My entire body went cold. My ears rang.
“I didn’t mean—Father, please—please—I didn’t know—”
“You didn’t know?” he thundered. “You didn’t know?!” His voice cracked, violent. “Did you think I wouldn’t see the way you look at him? The way he looks at you?”
I froze.
The way—
The way he looks at—
“I wasn’t—” My voice was barely a breath. “I wasn’t—doing anything wrong—”
“LIES!”
The word shattered something inside me.
I flinched so hard I stumbled backward into Daddy’s chest.
My mind was trying to keep up, trying to glue itself together, but the pieces kept slipping. My thoughts were frantic, disjointed.
I didn’t do anything wrong.
He doesn’t know what happened.
He doesn’t understand.
Or maybe I don’t.
What did I do? What did he think I did? What should I have done?
Daddy’s grip tightened around me—and only then did I realize I was shaking violently.
Father kept talking, kept throwing words at me harder than any strike of his cane. “I made you! I spent years molding you! I was determined to make you into something worthy of me!” he yelled, his lip curling. “And this is how you repay me? By letting that outsider defile you?!”
I whimpered—actually whimpered like an animal—as heat and humiliation and terror all crashed over me in a single choking wave. “I—I didn’t—Daddy didn’t—” My breath hitched. “We didn’t—nothing happened—please, Father, please believe me—”
Father’s expression twisted into something monstrous. Something I’d never seen before. Something he’d probably always kept carefully masked until now.
“What did you just call him?” he asked, his voice suddenly deadly calm.
“W-what?”
“I asked,‘What. did. you. just. call. him?’”
Daddy spoke from over my shoulder. “You heard him.”
“W-wh—” I stammered.
“Your very existence is a sin, Elior,” Father spat. “You and that goddamn faggot traitor deserve each other.”
The words struck me harder than the cane. Harder than the blows. Harder than anything he had ever done before.
I sagged back into Daddy, my legs finally giving out.
He caught me instantly, arms wrapping fully around me, pulling me tight against him. “Stop,” he snarled, his anger not directed at me. “You don’t talk to him like that. Not ever again.”
Father lunged at that, fury twisting him into something feral. “Don’t you touch him! Don’t youtouchmy—”
