Chapter Four
She sat and sippedat her soda as her father approached.She had seen him as a tarantula from the moment whatever had happened to her vision had happened.
He stopped in front of her.“You don’t greet your father, Emhara?”
“I thought you had disowned me.”
He frowned.“Why?”
“I have tried to call you ninety-seven times in the last twelve years, and your assistant said that you were not taking my calls every time.A father helps.A father cares.”
“I sent funds to support you.”
She started to laugh wildly, and Echel came to her side.“You think I saw any of that?I have been making digital ad art in exchange for food for years.They bought my clothing and then billed me for it.What do I need with designer gowns?I never even wore them.They were just purchased to keep me in debt.”
Em looked at him and saw the horror crossing his face.
“So, if you were paying them, they had more contact with you than I ever did.And if you are handing out money, can I get a hundred bucks so I can buy food tomorrow and get some jeans and a shirt?Wait.One fifty.My underwear is disgraceful.”
He frowned.“You didn’t receive anything?”
“Punches.Gouges.Kicks.Lots of slaps, hair pulled out in chunks, split lips, trips to hospital that were always disguised as clumsy behaviour.I called for help.No one answered.”
Her father stared at her, his spider face confused.“Who did you speak to?”
“Genevive.You know.Your wife’s sister-in-law.”
Her father paused.“You seem to be recovering well.”
“Well, it’s been a week.The surgical sites are nearly gone.”She looked at Duran.“You still have all the images?Let him see how it isn’t anything to worry about.”
She smiled pleasantly as her father flipped through the images of her battered, swollen, unrecognizable and then her on life support while they waited.Then the surgical sites, before and after, with the distinctive marks of the heels on her belly.
Her father tapped rapidly, and she knew he was sending them to himself.
She looked at him lazily.“Now, I don’t want those ending up on a revenge porn website.It will give other fathers bad ideas.”
He looked at her, fury in his gaze.She grinned.“There you are.I thought you had shrivelled up and left a shed in your place.”
He blinked.“What do you mean?”
“It isn’t a secret, but I don’t see your human seeming.I see your beasts.The first time it happened was long ago, but you are a big, fat tarantula, and Mateo is a leaner spider with longer limbs and a harder thorax.”
