Not a request. Not a negotiation. A command.
Leave him. Love me.
I crumpled up the letter and dropped my face in my hands with a groan.
Breathe, Alex. Think this through.
This had to be Ophelia’s decision. Hers and hers alone. It couldn’t be mine.
Slowly, an idea began to form. I started another letter. This time, I wrote in slow, controlled letters, with handwriting that didn’t belong to my hand.
I wrote a riddle instead:
Wind me up, fit me through the eye, send me your broken, and I’ll return it revived.
PART V
BOUND WITH PAPER CHAINS
27
Phantom.Now.
I shut my eyes against the painful memories.
I don’t like that version of myself. Petty. Angry. Vengeful.
I’m better than that.Opheliadeserves better than that.
I’d prove that to her, if she’d just give me another chance.
As if on cue, my phone pings. I check the text, and my heart goes tight in my chest. Aleena, Ophelia’s sister, has sent a single message to both me and Ophelia.
[Text: Aleena]
Cisco’s here. Need help.
The alarm must show on my face, because I feel Monique eyeing me. “You okay, Casper?” she asks.
“Flip the siren,” I tell her. Urgency makes my voice rough. “We’ve got to go.”
28
Ophelia.Now.
[Text: Aleena]
Cisco’s here. Need help.
I get the text and adrenaline rushes through my body like a storm.Cisco. My sister’s deadbeat ex-husband. He’s the kids’ father, but only biologically. He doesn’t ask about them. Doesn’t want to know them. Doesn’t want anything to do with them, except to occasionally yell at my sister about how she’s keeping them from him.
He’s also the man who cornered me and put his hand up my skirt behind my sister’s back. But that’s not something I try to think about.
I leap into action. I grab my keys, throw open the coat closet, and grab my coat?—
In the closet sits a baseball bat. The one I used to play with Squeaky and Kira. I grab the bat too. Just in case.
I exit my building, and the rain is pouring down.Great. It’s going to be impossible to get a cab. I move to the edge of the sidewalk and peer through the sheet of rain, but all the cabs have their “occupied” lights on.Fuck.
