He abruptly pulled a soggy sock stuffed with something out of an inner pocket and heaved a thick sigh of relief. “Here, Angelkins,” he said, voice shaking as he held it out to me. “You hold on to this.”
Baffled, I took it from him and peered at the contents. Inside was a thick roll of bills.
I jerked my gaze back up to him. “Oh my god, Dad. Where did you get this? How much is in here?”
His shoulders twitched up in a shrug. “Not all that much now with everything gone, I guess. ’Bout twelve hundred. You should hold onto it.”
Holy shit. I carefully rolled it back up. “Where’d you get it?” I repeated. I’d never in a million years suspect my dad of doing anything illegal to get that money, but…damn, twelve hundred dollars was a solid chunk of cash for us.
“I been doing a little work in the last couple of months,” he said, looking down at his hands, almost as if he was embarrassed to be telling me. “Carl Kaster’s been letting me clean up the bar after closing and paying me cash under the table. I was saving it to buy new furniture, maybe a new stove that I’m not always worryin’ is gonna burn the house down.” Pain slashed across his face, then he let out a dry chuckle. “Can’t burn the house down now, huh?”
“I think we’re pretty safe from that,” I said with a strained laugh. “That’s why you’ve been out so late.”
“Yeah,” he said, then shrugged. “Mostly.”
So he hasn’t been going out drinking every night. The “mostly” part clued me in that he was still drinking some, but it sure as hell wasn’t as much as before if he could actually hold a job. The relief that rushed through me allowed a few pesky tears to sneak out, and I pretended to rub my eyes to wipe them away. Didn’t matter that he wasn’t staying totally dry, not right now.
I shifted to sit on his cot and put my arms around him. He leaned into me and let out a low sigh.
“I wanted to make it better,” he murmured.
“It’ll be better,” I assured him, forcing myself to believe it too. “We’ll figure something out. I mean, it’s corny, but we still got each other.”
He pulled me into a hug, then straightened and peered at me. “Now tell me about this ‘medical condition’ that don’t look like any kinda condition I ever heard of.”
“Oh, man.” I blew out my breath, then looked around to make absolutely sure no one was even remotely close enough to overhear. I’d known that someday I’d have to tell him, but, well, I’d sort of hoped that it would be fifty years from now or something. “Last year, right before I got the job at the morgue, I, uh, overdosed and nearly died.”
He stiffened. “You never told me. How come you never told me?”
“Well, because I…” I shifted uncomfortably. “Things were real bad between us then. And also because, well, I kinda did die. Kinda.”
His eyes widened in alarm. “What the hell does that mean? How do you kinda die?”
Shit. This was just as hard as I thought it would be. “Randy and me, we got into a fight.” Randy, my piece-of-shit ex-boyfriend. “I got drunk and took some pills and was sorta flirting with another guy.” I winced. “Turned out he put something in my drink. A date rape drug. Took me for a drive, but I was already so high I started having trouble breathing. The guy panicked and was gonna dump me out in the swamp, but he took a curve too fast and wrecked the car real bad…” I trailed off.
“God, Angel,” he breathed, guilt and pain carved into his face. Things had been horrible between us back then. The bickering we did these days was nothing compared to the ugly and sometimes violent fights of before.
“I woke up in the ER,” I continued after a moment. “Naked and not a scratch on me, even though I remembered being hurt bad.” I shook my head in an attempt to dispel those nightmarish memories. “And there was a bag of clothing and a six pack of, well, drinks like I have now, and an anonymous note saying I had to take a job at the morgue or I’d go back to jail.”
His eyebrows drew together in a frown. “That’s like something out of a movie. What’s in those drinks?”
My gut clenched. Of course he’d want to know. What “nutritional supplement” could give me super-healing ability and mega-strength? Throat tight, I shook my head. “I don’t want to tell you. You…you’ll never look at me the same.”
“You’re my Angelkins,” he said, voice suddenly firm, and I nearly melted at the nickname. “When we were in the attic, you said that, no matter what, you’re still my Angelkins. That’s all that matters.”
A shiver went through me, and when I spoke it was in a voice barely above a whisper. “Dad, I work in the morgue so that I can eat…” I couldn’t say it. “I…I got made into something that night, and it saved my life.” I gulped, blurted it out. “I’m a zombie.”
“A what?” He shook his head.
My fingers dug into the canvas of the cot, and I stared down at the floor. “If I don’t eat…brains,” I nearly choked on the word, “I start to rot and fall apart and get real hungry for…more brains.”
He stood, backed a step away, mouth working in what sure as hell looked like revulsion. I shouldn’t have told him, I realized with sick dismay. Telling him had been a horrible mistake. I should’ve lied, come up with some other explanation. Any other explanation.
He rubbed a hand over his face, expression a painful mix of shock, disgust and, strangely, belief. He’d seen it, after all. Seen me heal up before his eyes. “All this time?” he finally asked, voice hoarse. “Almost a year?”
Throat tight, I nodded.
He fell silent again, eyes on the floor. The sick despair coiled into a thick lump in my gut, but I fought back the urge to start crying again.