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His eyes scanned the letter, his honey-brown irises flipping back and forth on line after line. He got to the end of the letter and turned over the page, searching for more. Finding nothing, he flipped back to the letter, reading the whole of it again. And a third time.
Then his gaze stopped, frozen in time as he stared at one particular spot on the letter. Probably where his father’s signature and seal—the delicate edges of the red wax starting to crumble with all the years—sat at the bottom of the page.
“You had this all these years?” His voice was eerily calm.
Both of her hands lifted, her palms to him with her fingers wide. “Strider, please—”
“You had this the whole damn time?” His glare whipped up to her, the fury in his eyes a blow to her belly, taking her breath away.
She nodded. “I did—I did, but I was too scared—”
“Too scared?” He was to her in two strides, the storm of his fury in her face, his words spitting out at her, brutal. “You were too damn scared to show me this? No—you hid this—hid this for a year and then never tried to give it to me? Even after you were at the Flagtons?” He waved the letter in her face and then threw it onto the table she stood next to as he leaned in at her. “What in the almighty hell were you thinking—but no—no—you weren’t thinking. You were being too bloody stupid and too bloody stubborn. Just a stupid, stupid little girl.”
Her head snapped back, her hand clasping across her mouth. But she couldn’t take offense. She had been stupid. Stubborn. Hanging on too tightly to what little she had. “Strid—”
“No—there’s no blasted excuse for this. I don’t care how scared you were. If you had given me this years ago—right when Mama and Papa died—things could have been different—we could have used it to get back to England. All these years without you.” His head shook, his body quivering in rage. “You did this to me—to us. All these years and look at what we’ve become.”
Her fingers at her mouth dropped to her throat. “I was so scared. Scared someone would do to you what they did to your father. I didn’t know what happened to him and I was so scared it could happen to you.”
“And what? We were both scared of everything, Pen. Scared of no food. Scared someone would hurt us. Scared someone would take you. Scared someone would beat me. Scared about where we would sleep. Scared you wouldn’t wake up. Scared of the bones poking out of our skin. We were scared all of the bloody…damn…time. So what? How could this letter have scared you any more than all of that?”
His breath seething, he stared at her, both of his hands curled into fists, scorn pouring from his eyes.
She closed her eyes to him. To the hatred spiking the air all around her. Her bottom lip quivered, dropping slightly as a whisper left her. “I was scared you would leave me. That you had a life to go to and that you would leave me behind. Abandon me. My heart couldn’t take losing you.”
A primal growl shook the room as he leaned in, the rage full on his face, the roar of it filling her ears, suffocating her head.
He didn’t touch her. Not one slap. Not one shake.
In the next breath, he stepped away from her.
The paper on the table crinkled and she opened her eyes.
Strider stood next to the letter, his fingers touching the edge of it as he stared at it for long, agonizing seconds.
His head shook and he delicately picked up the paper, folding it with the greatest care on the previously creased lines. There wasn’t the slightest tremble in his hands. Not the slightest hiccup in his breath.
He gave a slight shake of his head, still looking at the letter. “I didn’t truly think you had anything of my father’s. I thought you were lying and it turns out that you had this all along.”
Her voice cracked, her insides turning to ice, shattering. “Then why did you help me find my family?”
His voice had gone back to normal. Calm. Disinterested. Though he didn’t bother to look at her. “I…” His shoulders lifted. “I wanted to be near you again. To remember a different time. A different me.” He tucked the folded letter into a pocket inside his black coat.
“And now?”
“Now that boy is dead. For good, this time.” His gaze shifted to her, but his brown eyes were blank. No feeling of any kind in them. Not for her. Not for what she had just given him. Void. “That boy believed in you. In all the good that you were.” He shook his head. “But you weren’t.”
“Strider…” His name was all she could squeak out with the last of the air in her lungs.
“You were afraid of being abandoned, Pen? Well, here it is.”
He turned without another word, without another glance at her, and walked out of the room, taking all of her air with him as he closed the door behind him.
Not slamming it. Not leaving it ajar.
Closing it.
{ Chapter 17 }
