by Terina Adams
“I’m not sure what he can do about it, to tell you the truth. He’s locked up. What can he do?”
“Sounds like you’re talking yourself out of it.”
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
“I thought you didn’t like him?”
I leaned back on the headrest. How to unravel the turbulent storm that was my emotions toward my dad? “I loved my father more than anything. It makes what he did harder to accept.”
Jax absorbed me with his eyes a little too long for someone driving. I couldn’t read what was going on in his head from the look he gave, but the slight crease between his eyes meant he wasn’t happy. I was getting used to the sorts of looks he gave. Most seemed to carry the weight of a dark secret too heavy to bear, which left me alone in an empty place where the real him did not exit.
This time I wanted to know what it was that stayed buried deep within him, so I continued to stare at him, hoping to glean small secrets of my own. I watched his jaw twitch as he clenched his teeth, usually a sign of someone saddled with conflicting thoughts. He shuffled around in his seat, glanced out the side window then back to the front. Next, with his wrist slung over the steering wheel, he danced his hand a little. His body wanted to move, as if agitated.
After a while, he said, “He wanted to protect you.” Said like he resented the fact. “That’s a father’s job.”
“You’re right. I can’t change the feelings I have for him deep inside. I still love him, but at the moment, it hurts too much to admit it. I’m sorry you don’t have a father left to protect you.”
Clutching the steering wheel, his knuckles whitened. For a moment he closed his eyes. What I said hurt. Why couldn’t I reel the words back in?
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I was—”
“Don’t. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps he doesn’t deserve your love, but just make sure there’s nothing to regret between you and your father. It will only eat away at you in the end.”
A locked tomb of untold stories rested between us. I would, perhaps, be left waiting an eternity for the key. I wanted to ask what it would take to get beneath his armor, to know what secrets he kept hidden, to know why he had suddenly appeared in my life and seemed determined to position himself center stage. Instead I stared out the window as the gulf between us widened.
When my name was called, Ajay leaped to his feet. I’d decided it was best he came with me and I would somehow manage to tell Dad what I had to say in code. I didn’t want Jax anywhere near Dad. I would have to lie and say the neighbors brought me. But if Dad knew about me and a boy, the guards would likely cut the visit short because Dad went apoplectic.
The guard delivered us to the door and stationed himself just inside with his hands crossed in front of him. The wait was short and when Dad came through, Ajay leaped to his feet again and did little jumps on the spot as if he’d been injected with caffeine while Dad crossed the room toward us.
He wore a big smile and scooped Ajay up into a bear embrace from behind. Ajay giggled and my heart ached. This was how it should always be. Not an hourly visit once a week. Ajay craved Dad. He was never so happy as when he sat next to him in this dour room surrounded by unfriendly people on uncomfortable plastic chairs.
Behind Ajay, Dad’s smile slipped and he gave me a look of concern. I replied with a weak smile.
He sat still holding Ajay by the hand. “Hey, honey, how you been?”
“Good.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“It’s just us today.”
He frowned, giving me an extra-long and heavy stare.
“This is what I drew today.” Ajay pulled his school bag from the floor and undid the zip.
“Sure, champ, give me a look.” He responded with his eyes set on me.
Ajay spread a crumpled sheet of paper on the table and described the scribble. Dad listened with half an ear. I could tell because of all the times he’d listened to Ajay before, with undivided attention, asking the right sort of questions and feeding Ajay with pride. Now he made trite noises. Once or twice, Ajay glanced up at him, no doubt noticing the difference in his responses. Dad smiled down at him and ruffled his hair or rubbed his arm but struggled to give Ajay any more of his attention.
When Ajay exhausted discussion on that drawing, he searched his bag for something else.
“How’s your mother?”
“She’s good. I think she’s researching how to make us some money.”
Dad stared at me like I’d spoken Japanese.
“She’s out meeting people.”
“And I did this in my book.” Ajay pulled out his exercise book and looked up at Dad while he flicked through the pages. Dad pulled his attention from me when Ajay’s palm rested on his chin.
“Show me.” He nodded at Ajay’s book.
Ajay launched into another detailed explanation of what he was doing on each page. I looked around the room as a way to avoid eye contact with him. Ajay needed his time with Dad first. God knows what I had to say wasn’t worth talking about.
Dad did his best to give Ajay the attention he deserved and Ajay lapped it up with one long stream of talk.
I plucked up the courage to tell Dad while Ajay stuffed his book back in his bag. “I think Mum is meeting with some of your old acquaintances.”
Dad stiffened and the temperature surrounding us rose ten degrees—I swear. His face did all sorts of transformations in a matter of seconds. It was painful to watch. The storm of anger that rode behind the genial facade he fixed in place when he looked at Ajay assaulted me. I didn’t want to look at the writhing emotions so obviously suppressed below the surface. I ached to reach out and touch him, but a wall of judgment had destroyed the passage of touch between us.
“She’s so scared you’ll get in trouble if you do anything yourself. So she’s decided to do it herself.”
He jerked forward and, with his elbows on the table, sunk his head in his hands. I could sense the frustration and anger driving his sudden and forceful action.
“It’s why I came. I wanted you to know. I don’t know what you can do about it…but I just wanted to tell you.”
A lump blocked my throat, my swallow painful.
For the first time in months, Dad grasped my hand. “You did the right thing. Don’t worry, Sable. I’m going to take care of everything.”
I’d yet to look in his eyes because I was too busy staring at his hand covering mine. Never before had his touch meant so much. A tear dropped onto the back of his hand. I wiped the rest away.
“I’m going to take care of everything, Sable. Do you hear me?”
I wanted him to. I wanted him to. I wanted him to make everything go away, the lies, the betrayal, the destitution, the fear, and Jax, because that’s what he did. That’s what he always did. I didn’t want to be the adult, the only one holding my family together.
I nodded. Ajay rocked to and fro, sensing unease in the air.
“I think it’s time we went.”
“Who brought you here?”
Dammit. I thought I’d gotten away without having to lie. Just then, Dad’s eyes trailed past me to the exit and his face contorted in rage. Next, he barreled past the table, toward the exit like a diesel locomotive without brakes, bellowing something akin to a war cry. Locked up in shock, I couldn’t even scream his name.
At the window in the exit door, I saw Jax.
The rest unrolled like a nightmare. The guard at the door blocked his way. A handful more materialized out of nowhere, and Dad, fighting through them all, was finally subdued, cuffed, and led away. Ajay all the while shrieked himself hoarse until someone official came and shunted us out the door.
Ajay fought me all the way to the car, not wanting to leave Dad, forcing me to yell at him, until Jax intervened by placing a hand on his shoulder and whispering words I couldn’t hear. Ajay stopped his ruckus but shrunk into himself with his bag against his chest. He wouldn’t let me touch him, but he followed us to the car. I
glared at Jax, thankful but resentful. At least we could go, but why was he the one to get through to Ajay?
Once Ajay clambered in the back, I leaned against the car as the tears burned behind my eyelids.
I tried not to relive the sight, but it replayed on a loop, determined to punish me. I’d made such a mess of everything. Dad’s visitation rights would be reduced or removed completely, and god knows what else they did with prisoners to discipline them.
There was no way I would be able to hide my visit from Mum. Ajay was bound to withdraw for a while and refuse to go anywhere, including school. How would I explain his behavior to her?
I could feel Jax standing beside me. I opened my eyes and looked through a blur of tears.
“I’m sorry about that. I feel that was my fault. You warned me to stay unseen, and I didn’t. I’m really sorry.”
I turned away from him as I wiped the tears away. Dad was not the man I knew. Never had I seen him so angry, act with such rage. I collapsed back onto the hood of his car, using that to keep me standing because my legs wouldn’t do the job on their own anymore.
After what he did, he wouldn’t be able to help Mum. They would lock him away deep in that prison, leaving him no hope of contacting who he thought he could to keep Mum safe. She would end up dead or locked in a female prison. All I had was Ajay. This was surely the end of my family.
I pushed off the hood. “Let’s just go.”
“Sable.”
“Forget it,” I snapped and headed for the passenger door.
Chapter 11
The doors slid open to Elva crowding the exit, no doubt an intimidation ploy, and she succeeded.
“You’re not too dissimilar to your mum.”
The pit in my stomach sank through to my feet, while my brain, trying to register what had been said, turned to fuzz and mucked up any suitable response.
Elva waited with one hip flared, twirling the sharp stiletto of the other foot into the wood floor. With her hand on her hip, I saw the tattoo on her right wrist, different from Jax’s.
“Oops. Was that something I wasn’t supposed to say? It seems the cat’s out of the bag.” She joined me in the lift, bringing with her a rich citrusy, floral scent. “Don’t worry, honey, we’re all friends here.” She settled her beautiful dark eyes on me. “And friends don’t keep secrets. Lovers, perhaps, but not friends.”
Rather than be poisoned by her, I scooted out of the lift. It closed on another one of her magnificent smirks. No one I’d met, except her, could make a smirk into a lethal weapon.
Jax had said he would contain Elva, whatever that meant, yet it seemed he’d revealed to her my confession about my family. And her last comment had to allude to her continual belief Holden and I were together.
I spun at the sound of footsteps. Jax analyzed my face, then halted. “What did she say?”
“Does it really matter to you?”
“Depends on what she said.”
“She said I was like my mum. She knows nothing about my mum or me.”
“Elva knows how to get under people’s skin.”
“But why would she make that comment?”
“You’ll have to ask her that.”
“Holden told me to stay away from you. He said you were a complete wanker, among other things.”
Dangerous, manipulative, hard-hearted, I’d also add to that a smirk that trickled the creeps up your spine. His unforgiving stare coupled with the sneer, and I felt the butt of some terrible joke, one between the two of them.
“Holden will always think the worst.”
“I wish someone would be direct with me about the past between the two of you.”
“It’s not your concern yet.”
“Does she hate me because she thinks I’m Holden’s girlfriend?”
“Aren’t you Holden’s girlfriend?”
I led myself into that without too much trouble.
“Elva’s vindictive and spiteful, but someone you want covering your back when the going gets messy because she’s loyal, courageous, and won’t back down. She makes a habit of studying her competition and, I’m sorry to say, you’re her competition. The only thing you did wrong was appear with Holden at the party. I’m not sure she’ll ever accept you because she hangs on to negative emotions.”
Just great. I wanted out of this mess. “Are we going to play this game? I’ve got better places to be. I’m not wasting my Saturday.”
“What happened the other day once you got home?”
“Does it matter to you?”
“I wouldn’t be asking.”
“I made Ajay promise to lie to his mum. He disappeared into his room and wouldn’t come out for dinner. Mum was worried he was sick. He’s kept his promise.”
“And you feel terrible for making him keep it.”
“I feel terrible for ruining Mum’s and Ajay’s chance of seeing Dad again any time soon.”
Jax folded his arms across his chest, drilling into me with his penetrating eyes.
“Can we get this over and done with?”
“Sable, I’m sorry—”
“Forget it. It’s done. I should’ve known better.”
He dropped his arms to his sides, hesitated a few moments, and I held my breath, waiting for more apologies I would refuse to listen to. Seeming to understand that fact, he headed for the gaming room.
“Am I a pawn in your vendetta?”
He stopped but did not face me. Staring at his back, now rigid with tension, I willed him to turn and face me so I could see the truth in his eyes.
When he did turn, his face was the schooled calm of neutrality. “Against who? If this is about Holden, we don’t see eye to eye. We never will. But I’m not plotting anything against him. He’s not on my horizon.”
“I wasn’t referring to Holden. I know this has nothing to do with Holden. I just don’t understand. Why are you targeting me to play your stupid game? Why threaten me to join you? There are so many gamers out there who would love to join in on an exclusive game.”
“I want special people.”
I huffed a sarcastic noise. “You don’t want me then.”
He glanced sideways at me, the hint of that smirk cracking his otherwise emotionless face.
“You’re exactly what I want.”
“God, you’re frustrating. You stalked me in that convenience store so you could force me to play your game?”
“There are so many reasons why I was there. One day you’ll understand.”
“Why did you dob me into that kid?”
“It’s important to feel the consequences of your actions.”
“As you will discover after you’ve settled your vendetta against the guy who—” I couldn’t say any more. It was too horrible to repeat.
“I’m already in hell. It doesn’t matter how deep I bury myself.”
I slowed, allowing him to move farther in front of me. I didn’t like him, I wanted to continue not liking him, but my hatred was being chipped away by his self-punishment and this confusing situation. Nothing made sense. And now I was stuck in the center of the triangle that was Jax, Holden, and Elva, and somewhere in the middle with me was a secret I was sure I didn’t want to learn.
Jax pushed through into the empty games room.
“Tyren’s been asked to leave too, has he?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Elva was on her way out just as I arrived. Tyren’s absent. I hope you don’t think this is a date.”
“I don’t need to blackmail a woman for a date.”
“I’m glad you see this for what it is.”
Wow, my first genuine smile. It made him look different, better-looking, more approachable. He’s still an ass.
Jax started the computer while I looked around the room. There was little to see except for the desk with the computers and a cupboard by the right wall, which happened to be white like the rest of the room. “Why so much space?”
“You’ll see.”
“This one will be solved in a matter of minutes.”
I came around to stand beside him. The screen fired up in seconds. Filling it was the word Dominus, which appeared in thick metal-colored capitals, the lettering bold and aggressive with sharp edging.
Jax left the word Dominus filling the screen and headed for the cupboard. He pulled out something small and silver, white gloves and socks and a white jump suit, all with silver dots over them. He gathered them in his arms and came back to me. “Put these on.” He placed them on the desk. “Take your shoes off but you can leave your clothes on.”
I held up the jumpsuit. “You want me to dress to play the game?”
“It’s a necessity.”
“Is it supposed to put me in a better mood to play?”
He flashed me a deadpan look while he flipped his boots off. Right, don’t speak, just do.
The jumpsuit wasn’t the exact fit but close enough, and I had silver dots running down my arms and legs and around my hips, same with the gloves and socks, which had spaces for each toe. Dots also ran down my fingers and toes and around my ankles and wrists.
“These are for…?”
“A real-life experience, or as close to as you can get.”
“You guys are serious about gaming.”
“You’re only getting started. You can finish dressing while I prepare a few things.”
Some silver dots much like the ones on my jumpsuit lay on the table once the jumpsuit, gloves, and socks were gone. Jax slid them to him while he sat down in one of the chairs. He tapped out some commands on the computer and the screen opened up into the game, or rather places for data input. He typed in my name and then swiped the silver dots in front of a red laser light at the bottom of the far-left screen. Once done, he rose from the seat and faced me.
“What are they?”
“The real surprise to Dominus.” He came close and attached a dot on either side of my temples and one on my forehead. His proximity meant my air was filled with rich, warm tones, reminding me of hot spiced buns and mulled wine.
“I’m guessing the dots aren’t for fashion.”