Page 49
There’s still time to walk away. Sure, maybe their neighbors will warn them about the blonde girl who hovered around their house for a while. They might double-check their locks at night for a while, but they’ll soon forget.
I wasn’t lying when I told Cole and Sunday I wasn’t coming here. It seemed pointless, but Sunday’s words stuck with me.
Someone loves me.
I should see him at least once, right?
Or maybe this is selfish. To see him again, only to turn around and leave.
Maybe I’m being cruel.
The decision is stolen from me when the door is yanked open.
A little girl, around seven, stares up at me. A rottweiler is beside her, the animal eyeing me with suspicion. The girl blinks up at me. “Sniff, Pancakes.”
I blink back. “Excuse me?”
She puts her finger to her lips, and points at the dog. I assume that he’s Pancakes.
He lifts his large head, sniffing the air. It’s a little strange awaiting assessment from a dog, but I must pass because he doesn’t snarl. He sits, seemingly happy that I’m not an imminent threat.
The girl tilts her hair, her blonde braid swinging behind her. “Pancakes said you’re okay. Who are you?”
“Erm, I’m—”
A woman comes into view down the hallway. “Delilah, you can’t open the door on your own!”
“But Mom, I have Pancakes,” she calls back. “He said she’s friendly.”
The woman sighs and approaches. “Pancakes isn’t always right, honey. I’m sorry, who are you?” She pauses, a kitchen towel in her hands. She’s around fifty, light hair streaked with silver. A stranger to me, but she smiles warmly, resting her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“I’m—” My words suddenly vanish, because … who am I? The Darcy from before, the Darcy from now? Someone else entirely?
The woman’s smile fades, her shoulders softening. Her eyes dart across my face, and she slowly lifts her hand, her fingers hovering by her mouth. “Darcy?”
My name has been said thousands of times. By Felton, Michael, the men who held me before, the people who became ‘friends’ in the decade of hell I was owned by the Maddoxes and the two years before.
But the way she says my name is different. Not with expectation, anger, or ownership.
Like she knows me.
She steps closer. “I’m Angela. I’m your dad’s wife.” She glances behind her, then back at me, her smile growing.
He remarried. That makes sense. So … I look down at Delilah.
My half-sister.
“Come in, come in,” Angela says, laughing and taking my hand to pull me inside. “Your dad is in the yard. Wait right here. Don’t go. Don’t leave.” She rushes away, and I stand in the small foyer of my dad’s home.
“Pancakes wants to go now,” Delilah says. “Bye.”
“Okay.” I watch her wander off, her hand gripping the dog’s collar. “Bye.”
Nerves twist and writhe in my stomach, and I squeeze my fingers together as I glance around. My attention lands on the wall to my right. To photographs.
My dad and his family, and—
The tension that had wracked my body from the moment I decided to make this trip … vanishes. My shoulders dip, and the walls I spent ten years meticulously building are obliterated.
