Savage Love (Ash and Innocence 2)

I bit down the urge to shake my head or roll my eyes. I’d known the drunk version of my dad longer than the sober version, and that meant I knew how to avoid trouble—for the most part. “It’s your house, dad,” I said quietly.

“Damn right.” He walked in, leaving the door open despite the bits of snow and cold that were blowing in.

I moved past him, closing it softly.

He was in the kitchen now, and I heard him scoff. “All fucking day and this is what you accomplished? A few boxes unpacked and the place is still a goddamn mess?”

A few dozen comments sprouted to my mind. I had to fight with myself to keep from saying any of them. “I’ll finish tomorrow,” I said instead.

“You will,” he agreed. If it wasn’t for the way his eyes seemed to have trouble focusing and the faint smell of whiskey, nobody would ever guess he was drunk. Drinking didn’t make him violent or silly or anything like that. It just made him mean. It brought out the part of him that still blamed me for what happened—the part of him that wanted nothing more than for me to feel like it was my fault.

He walked to the stove and made a show of checking that the burners and the oven were off. “You left these alone, right?”

“Yes.” My voice was dry. He knew I did. He always knew. But he still asked because he liked reminding me.

I endured another ten minutes of his attempts to provoke me into saying something he’d have an excuse to get pissed about and do something cruel. When he grew tired of it, he passed out on the couch with a lit cigarette between his fingers.

Once I was sure he was asleep, I put out the cigarette. I was about to go to my room and sleep, but dad hadn’t paid the gas company to turn the heat on yet, and our house was freezing. I grabbed a couple blankets and set them over his snoring form.

Sometimes, I tried to see past what was on the surface with him. I’d learned a long time ago that parents were just people. They weren’t superheroes and they weren’t perfect. In fact, most of them were far from it. My dad had been a good guy when things were going right. He’d always treated me well. But our world had fallen apart when we lost mom, and he hadn’t been strong enough to move on. Neither of us were, but we handled it our own ways.

I didn’t blame him for the way he was, but I didn’t forgive him, either. That’s why I was going to be gone as soon as I graduated high school this year. There was probably a good guy buried under all that hatred and bitterness somewhere, but I wasn’t going to be his emotional punching bag while he figured himself out.

I thought about going to sleep, but an idea stuck itself in my brain and wouldn’t quite let go.

Cassian Stone.

We’d only been back in Silver Falls, Maine, for two days. It had been over ten years since I’d seen him, and I wasn’t even sure he still lived here. If he did, there was no guarantee he’d remember me.

I threw a scarf around my neck and laced up my boots. There was only one way to find out.

I set off in the snow toward where his house had been. Coincidentally, that meant I was going to be heading toward the house next door, too. Our old house.

Silver Falls was mostly a small town, but there was a picturesque section of the area that bordered a lake with rolling hills. There were about twenty mansions scattered along the lake’s shore, and mostly everything else was old log cabins, crumbling trailers, and everything in between. It all circled the main town of Silver Falls, which had grown some over the past ten years, but not much.

I cut my way across a few roads and snowy embankments until I was on our old road. It was getting dark out, but I’d spent enough time roaming the area as a kid that I thought I could’ve navigated it blindfolded.

The space where our old house had been was empty now except for a few young trees that had started to grow. I stared at it for a little while before moving on toward Cassian’s house.

It was a small cabin style home, and I could still remember how it had smelled inside. Like fresh wood smoke and the chili his dad always seemed to be cooking. I waited outside the door for a few seconds and then finally decided to knock. It was a wasted effort, but I tried to arrange my frustratingly short hair in a way that would cover most of my scar.