he thought he finally managed to subdue.
Instead of answering, he sucks his teeth and tosses his boots to the side, before walking around the side of the bed and laying down. Dad closes his eyes, rests an arm across his forehead, and ignores me.
It’s his way of ending the conversation, but the mother inside of me isn’t going to give up so fucking easily.
“Where’s Cleo?” I shout at him.
He doesn’t move or even flinch. I watch his lips curl up into a smile, but that’s it. Other than that, this conversation is over, and he won’t give me the answers I want.
“Fine,” I seethe quietly as I spin on my heel and walk out of the room. I slam the door so loudly behind me that the walls rattle.
I make my way past Skylar and Richter who are walking into the house with bags in their arms. They exchange a glance when they see how angry I am, but I don’t stop. Not until I get to Dad’s truck. I walk around to the back, reach into the bed of the vehicle and fish around until I find something heavy enough for what I want to do.
I settle on the crowbar and walk back toward the front, climb onto the hood, and wait. I know that he’ll come out to see what I’m getting myself into because, after all, I’m made from his same genetic make-up, and he knows that when it comes to getting what I want, I am definitely my father’s daughter.
It doesn’t take long for Dad to show up on the steps. He’s got his hands on his hips, a dangerous gleam in his eyes, and our children on either side of him.
“What are you gonna do with that, Darby? Besides piss me off,” he calls out to me.
“Last fucking chance,” I warn him, “Where’s Cleo?”
He licks his lips and cracks his neck. I can tell that he’s debating taking me down right now, but I’ll swing this crowbar and smash his windshield before he has a chance to reach me, and he knows it.
“Don’t make me come get you down from there, girl,” he snaps, as he walks down the steps and begins to make his way toward me. I wait until he’s almost close enough to reach me then lift the heavy metal object high over my head and bring it down against the tempered glass with as much force as I can muster.
A large spider crack immediately appears on the windshield, and Dad swears loudly, but I don’t care.
Not anymore.
“Unless you want me to bust every last window on this fucking truck, tell me where my daughter is!” I scream at him as I climb up onto the roof of the truck and scurry across toward the bed. It’ll be easy enough to dodge his attempts to grab me back here, and if he tries it, I’ll bust out the back window next.
“You know, even your mother knew when to fucking say when, Darby,” he tells me through grit teeth. “She knew when to lay down and take her fucking lumps.”
“And what did that get her? The rest of her life at the bottom of the fucking well!” I scream, raising the crowbar in a rage, and smashing it into the back windshield like a professional baseball player.
“And you want to be just like your mother, don’t you?” he growls as he opens the door of the bed, and climbs in. I move as quickly as I can, pulling myself onto the roof of the truck and attempt to crawl back toward the hood, but his hand tightens around my ankle and he yanks me back toward him, dropping me roughly onto the ridged flooring. I try to kick him in a blind rage, but he easily slaps my leg away and then proceeds to wrestle the crowbar out of my grip.
“Defiant fucking kids are the bane of my existence,” he mutters more to himself than me. “I’ll tell you what though, you’re not gonna forget this fucking punishment for the rest of your life.”
What’s the worst he can do? Throw me back into the oubliette? He’s already ripped a third of my heart out by taking Cleo away from me—there’s nothing else he can do to break me.
But when Dad hoists me over his shoulder and takes me into the house, I didn’t realize just how wrong I could possibly be.
I’ve been locked in the bedroom for hours. Dad told me that if I wanted to live to see tomorrow, that I wouldn’t go near the windows or try to escape.
I don’t know what he’s up to, but I’m honestly afraid now. And whatever happens will be my fault because unlike the entirety of the Greene family, I care too fucking much about everyone around me.
I have to find a way to pass the time, to keep my mind off the many things that this man could be doing to extract his revenge on me over a few busted windows. That’s when I remember that I still have the paper hidden inside of my bra. I know that this will be the only chance I’ll have to satiate my curiosity, so I fish it out and open it, smoothing it out as best as I can.
I read the first line, squinting at the shaky handwriting, then gasp as my hand flies to my mouth.
It’s a letter from Jocelyn.
To me.
In her final moments, her last thoughts were of a daughter that she never knew. That, by the words she’s written in the now most precious thing I’ve ever held, were full of a mother’s love and hope.
A love that she felt for me even though she never got to hold me.