Rituals (Cainsville 5)

"Gabriel..." I said.

He cleared his throat. "If you discover you are correct in the basic facts, it would only be discomforting. If you are right about the rest--which is your worst scenario rather than an honest fear--it will be difficult and upsetting. Yet..."

"Yes?"

"It isn't what you may discover that has you so upset. It's what you'll need to do to get those answers."

Tears prickled my eyelids, and I laid my head against him again to hide it, nodding instead.

"I do understand, Olivia," he said. "Just because I could do it myself without experiencing the same emotional response does not mean I can't place myself in your position."

"I know."

"You've made the right decision. I only wish you didn't need to do this."

I twisted to kiss his cheek. "Thank you."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I told Ioan I didn't want this meeting for something as fanciful as hugging my father. That was true. And yet that wish wasn't as fanciful as I liked to pretend. I had not hugged my father in twenty-three years. It didn't matter if, for most of those, I'd forgotten he even existed. Willfully forgotten, pushing aside the painful memories of a toddler who knew only that her beloved father had left her and so she banished him in punishment.

Now that I had Todd back, I felt every one of those years of separation. Seeing him through a Plexiglas barrier made me feel like a chained dog, going mad watching my goal only a few feet away, unattainable.

I had no idea what strings Ioan had to pull, but we'd been at the prison less than an hour before a guard came to take us through. A guard who I knew, instinctively, was not really a guard at all.

"Thank Ioan for me," I said as the man led us, wordlessly, down a hall. "And thank you."

The guard snorted. "You can thank me by getting Todd out of here. Which will get us both out. It's been a long twenty years."

"You've been here since--"

"It was the best way to help him. And I shouldn't complain. I get to go home every day."

"Does Todd know you're...?"

"That wouldn't be safe for either of us." He opened a door and led us through. "He only knows I've been here a long time, and we get along well. With Todd, that isn't very difficult. I expected I'd have to use my powers to make the other guards go easy on him, but that's never been a problem. Which doesn't mean it's been easy on him." Anger laced his voice and he shoved the next door open a little harder. "All she had to do was confess. All she still has to do is confess."

"He wants her to have a chance."

"Too bad. This isn't about her. She made the deal. If you do that, you take responsibility for the outcome. You don't drag someone else along. He didn't deserve that."

One last door opened. We walked through and...he was there. My father. Standing right in front of me, nothing between us.

When I walked in, his face was tight, as if braced for an official to say there'd been a mistake and order him back to his cell before I arrived.

Even when he saw me, it took a moment. A pause. A blink. Then a blinding grin, and he stepped toward me, his arms wide.

The young guard accompanying him warned, "Todd..." and the Huntsman growled, "Don't be an ass, Porter."

And then Todd was hugging me. My father was hugging me.

No, not my father. My dad. His arms went around me, and it was as if every repressed memory broke free. The feel of his embrace, the rasp of his cheek against mine, the sound of his breathing, the smell of him--it was everything I'd been missing sitting on the other side of that Plexiglas. That full sense of the man I remembered, my little-girl's

daddy.

When he pulled back and said, "It's so good to see you, sweetheart," even his voice was different, plucked straight from my memory, the one I'd heard through the speaker a poor reproduction.

And I cried. I hugged him, and I cried. Gabriel stayed behind me. The young guard stepped aside, taking a great interest in the decor, until the Huntsman guard said, "I've got this, Porter," and the younger man left without another word.