Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
“When I say get up, you get up. When I say sit, you sit. When I say kneel, you kneel. Are you following me?”
I shove and try to get free. “Let me go, you bastard.”
He gives me a shake. “Are you fucking following me?” he asks, his voice low and hard.
“Yes!”
“Let’s test it,” he says, releasing me so abruptly I drop to my butt on the bed. He looks me over. “Get on your knees, dandelion girl.”
I swallow hard. I’m not sure it’s the command, the humiliation it will bring, or the dandelion girl reference. A memory flashes so vividly, it makes my brain rattle. Two boys in that room. One just a few years older than me.
I know it’s him. He’s that boy. The younger of the two. When my gaze falls to his scar, my blood runs cold.
“I said kneel.”
I slip to my knees, the carpet rough against my bare skin. I look up at him. He was there in that small house. We were all there in that house.
“Already better.” He takes a step away to clear a path for me to the desk, and I know what’s coming. “Crawl.”
I don’t move. I can’t. All I can see is the book on the desk. And the room in that small house. Their faces when my father carried me out as a dandelion fell from my hand onto the linoleum floor.
He crouches down and takes a handful of hair to tip my head back.
I grunt with the force of it, my eyes watering as I meet his searing amber gaze.
“If you prefer, I can strip you naked and use my belt to whip your ass all the way across the room if you don’t start crawling, dandelion girl. I’m being kind. Don’t take advantage of that kindness.”
He releases me, straightens, and puts a hand on the buckle of his belt.
“Crawl,” he commands, drawing the belt out of the first loop.
I don’t wait because I have no doubt he will do exactly what he threatened, so I crawl across the room, feeling him at my back.
“Sit,” he says as if commanding a dog. I look up to see how his jaw is set, his hand on the back of the chair.
I sit in the chair, gripping the edges of the uncomfortable wooden seat.
When he leans over me, I catch the faint scent of aftershave. Different than his brother’s. I watch as he opens the book to an obituary.
Hannah Del Campo. Age 14. Beside her name is a photo of a smiling dark-haired girl.
Survived by father, Roland Del Campo, mother Nora Del Campo, and brothers Amadeo, aged 15, and Bastian, aged 10.
I glance up at him. This is Bastian. But his eyes are intent on that photo and what I see on his face, it’s pain. So much so that it’s almost hard to look at him. I shift my gaze back at the book and catch just a few words that I don’t understand. Nameless child to be buried separately. He turns the page, and I find myself hugging my arms as I see a photo of a very different scene. My father and brother from about fifteen years ago. My brother looks to be eighteen there. My father’s hair hasn’t gone gray yet and beside him is my beautiful mother, young and alive although not quite smiling like the photo I keep of her beside my bed.
They’re at a charity fundraiser. According to the headline, my father is donating a considerable sum to children’s cancer research.
“They attended that party the same night we buried our sister. Just washed their hands and carried on like nothing had happened at all. Like lives weren’t destroyed.” His eyes meet mine. “But I guess for them, nothing had happened.”
He turns the page, and there’s a picture of me at a ballet recital. I remember that night. How proud I was in my pink leotard and magenta ruffled tutu.
“You had everything, didn’t you?” He flips through several pages too quickly for me to do more than glimpse a photo or a headline.
In my periphery, I see the little glass jar with the bunch of dandelions stuck inside it. They’re drooping over the sides.
He closes the book but remains where he’s standing.
“Does your brother still like to fuck little girls?”
My gaze snaps to his, and I want to ask what the hell he’s talking about, but he continues.
“How many others did Daddy pay off to keep silent? How many knees did he break?”
“My father…” I shake my head. “He wouldn’t do that.”
He cocks his head to the side, eyes narrowing, and suddenly, he looks like his brother. The emotion, the intense pain of moments ago gone. Now he’s just frightening. He chuckles. “No, you’re right. Wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty.”
“He wasn’t like that.” I stand. “He’s dead. You desecrated his body. You had no right—”