Page 194 of Storm Caller

Aren’t we all?

Maybe I should feel sorry for her, but I would never have gone to the same lengths just to save myself.

She will stop at nothing until she has me.

So, I have no choice.

I pull my arm back and release the Spark with a roar.

67

It shoots from my hands and strikes Sol in the chest. She goes flying, arcing through the air and landing on the pavement before skidding several feet. I stand very still.

Did I . . . kill her?

I wait for several seconds, but she doesn’t move.

I’m about to check on her when a pained groan draws my attention to my father.

“Dad,” I say, running over and dropping to my knees. His breaths saw from his lungs like rusty blades, and I flatten my palm to the center of his heaving chest, where I can feel the listless beat of his heart.

He looks up at me, and I see so many things in his expression that I still don’t get. He’s dying. A part of me is surprised he’s capable of this, too. Maybe I thought he’d live forever, towering over the world with that stern expression and unbending fist.

“Why?” I ask, leaving my hand where it is. For so long, the idea of touching him filled me with swirling shadows that left me dizzy. I can’t remember the last time I felt the need for a physical connection with this man. “Why?”

I could be asking a thousand things, but I think he understands.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I craved control. I wanted everything in its place, but this thing . . . this rage . . . it lived inside me, and I didn’t know where to put it.”

My shoulders sag as I let out a leaden breath. It’s not really an answer. It’s not an excuse. I don’t think I was really expecting one, but maybe a part of me hoped.

“Why us?” I ask.

His eyes flutter closed, and his lungs seem to rattle. A sheen of sweat covers his face, pooling in the dark circles under his eyes.

“Because I knew you couldn’t leave me.”

A cold dose of realization sinks into my skin.

It feels like I’ve been tossed into a frothing midnight ocean, my surroundings so pitch-dark that all I can feel is the erratic throbbing of my broken heart.

We were trapped, and we belonged to him. All three of us. That’s another thing Society took from us. The freedom to choose. If we’d left, he would have destroyed us. We had no choice but to stay, but he destroyed us anyway.

“I’ll never forgive you,” I whisper, because at this moment, I finally understand this with perfect clarity. I wanted him to be better. I wanted a reason to let it go. But I can’t. I’ve never owed him that.

“I know,” he says. “I don’t expect you to.”

“You used to frighten me so much. I . . . was terrified of you.”

“And now?” he asks, grunting with pain, his eyes squeezing shut.

“And now I know that despite what you tried to make me believe, I am stronger than you.”

He nods, shifting awkwardly as if he’s trying to get more comfortable.

I don’t reach out to help him. I’m not sure that I can.

“Why did you follow me here? Why did you insist on coming last night?”