“What possesses you to believe you’re safe in my presence right now?”
She shrugs. “Because I know you. Yes, you’re grumpy, but you’d never hurt anyone.”
Wow. Maybe we were never friends. Does she know me at all? I stabbed Niklaus once with a pencil. And moments ago,I threw a heavy fucking book at his face.
“Do you know who my father was to the world, Mabel Rose?”This. This is one of the only times and occasions I use his reputation in my favor.
“A hero,” she says.
“A monster.”
She blinks in surprise. I don’t let go of our eye contact. In fact, I let my stare make her undeniably uncomfortable. I let my inner monster gleam through my different colored eyes.
“They say he mutilated people who pissed him off. Albatross Ivast? Removed his penis and carved his name in his forehead. The head cook who starved him in the Vexamen Prison? Burned alive in her own oven.” I rise from my father’s dedicated bench. “Sometimes I feel those same sociopathic tendencies. Should we test my temper today?”
“You really don’t think you deserve this after what your family has done to mine?” She takes a step away from me. “I mean, I know you had nothing to do with it…but am I not allowed to be angry and hold you accountable?”
I flex my abdomen as if she’s just punched me.
“Eight. Months.” My molars scrape together.
“I shouldn’t have kept it from you for that long…I should have told you right away and that would have surely satisfied my need for retribution, and we could have moved on as friends. I just knew what you would say. I knew you’d hold a grudge instead of just accepting that this was purely out of vengeance.”
“What would I say? That Niklaus Demechnef has tortured me for years. Has spoken unforgiveable statements about my father, not just to me but to everyone?!”
“You talk way more shit about your dad than he does!”
“BECAUSE HE’SMYFATHER! I’M ALLOWED TO HATE HIM! I’M ALLOWED TO TALK SHIT!”
Mabel Rose takes another vigilant step back, brushing her white-blonde bangs away from her face with nervous, trembling fingers.
“I know that. I’m sorry.”
“What about when I was seven, and he dumped his glass of milk down my back at lunch? Or wait, no, I’ve got a good one.” I hold my hand up and laugh. “How about last year when I cried at the picture of my father in that history book? I stepped out of class to have one fucking moment alone. And what did he do? He ripped the picture of him out and set it on fire to turn to ash on my desk.”
“Krimson gave him a nasty black eye for that one, though,” the traitor counters.
“So?!? That’s the least of what he deserved! My father would have made him eat his own intestines for treating me this way!” I bite my own tongue. I don’t normally speak so highly of him. But deep down…I think it might be true. If Uncle Warrose was willing to dangle a skinny eleven-year-old over the cliff of the lagoon by his neck, who knows what Patient Thirteen would have done for half of these offenses toward me.
“I don’t think he’s as bad as he portrays himself to be in front of everyone, Sapphire. Can’t you just apologize for what your mother has done, and we can be even now?”
Hell pummels through my core in a firestorm of murderous thoughts.
“You think I deserved this to pay for the actions of my mother?”
“I do.”
I hold my breath.
“Okay. Let’s say that’s true. Are you aware of what Belinda’s crimes were? Torturing, maiming, and killing innocent people in the asylum?”
Mabel Rose does not have a rebuttal to that.
“Either way, what’s done is done. I hope it made you feel better. Because I will never speak to you again.”
“Is this because you’re jealous of us?” She stomps her small foot in the crunchy snow.
Oh. Ohhh.
