Something hooks around the inside of my elbow.
“Don’t,” Sapphire says quietly.
I crank my neck to get a better look at her, unable to hide the surprise and betrayal darkening my glare.
Sapphire lifts her chin in defiance. A sad stoicism captures her swollen features in the cloudy moonlight. She shakes her head at me. No reasoning. No scolding. No convincing me why messing with time in this moment may alter our very existence forever.
No, because somewhere deep inside her, she’s fighting her own battle. She’s reminding herself that this needed to happen to help her mother become the legend we’ve all heard of. Yet it’s just as difficult for her to watch as it is for me to process that my father hit her.
I lower my head and wait for their confrontation to end, breathing a sigh of relief when Aunt Skylenna picks herself off the floor and leaves the room.
I lift my head to watch Aurick Demechnef pass out drunk on his bedroom floor.
I waited for Sapphire tofall asleep in the greenhouse to do this.
I’ve never moved so quietly in my life, painting the last couple of letters with the sponge. Streaks of red and pink soak the cream wallpaper, dripping to the floor.
My movements are vigilant, careful not to knock anything over in my anger, not to make any loud noises to wake him up.
The letter N is last.
Watery blood trickles down to my elbow.
Why is this triggering me so much? I’ve heard about the horrendous things that were done in the name of Demechnef for the war. But hitting Aunt Skylenna…
I drop the sponge to the floor, glowering down at my father. His pale skin, sweat stains, shiny charcoal hair…
What a colossal disappointment.
I wonder what he’ll think when he wakes up. When he sees my work of art on this wall. Will he remember hitting her? Will a small part of him know, deep down, that he disappointed me? His future son and heir of Demechnef?
Glancing back at the words written from a dirty bucket of Sapphire’s bloody water, I exhale and read it again.
Aurick
Demechnef
Hits
Women.
27. “Hello There, My New Friends.”
Sapphire
Niklaus stares out the windowcovered in condensation, crossing his arms and zoning out.
He just lost so much respect for the father who raised him and the father who died before he was born. Both devastating, but Aurick Demechnef being physically abusive to my mom shoved an invisible sword a little deeper through his heart. After seeing what Uncle Niles has done in the past, I think he was hoping to see his birth father in a better light.
I chew on my apple slices slowly as the sun begins to rise from the top of the Demechnef estate. Honey rays of light are amplified through the water droplets collecting over the glass that surrounds us, warming the air like a small furnace.
“Do you think—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Niklaus cuts me off. “I just want to go home.”
Me and you both.
I set my apple down in the gravel, tapping the tips of my fingers together in thought.
