklace, letting the edges of the jewels press hard against my palm. I’m so angry, it leaves me breathless. “She did a whole lot more than lay hands on me.”
His jaw tightens. “That’s enough.”
“No, it’s not.” I glare. “When are you going to admit that I am more than capable of thinking for myself?”
“When you prove that you can make decisions like a fucking adult!” He slams his hands on the desk and shoots to his feet. “I have driven myself crazy with worry about you, and you acted like a selfish little brat.”
“You lied to me.” I take a step forward, refusing to back down in the face of his anger. “You have hurt just as many people as she has. Don’t act like it’s not the truth.”
“Anything I’ve done, I’ve done for this family.”
I laugh. “That’s rich. It’s noble when you do it, but when she does it, it’s evil. You keep pretending like she betrayed you, but you are the one who drove her out of Olympus so you could play second-in-command to Poseidon without competition. You are a hypocrite.”
His face darkens to a deep red color. “Did you come home to lob insults at me? How mature. If you’re going to act like a child, you can go to your fucking room like a child.”
He’s not going to listen to me. He’s acting like he has every other time one of us has done something he doesn’t like. My father becomes a rage-filled steamroller and annihilates any form of resistance. The impulse to retreat nearly sends me fleeing the room. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to fight, to spit these hateful words at each other.
But if I don’t stand up to him now, I’ll never get a chance to do it again.
“No.” I take a breath.
“What the hell did you just say to me?”
“No,” I repeat. “I am not a child. I am not a rebellious teenager. I’m sure as hell not a princess locked in a tower. You are my father, but I’m no longer accepting you as my jailer.”
He laughs, harsh and cruel. “Now I know she’s put words in your mouth. I’m not your jailer. I’m your father. I only want what’s best for you, and if you can’t see that, you’re not ready to have this conversation.”
It would be so easy to slip back into that old skin, to stop fighting. I have twenty-three years of learned behavior, all that experience clamoring for me to stop arguing and leave the room until he’s less angry. Instead, I plant my feet and straighten my spine. “I am an adult and you keep me locked up in this house, unable to go anywhere without an armed guard, unable to talk to anyone who isn’t approved by you. You keep me from getting a job, from having access to my own money. From everything. Tell me what that is if not a jailer?”
“I—”
But I’m not interested in whatever he’s about to yell at me. I keep going. “I only came home in order to tell you that I’m done. You have to let me go.”
He blinks. “What?”
“You have to let me go,” I repeat. “Do you think that I’ve learned nothing from you? Do you really think that I’m so much of a fool that I don’t know my own heart?”
He leans back a little. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m moving out.” I measure each word carefully, all too aware that rushing through this will give him further ammunition not to take me seriously. To say that I’m too emotional to be rational right now. “I am starting my own life and making my own decisions while doing it.” I watch him closely. “I would like you to be a part of it, but if you can’t support me, then you won’t be welcome in my new home.”