Page 7 of Atonement

“You kept Anita locked up. She’s been acting out her entire life to get your attention, and now she has it. It just took an attempted murder and an act of war to get. And now you won’t even hold her responsible for her actions.”

“I’m not turning my own daughter over to the wolves over this. I’ll find a way out.”

“We will. If you give me your shares, and control of the company. In exchange for what you took from me.”

Shawn had abandoned all pretense of cleaning up and was staring at me from where he stood in the door to the closet, face white with horror. I shifted a little so I couldn’t see his stupid face out of the corner of my eye.

“Don’t make me come over there and kick your ass. I don’t owe you shit. If you’d taken care of her the way we talked about, I wouldn’t have had to do this.”

“And you’re going to … what? Do it the right way?”

“You bet your ass I am.”

I closed my eyes and let my head fall against the wall. I knew this, of course. He just wanted to replace Eva. If I’d shattered her from the beginning, showed up at those parties with a battered and broken woman on my arm, he would have been pleased as hell even if the tabloids had picked up on her bruises and public outcry had forced the police to my door. But neither of us had expected just how badly I wanted to avoid becoming just like my father. He spent thirty years beating out every last bit of tenderness in me, but one look at Madeline and something new had taken root inside. Each passing day had let more sunshine into the core of my being, encouraging it to grow, until the leaves sprung up through cracks in the concrete and turned long-hardened rock into dust.

The sun was gone now.

But I wasn’t done just yet.

“I’m coming over. We need to talk.”

“You’re not seeing her.”

“I never said I wanted to. But we have a deal to work out.”

He was quiet.

I’ll take that as a yes.

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

I hung up the call and tossed my phone to the side, settling against the wall more comfortably and adjusting the ice on my hand. My eyes closed.

“I need you to get me a blade.” My body and mind craved an escape. I needed to feel in control of something, even if it was the amount of blood left in my body.

Shawn exhaled loudly.

“I’m not sure now is the right—”

“It never is, but I can’t think clearly unless I do.” I was barely holding myself together as it was. If I didn’t find an outlet for this useless panic, I’d lose it completely in front of Conrad.

“Can you even hold it with your hand the way it is?”

“I’ll have to make do.”

His footsteps shuffled on the carpet, then passed me and turned to hard clicks in the hallway, fading, pausing, returning. I opened my eyes to find him holding out my knife. I’d left it in my jacket at his house; I didn’t remember getting it.

“Did you bring my jacket?”

“No. It was sitting in the kitchen.”

Worry about that later. I traded the frozen peas for the knife and went to the bathroom. Shawn’s hand on the door prevented me from shutting it.

“I’m keeping an eye on you.”

“Suit yourself.”

I ignored the pain in my arm as I raised it over my head, tossed my shirt to the floor, and breathed the first sigh of relief I’d felt in hours as the blade slid across my skin and the familiar, comforting pain overtook every wild thought bouncing around my head. Repeated cuts over healing wounds meant I hadn’t been able to wear sleeveless shirts in years, but every time I tried to quit the ritual I found myself drowning in more anger and depression than ever. That was, until Madeline arrived. From the moment I held her in my arms and took her back to my house, I didn’t feel the drive to cut. Having her nearby was a balm to my soul. Deep down, I knew it was a temporary reprieve from the pain, but I enjoyed it while I could. The responsibility of caring for her as she sank into her own depression gave me a drive to live that I hadn’t felt in ages, maybe since the day I realized the woman I thought of as my mother wasn’t ever coming back.

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