Bastian chuckles into my ear. “Some of my best work. Now come here, sweet girl. I want to speak to you.”
“Fuck you. You went too far.” My voice is shaking. I’m shaking.Everythingis shaking.
“I did exactly what needed to be done.” Bastian sounds amused.
“There’s no way this is going to stick. Kai was withme.”
“Come here, Haven.”
“Fuck you. I’m not going anywhere with you, you fucking psycho?—“
“You want our boy to go to prison?”
I whip my head around to glare at Bastian. He’s still in the same spot, and the instant our eyes lock, a slow smile spreads across his mouth.
“Kidnapping. Assault. Attempted murder. That’s a couple of years. Is that what you want?”
My breath catches. “There’s no fucking way?—“
“Oh, sweet girl, this isn’t my first rodeo. But it might be his last.”
I can’t answer. Can’t breathe.
My chest is too tight, my skull ready to crack from the pressure building inside.
Bastian sighs into the phone, rubbing his jaw as he watches me from the shadows.
“You’ve reached a fork in the road, Haven. Unlike Alice, it matters very much which path you choose.”
A memory surfaces, drawn from the dark recesses of my mind as if Bastian just spoke a magic word.
A worn-out copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is nestled in my lap as I sit huddled in the corner of Dad’s single wide. I’m squeezed in beside the TV set and the thin wall, thumb in my mouth, a thick strand of my dirty hair wound around my fingers.
Thump—thump—thump.
I turn the page, staring at the black and white pictures inside, ignoring the words because I can’t read yet. I don’t even know what reading is. Just like I don’t know what fucking is.
Thump—thump—thump.
The crinkled page turns stiffly in my chubby fingers. Someone—probably me—spilled juice on the book, and ever since it’s been a chore to turn the pages. Several of them are still fused together, pictures forever sealed shut.
I get to one of them now, and huff out through my nose when I realize it’s one of my favorite pictures—the one of Alice no bigger than a thumb, holding a tiny twig for a puppy. I jam a finger between the pages and try to pry them apart, only for the top one to tear away like tissue paper.
Thump—thump—thump.
A harsh, guttural sound comes through the wall. Then the sound of flesh meeting flesh. The same sound daddy’s hand makes when he hits my bum because I’ve been naughty.
The TV set next to me turns on with a hiss of static and crackles. I cower a little deeper into my corner, trying to keep my toes and my legs and my book in the shadows.
The recliner just out of my view creaks as someone sits on it.
A can snaps open. Beer fizzes, then glugs. A belch, as recognizable as all the other sounds.
“Make us a sandwich, princess,” Daddy says.
I carefully push my book under the gap beneath the TV set and crawl out of the shadows. Daddy doesn’t look at me as I hurry past, his eyes glued to the TV.
Thump—thump—thump—thump—thump?—
