Page 67 of Wicked Vile King
"You aren't sick unless I give you permission," he snaps. "Do you understand me?"
I swallow the knot in my throat. "Yes, Papa."
He sighs, and I feel it, the calm before the hurricane when his words rip me apart, just like they did for years, and they still do now.
"Why were you sent there?" he asks me.
When I don't immediately answer, he adds, "It's not rhetorical, child. Tell me!"
I try to swallow again, but this time, the knot sticks.
"Because I need help," I manage, the words soft, squeezed thin by the knot.
"And how inthe fuckare you supposed to get help if you don't even attend your therapy sessions? Do you have any idea what that place is costing me, Willow? Your mother would roll over in her grave."
"I'm sorry," I tell him, choking down a sob. "It won't happen again, I promise."
The line on the other end goes silent, except for his breathing.
"Papa," I say with another swallow. "I love you, Papa."
He sighs, no doubt tapping his fingers against his desk in Charleston, just as he always does when he's upset with me.
"Papa?" I ask, needing him to say it. "Papa, please."
I blink, staring at the paint chipping from the wall in front of me as Saint comes up behind me, swipes the phone out of my hand, and brings it to his ear.
“Thank you, old man," he says to my father.
"Who are you?!" Papa shouts from the other end of the line. I watch Saint, dumbfounded as he grins wickedly, showing too many teeth like the Cheshire Cat before his grin falls and he winks at me.
His next words rumble all the way down to my bones.
“I’m the one telling you that your daughter doesn’t need your love," he says. "She has me instead.”
What did he just say?
He unceremoniously hangs up the phone, placing it back on its built-in spot in the wall, and I'm still gaping at him as he turns to me and says, "You don't need him, pretty girl. You never did."
And I know there's an angle, there has to be, some way this will definitely benefit him, but God, if it isn't the hottest thing I've seen as the guard walks in the room and orders us back to our dorms.
She steers me away, back toward my dorm room, and I feel Saint's gaze follow me down the hall and up the stairs until the heavy metal door shuts behind me, condemning me to my thoughts.
I feel myself being torn, sheared apart on the inside.
Papa, I know, would be ashamed of me, maybe even Mama too, all of me boiled down to playing the part of Saint's pretty pet.
I want to be his. I can't deny it now. I'm too far in, having dived into the deep end days before. Yet, still, it's a bitter pill to swallow, when the girls and guys all look when I walk into a room, their stares going to the thing that marks me as his, the leather collar around my throat.
It's degrading.
It's humiliating.
And it goes against everything Mama ever taught me, about standing up for myself and having a shiny, unbreakable spine.
But Mama always did give me advice that she preached better than she practiced.
It's all so confusing, and it splits me down the middle.
