Page 96 of The Little Shop of Curiosities, The Music Box Part 2

“I was barely hurt. I’m fine now.”

“Is Sam there?”

“Yes,” I mutter. Sam hauls himself off the sofa and steps closer to me, so I can only conclude he has had no trouble hearing every word out of Dad’s mouth.

“Give the phone to Sam,” Dad demands.

“What?”

“You heard,” he snaps. “Sam, the dreamy PI, right now.”

I switch to speakerphone, not that it’s necessary at Dad’s current decibel level, and hold the phone between us, mouthing sorry to Sam.

“Hello, Mr Ames,” Sam says to announce his presence.

“It’s Hayden, and don’t lie to me. Tell me exactly what happened to my son.”

Sam lifts a brow, and I nod in resignation. There’s no way Dad’s gonna let it go until he has the full story, but I suppose the one plus is that Dad’s not close enough to murder me.

Sam shakes his head and draws in a breath. “One of Harrison’s very distant cousins turned out to be a homicidal maniac. He strung Harrison up over a giant flaming pentagram, then stabbed him in order to use his blood to open a devil’s trap and set an ancient demon loose on London. Fortunately, he was a terrible aim and managed to avoid skewering anything important.”

“Harrison was stabbed?” Dad shrieks.

I glare at Sam. He could’ve softened the truth a little. “Barely stabbed,” I say reassuringly.

“Which hospital are you in? I want to speak to your doctor.”

“I’m not in the hospital,” I reply. “Like Sam said, the knife missed all my internal organs.”

“Actually, Olivia did say it nicked your liver.”

“Not helping,” I hiss to Sam.

“Who the hell is Olivia? If your liver was damaged, you should be in hospital. You could have internal bleeding. Sam, call an ambulance!”

“Dad, just listen, okay? I’m fine. Olivia is a witch I met who can do the things I can. In fact, she’s a great deal more powerful than I am. She healed me with magic. I don’t have any internal bleeding and the wound is fully sealed, no stitches. I promise.”

“It’s okay, honey. Just breathe,” I hear Pops murmur in the background, then his voice is suddenly louder. He’s obviously taken the phone from Dad.

“Harry,” Pops exhales heavily. “I’m glad you’re okay, but I don’t even know where to start. There’s a lot to unpack.”

“Pops, I really am sorry I lied to you. I just wanted you to be safe. Isaac Crawshanks, the aforementioned homicidal distant cousin, had already taken out Vivienne. I couldn’t risk either of you getting hurt.”

He sighs loudly, and I can hear Dad still ranting in the background. “Honey, honey… No, put that down!” Pops calls out.

“What’s he doing?” I frown.

Pop sighs even louder this time. “What do you think he’s doing, Harry? He’s trying to commandeer a lifeboat.” His voice gets a little fainter as he turns to speak to Dad. “Sweetheart, do you know how far it is to paddle back to England from here?”

“I’m not going to paddle back to bloody England!” he shouts, his tone waspish. “I’m going to paddle to the nearest island and then I’m going to bloody fly back to England like a civilised person. And Harrison,” he shouts loudly in the background, “you are so bloody grounded when we get back.”

“You can’t ground me.” I roll my eyes. “I’m thirty years old. I may have made some questionable decisions lately, I’ll admit, but with the best intentions. I wanted to keep you all safe.”

“I do understand,” Pop says after a minute, “but you should’ve told us. It should’ve been our decision. Your dad and I will be on the next flight home and then we’re all going to have a very thorough discussion about this. That includes you, Sam.”

“Don’t look at me,” Sam says coolly. “I didn’t find out Harrison was Viv’s son until he was strung up like a side of beef and being poked with a pointy stick by an absolute nutcase.”

“You lied to Sam?” Pops says, and there’s so much disappointment in his voice that I feel sick. “I thought we taught you better than that.”