AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Besides, it’s not like he didn’t make a business out of stealing. He has no right to judge.
I collapse onto the bed and stay there for a while. Just breathing. Just … existing.
And then the tears come.
“Are you crying?” my father mutters. “Jesus, Aurora. We made it. Be happy.” He laughs.
“We did, yes,” I reply, gazing at him with tearstained eyes. “Buthedidn’t.”
“Who?” My father raises his brow, but the ire on my face finally makes him realize. “That Beast?”
He says his name like it’s something vile.
Suddenly, he hisses as he moves around in the chair, and I sit up to look at him.
“Fuck, it hurts,” he growls, touching the open wounds on his legs and arms.
I wipe away my tears, get off the bed, and rummage around in the room, opening all the closets. I even look in the bathroom until I find what I’m looking for: a first-aid kit.
I carry it to my father and kneel before him so I can bandage his leg. I don’t say anything at all, even though he looks at me like I should. But I have absolutely nothing to say to him.
“Why do you even care at all about that Beast?” he asks.
I fixate the bandage with some tape. “Because he deserved to survive too.”
He rolls his eyes. “Thatthingwas nothing but a killer.”
“Thatthingwas a man with a beating heart,” I say, standing up in front of him. “And he was a better man than you’ll ever be.”
I blink away the tears, refusing to cry in front of my father as I throw everything back into the box and chuck it onto the table. Then I lie down in the bed and bury my face into the pillow.
It’s been so long since I last felt a semblance of humanity, and this bed right here gives me so much of it. Something Beast didn’t have for years on end.
Until he met me.
That one night we had in the hotel room must’ve been a rare experience.
“So you’re just going to lie there?” my father asks.
I don’t know what to say.
I’m just trying not to die from sorrow.
Because when I think of Beast lying there in a pool of his own blood, shot down like his life meant nothing, all I want to do is scream until my lungs cave in on me.
“You really want to ignore your own father?”
“Yes,” I mutter, tasting my salty tears as they roll down my cheeks. “Yes, pretending you don’t exist is easier than knowing you’re here.”
Even though he’s alive, even though I just gave him some first aid, even though he’s my father, I don’t want anything to do with him right now.
My father makes apfftsound and turns around in his chair. “Fine. I’ll sleep here for the night.”
I ignore his obvious attempt at guilt-tripping me. I’ve felt so guilty all this time while I was in that cell beneath Lex’s mansion, and for what? So my father could tell me to my face he never even wanted me? That he’d easily exchange me to save his life? That I’m … a monster?
The mere thought makes me bury my face in my pillow again, wishing I could unsee the world. Unsee my own body and my own hands that have destroyed so much in this life.
I lean up only to look at my own deformity.
