I shook my head in answer. How could he ask something like that right that minute?
“Our wedding will be however you want it to be,” he said, still playing with a strand of my hair. “Pick whatever dress you want, even if it shows my mark on your fair skin. I can’t wait to show the world who you truly belong to.”
He pulled back from me as the back door opened. My eyes slowly opened as my father’s voice reached us.
“Time for Avidya to come inside,” he requested. Since I had returned home, he’d been grumpier than normal. Which in turn caused me to stay hidden away from him as much as possible, and that wasn’t all that hard to do. It wasn’t often that father went into my room.
“Just one more minute,” Zachariah demanded, a total one-eighty from the tone he had used when talking to me.
“One minute,” father said gruffly and shutting the door harder than was needed.
“Has he hit you?” Zachariah asked, his voice cold, but yet soothing towards me.
“He doesn’t abuse me if that’s what you want to know,” I said, not entirely answering his question. It was a fine line of what was abuse and what wasn’t these days. I wasn’t even entirely sure myself.
“That’s not what I asked, Avidya,” he said, looking at me with his all-consuming eyes.
“Only when I’m disrespectful,” I answered, looking away from his eyes and down to my lap. There was no need to say how often that apparently was while growing up and still on most days.
“He’s not allowed to hit you. Ever. It doesn’t matter if it’s in my presence or not,” he said, standing up. “He’ll pay for hitting you, let alone how he treated you tonight.” Turning his tone softer, and lifting my chin by his index finger, I once more came face to face with him. “I’ll see you soon, my kitten.”
He left me there, confused but yet yearning for more of his touch. How did he get my body to want more? It wasn’t possible.
After gathering my thoughts, I stood and made my way into the house. Not in the mood for one of my father’s lectures, again, I went straight to my room, making sure to close my bedroom door.
I felt caged in. Not just with being in this room, but just in life. In this house and under my father’s eyes. Mom – she was just caged in as I was, but I had a way out, sorta. It’s wasn’t the best of ways, but it would work for now. It had to.
I knew that marrying Zachariah would be challenging. Challenging in all ways. It was my only way that I knew of. I knew there was someone following me; I wasn’t safe. Detective Stone’s words still haunted me, but I had no one to tell them to.
But would I really be any safer with Zachariah?
Becca’s parents were blaming me for her death, even though I didn’t have anything to do with it. It was her mother, Madilyn, that thought I neededhelpin a mental facility. She had no idea who her daughter was. No one did but me. Becca was the only one that I ever told my secrets to and vice versa. I wasn’t even allowed to go to the cemetery to say goodbyes to my only true friend.
And now, I had no one to talk to.
