“Sure, kid.”
“If I’m the oldest, why did you keep getting Mama pregnant?”
Pater lets out a sigh as he closes his newspaper and runs a hand over his face. The good thing is that he doesn’t look angry at my question; he actually looks thoughtful.
“Nothing in the world is more beautiful than seeing the woman you love swollen with your child. Your mother was definitely a good looking gal, and even though I had already fallen in love with you by that point, I wanted to be able to get a couple of more years out of her. I knew I would have to wait a long time before I could make you my wife, and she knew it too, so she did everything she could to keep me satisfied until I was bored with her. There’s only so many times you can keep fucking the same hole before it becomes redundant, you know?”
He’s looking at me knowingly, and I know I’ve still got at least one seed’s worth of growing to do before he decides if he’s going to kill me or keep me.
“Don’t worry about that shit right now, though. I just told you I’ve been in love with you for your entire life. I have no intentions of getting rid of you. I think my grooming the next bride days are done. It’ll be you and me and our children until we both die,” he says, with that damn wide grin spreading across his face.
I sit back and fold my arms over my chest, taking him in. Years mean nothing to me, because I stopped counting them when I turned fifteen. That’s when he took me as his wife and I lost the title of daughter, but I’m becoming more and more curious the older I get, and I have one more question for him.
“Pater?” I ask softly.
“Yes, baby girl?” he asks, still grinning.
“How old are you?”
He chuckles and hangs his head for a moment, before glancing back up at me. His grin has faded into a simple smile and he doesn’t answer me right away.
“Well, that depends, I guess,” he replies mischievously.
I raise an eyebrow but say nothing. I don’t want to continue to ask him questions and anger him instead of just getting a simple answer.
“Will it make you love me any less? Assuming that you do love me, that is,” he says with a smirk.
I do love Pater. I will never deny that, but I don’t love him in the manner that he wants me to. I love him as a father who lost his way long before I was born and needs saving, even though I know he doesn’t want to be saved.
“No,” I say softly.
He grins, gets up from his chair, and walks around the table toward me. Pater puts an arm around my shoulder and kisses the top of my head gently.
“Good girl. I knew you’d always love me as much as I love you,” he says gently. “You about done with that?”
Before I have a chance to answer, or save any more food for Vaughn, he takes the plate from the table and dumps the remnants into the trash can. I use his distracted moments to shove the bit of food I’ve managed to scavenge into the bottom of my shirt, and roll it up just enough to make sure it can’t fall out.
“You can go out and throw him what you’ve saved,” he says with a tired sigh. “If he’s still alive, I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”
And with that, he walks out of the kitchen leaving me with one last unanswered question, and the moment I need to go save Vaughn.
Chapter Fourteen
He’s going to kill me.
I know he is, because that’s the end game. No matter what he says, no matter how much he professes his love for me, I know it’s the only thing that can come of this.
I’ll never be the wife he wants me to be, and I’ll never be more than a scared child praying for the safety of the children forced underneath her rule, instead of being by her side as it should have been in a normal world.
To survive much longer than I know I’m meant to, I’ll have to be more careful. He knows too much, sees more than I think he does, and he’ll stop me when he feels I’m getting ready to strike.
He’ll be the end of me. He’ll send me to the afterlife with a smile on his face once he has another child to hold in his arms, but I will take a part of his soul with me.
I won’t think about it now. I still have Vaughn to worry about, and I don’t think he knows that Eloy is still alive somewhere in the woods. That’s where Vaughn would have taken him, because that’s their safe place away from this hell we have to endure.
I can see the top of the oubliette from here and I stop walking, taking a deep breath. I have to prepare for the worst, because if I hope for the best and it’s not there, it’ll crush me completely.
I’ve managed to save one son so far by putting on one hell of a show, and I know I won’t be able to handle not saving the second.