I started to get worked up remembering everything he’d said about the guys and me, but I swallowed those feelings back down again. He stood there extending an olive branch—or at least, he tried to—and I wanted to give him at least a chance to do the right thing.
“It won’t work.” He looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet. “You and your mother have made that clear. Your little sister even told me off again while we were on our way over here.”
Thank you, Prue.
And Mom.
“But I love you, Poppy,” he continued. “And I want us to be a family again. Especially if you’re going to be spending more time around here in the future.”
I reached out and hugged him tight as a few happy tears escaped. “I love you, too, Daddy. I always will. But I mean it when I say that I don’t want input on how to live my life anymore. That isn’t up for negotiation.” I pulled back a little to look him in the eye. “Do you think that’s something you can live with?”
He pressed his lips together for a moment, then slowly smiled. “Guess I’ll have to live with it, won’t I? Since I can’t live with the alternative.”
It might not have been a ringing endorsement, but it was a damn good start. And when he hugged me again, his arms wrapped just as tightly as mine.
“Thank you,” I said as we parted again. “I understand this hasn’t been easy for you.”
“Bah,” he made a dismissive gesture even though his eyes were suspiciously bright with emotion. “I’m sorry I acted like such a jerk. I want you to know I didn’t mean those hateful things I said. I don’t think badly of you, Poppy. I never could. You’re my oldest daughter, and I love you more than life itself.”
“God, Daddy.” I dashed at my eyes even though I had no hope of stopping the tears by that point. “I was holding it together pretty well until you had to start being nice.”
He laughed and gave me another quick hug. “Now go on and get back to your, uh... your boyfriends... before they come looking for you.”
I smiled and kissed him on the cheek. He really was trying, and I had to give him all the credit in the world for that.
I had to stop myself from skipping and doing cartwheels and backflips on the way back to my corner of the shelter.
And thank God I saw Nolan and Cooper were awake again and standing up. That saved me the trouble of pouncing on them to share the good news.
“Y’all!” I started to say, but then pulled up short when I saw who else was with them. “Oh my God, what happened?”
Axel and Micah were there, sitting on the bed I’d left a few minutes before. Axel had a scrape on his cheek, and Cooper was helping Micah clean up some blood from the side of his head.
“What happened?” I repeated once I had everyone’s attention. “And where is Jasmine? I thought she might be with the two of you.”
Axel looked up at me with a pained expression. “She was with us.”
“There was a ruckus. We were attacked,” Micah explained. “We couldn’t make any calls, and we didn’t know where else to go, so we hoped to find all of you here.”
“Who? How? But why?” Cooper stuttered through some of the questions in all our minds.
“We have to go now. And we need your help—and Vic’s too.” Axel said with a tone of urgency.
“Okay, okay,” I nodded as I walked over to him, hoping to calm him down a little. “Just take a breath. We can’t all go out in the storm right now anyway, so you have plenty of time to tell us all about whatever happened.”
“No, we don’t have time.” He stood but had to grab Cooper’s arm to steady himself. “We don’t have any time. That’s the problem. We were beaten up and Jasmine was kidnapped. It was fucking crazy and terrifying. But we’ve got to go now and get her back before anything bad happens to her.”
“What?” I gasped, nearly tripping over my bed as I scrambled around to face him again.
Micah looked up at all of us and then struggled to his feet as well. “Before anything worse happens to her. A bad thing already is happening. Axel’s right. We need to go. Right now. We have to get her away from him. They can’t have gotten far in the storm.”
I grabbed his arm as he tried to walk past. “But do you think she’s okay? Do you think he’ll try to hurt her?”
“As long as she’s with him, she’s in danger.”
I could see it in his eyes before he answered, but his words chilled me to the bone.