I hope he doesn’t see me because if he does, he’ll take out his anger on the boy. If he doesn’t, I’ll know how to avenge Eloy if necessary. When the opportunity presents itself.
Chapter Four
An eternity.
That’s how long I feel like I’ve been standing here, peeking through his bedroom window without a thing in sight, and I’m so fucking scared.
My husband is out there somewhere in the woods with our son, a nosy neighbor, and enough rage to punish them both with a smile on his face.
But what kind of father would that really make him? To punish his child for doing something that obviously makes him happy would be hypocritical of him, and Pater prides himself on being the very opposite of that.
But where are they? Why is there no sign of life between the trees when I know there are three people somewhere out there in the isolation?
I sigh unhappily and let the curtain drift back over the window again as I sit on the edge of his bed. This is not a place I’ve ever enjoyed being, and it seems to be more of a hell in the current situation of not knowing.
“Hello?”
My eyes widen as I run out of the room and find Vaughn in the hallway peeking into doors. Neither of us should be up here, but it’s more dangerous for him because if Pater gets a whiff of his scent having roamed through his private space, it makes him fair game.
“Go back downstairs now,” I hiss at him frantically. He stares at me in confusion. He thinks the danger is not real because Pater isn’t in the house, but I know better. I fucking know better and I have to get him back down to where he belongs.
“If he smells you up here, you’re going to end up in his room,” I say as I walk toward him, grip him firmly by the arm and begin to steer him back toward the stairs. “Get downstairs. Stay there; lock yourself in my room. I’ll figure out how to fix this.”
“But—”
“Now,” I say again, firmly setting him on the staircase. I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him until he reluctantly begins his descent. I hate having to treat Vaughn with such false, overbearing anger, but if he believes he’s angered me, he’ll listen.
And it will keep him safe.
I don’t know how Pater can tell when someone has been upstairs, but my curiosity got the best of me one day when he had been out buying groceries for himself, and I went up to his private floor. He found me later that night, curled up in my room reading a book, and quite literally dragged me all the way back upstairs and into his bedroom.
He told me he had been able to smell me in the place he told us was off limits; that he knew it was me because the hallways smelled of lavender and forgotten innocence. He told me that since I had broken his simplest rule, he had no choice but to break me in return.
I wrap my arms around myself and shiver as memories of that first night in his bed threaten to wash over me and drown me where I stand.
Pater is an evil man in everything he does, and that night was no exception. However, I cannot allow myself to be lost in those thoughts. I have to rid the upstairs of Vaughn’s scent, then go back to the window and hope that I’ll finally catch a glimpse of Eloy.
It honestly worries me that I’m so invested in being an actual maternal figure to them now more than ever. It means I’ve accepted Pater as their father and as my husband, but I will do what I must to keep them safe from his misplaced sexual desires. I will take the brunt of his devious needs, and I will make sure they’re kept safe from things they shouldn’t have forced upon them.
They shouldn’t be here and neither should I, but this is the hand we were dealt and he chose us specifically for this very reason. At least, that’s what he’s told me before, though I don’t know how much I believe of his story.
As long as it keeps Vaughn and Eloy out of his bedroom and out of his special rooms, I will gladly be the sacrificial lamb. It’s what a mother would do, isn’t it? Lay down her life for that of her children? I know I’ll find out soon enough, but for now I just want some sign that Eloy is alive, and to rid the upper floor of Vaughn’s scent.
I’ve made it as far as his bathroom when I hear the front door of the home open. He’s laughing loudly, the echo booming throughout the downstairs of the house, and I know I’m too late. I won’t be able to do much to deflect his knowledge that Vaughn transgressed him, but I will still try my damnedest.
But as I leave his bathroom with a can of air freshener in my hand and begin to vigilantly spray the hallway as I run down its length, something slows me down. Pater is still laughing, yet there’s no other sound accompanying him. No sound of an upset young boy being mocked or praised, no sound of the additional set of footsteps that should have entered in the house with him.
And as he begins to ascend the staircase, I try my best to steady myself against the wall next to me. Is he laughing because of what Eloy has done? Or because of what he has done to Eloy?
Chapter Five
By the time he reaches the top stair, I’ve saturated the hallway as best as I can and I’m standing in a choking fog of ocean breeze. I don’t care that he’ll see me here, as long as I’ve done my part to keep Vaughn off his fucking radar.
He stops when he sees me standing just beyond the landing and his laughter gives way to a grin. I watch as his head tilts to the left and begin to shiver as his eyes travel up and down my body before resting on the can I’m holding.
“What are you doing up here, Jocelyn?” he asks in a quiet, sickening tone.
“I ... I ...”