Page 19 of Forbidden Girl

All Dad does is shake his head in acknowledgment.

The only thought I have as I ascend the stairs is I am so done with this family. I close the door to my bedroom and take everything in—the soft pink walls, the white wicker furniture, the stuffed animals in their hammock suspended from the ceiling above my bed. Nothing about this room has changed since I was eight years old. That’s how my father likes it, and how he thinks of me: As a child who’ll go along with whatever I’m told to do or say. He doesn’t know me at all. He doesn’t want to. I don’t want him to, either. What I want is to give up my name, this prison disguised as a home, my father’s dirty money, and all the things it bought me that he convinced himself would make me happy. Nothing about this life makes me happy. I’m happiest when I’m three thousand miles away from it. And I’m happy when I’m with… Oh God, Rowan! I know she’s okay, Teague essentially said as much, but I slide into her contact and hit call anyway. The line rings and rings and rings. I’m sure it’s about to go to voicemail when: “Was it Teague? Did I shoot Teague? Is he alive?” The trepidation in her voice is palpable. I can picture her, racked with dread.

“No. It was a man named Gino. He was alive in the ambulance, but not looking too hot. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

Her outbreath is hard. “Shit. I’m so sorry, Juliet. When I saw them holding a gun to a guy’s head, I panicked. Now I realize I should have shot into the air or something. That might have been enough to scare them away.”

“They were stealing from you.”

“I couldn’t give a shit about that if I tried. It’s just stuff. Merchandise. Nothing is worth a person’s life, not even the fucking Crown Jewels.”

“They had their guns drawn and aimed at someone, Rowan. You did what you had to do.”

“Don’t say that. My father said the same thing, word for word. It’s not true. I could have done something, anything else.”

Whether Gino survives or not, she’s going to carry this guilt with her for the rest of her life. I know there’s nothing I can say to quell that, though I still want to try. I sit down on the edge of my bed, take a breath, conjure the memory of our first meeting at Sammy’s birthday party back in May. How, after Merrick explained the costume-party part he’d left out, and they’d finished the ballon arch, she disappeared for a while. When she returned, she was wearing a knight’s plated armor—steel, not the cheap plastic imitation from a party store. That was the moment I knew I had to talk to her, but she was so pretty and so standoffish that it took me another hour to get up the nerve. I learned that the costume was from a suit of armor that stood outside her father’s study. And I learned who she was—I knew her name, her family’s name, but that was the first time I saw who she is.

“Rowan, please stop blaming yourself for a situation you didn’t create. You responded to it, that’s all. Your protective instinct kicked in and reflexes took over. And you know what? I’ve known since the first time we spoke that you had it in you. That’s why I’ve never once felt unsafe with you. You’re caring and compassionate, and as much as your father may have tried to condition it out of you, he couldn’t. I love you for that.”

“Yeah?” It’s a single, simple word, but I hear the astonishment in it, tinged with disbelief.

“Yes.”

She sighs into the receiver. “Everything’s fucked. This is the spark my dad’s been waiting for. There’s an inferno coming and it’s going to be bad.”

“I know.” But how do we get out of the way of the flames? I’m not sure it’s even possible. We’d have to disappear, and we need our own resources to do that, completely independent of and untraceable by our families.

“I gotta go. I think my dad’s back from wherever the fuck he went. Keep me updated on Gino, okay?”

“I will.”

She disconnects before I can say goodbye.

I don’t want to be here but my desire to avoid running into my dad and Teague is stronger than my desire to flee. I grab a book from the to-be-read shelf of my bookcase and flop backward onto my bed, hoping to find relief in its as yet uncharted pages.

Screams rip up the stairs and down the long hallway, so loud and angry that they seep through my mahogany bedroom door and ring in my ears. I look up from my book for what must be the first time in hours—the sun outside my window is kissing the horizon with its fiery lips and the moon is creeping into the burgeoning night sky. I’d know that voice anywhere, though I rarely hear it this heated. The words are unintelligible, but my mother is losing her absolute shit. I run to my door, fling it open, and hurtle downstairs.

I reach the landing to find my mother in the foyer, holding the ensanguined guest towel so tightly in her left palm that her knuckles are white. My father is standing agog, no doubt wondering what the hell is happening with the women in his life. At the outset, I think she’s pissed that her Very Expensive Towel from Saks Fifth Avenue is ruined. That’s not it at all. The blood itself is inconsequential to her. She is demanding to know who it came from and why it is no longer in their body.

My father is, in a word, fucked. And he understands this perfectly. He stutters through the tale as he recounts it, shrinking with every word. My mother, on the other hand, seems to be getting larger and larger, until it’s Attack of the 50 Foot Woman live from the Calloway Household Theater. “Patrick Calloway, have you lost your ever-loving mind?”

Up to now neither of my parental units have noticed my presence. “I asked him the same fucking thing,” falls from my mouth before I can stop it.

My mother’s eyes bulge as she acknowledges me. She doesn’t normally take kindly to me swearing, but at the moment she’s too incensed to care. “You’ve involved our daughter in this!”

“She was here when Teague and Gino arrived.”

“It’s not a secret, Mom. Dad’s a gangster. Next question.”

Neither of them is amused. “Juliet, go back upstairs. You don’t need to hear this,” my father says.

“I don’t need to, I want to.” I fold my arms across my chest. “Go on, Mom.”

My mother takes a breath before refocusing her fury on my dad. “And where, pray tell, is your anger-issues-laden nephew? So help me, Saint Michael, if he goes after the Monaghan girl for this?—”

“I sent him home to cool off.”

I laugh. It’s sardonic and biting and I can’t help how it comes across exactly as I mean it to. “Cool off? He has no chill.”

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