Page 93 of A Perfect World
“Well, she said you broke up with him and started dating some tattooed drug addict. Did you listen to me at all when I told you not to get involved with vile men like that? Now you’re ruined. No respectable man will touch you if you’re whoring yourself out to this miscreant.”
The hand on my thigh trembled with restraint while my thumb continued to skim back and forth.
“Good thing I don’t want a respectable man.”
I allowed myself a glance at Ollie. Through the barely controlled rage simmering beneath his skin, a beam of pride flashed again.
Another shocked gasp, dumping more adrenaline into my bloodstream.
“What the hell has gotten into you?” she hissed.
“I don’t know, Mother, whatwasput into me when Merit Institute toyed with my DNA?”
Ollie’s lips curled into a savage smile. I lifted my chin, basking in the admiration pouring out of him. Her silence sang like the trumpets of victory.
“Nothing to say?” I mocked.
“How did you find out?” she asked, voice a razor blade.
Ollie leaned forward, riveted. Tingles rushed from my scalp to my toes. My entire life, she let me believe I was an accident- a mistake that was forced upon her. She pumped me full of guilt and shame, crushing me under the weight of her own regrets. But the woman who broke through the barrier of red was through with the lies.
“Turns out I wasn’t the only one they fucked with. But I’m sure you knew that already. Let’s cut the bullshit and get to the point. You knew my visions weren’t made up- I was created this way. What I can’t figure out, is if you knew going into the trial that I’d come out different, or if you were only informed after the fact.”
“Your father-” She cut herself off, seething with each static breath puffed through the speaker. “He only told me to sign the forms. I didn’t know what the fuck they planned.”
I looked at Ollie, his brows furrowed, intently listening. He shook his head at a loss.
“Did my father know?”
Silence. The tide of impatient anger climbed higher.
“Did. He. Know?”
My knuckles bleached from my grip on Ollie’s hand.
“Yes.”
The phone fell.
White noise roared in my ears.
The faint sound of my name didn’t register. I wasn’t there.
He fucking tricked me into this and left me withyou.
He knew.
“Angel, breathe.”
“He knew,” I rasped. The white noise drained. I returned to my body with every second that I focused on the man kneeling in front of me, holding my hands. Ice cold shock melted- simmered-boileduntil I was steaming.
“He knew, he knew, heknew!”
A scream tore from my throat- from my soul. A scream of fury and agony for the girl I’d been. The girl who cried herself to sleep after her mother raged on and on about how her father wanted nothing to do with her. The father whose face she never learned. The father who left after realizing what he’d done.
Trembling, I met pained silver eyes.
“I want to find him,” I whispered, upper lip curling. “And I want you to destroy him in front of me.”
