Page 46 of Study Games

No one challenged us as I walked into my father’s surreal cocktail party full of the West Coast’s dirtiest. I knew almost every face, grew up with a majority of them. Hell, I was surprised so many were still alive for the amount of drugs around. Statistics said that these people should have passed over this life and yet I saw at least one octogenarian in my father's social ranks.

Perhaps money did matter, after all. But not in the right way. His face had been rescued by plastic surgery but his nose and teeth were still distorted from snorting the wrong sort of drugs. High class cut they might be, but nobody could take that abuse for that many decades and not show the trauma of it.

It didn't take me too long to locate my father. I skirted the edge of the large foyer and the circular staircase that soared above the grand entrance. Beyond that lead into a large, open ballroom with black-and-white tiled flooring. I took the shot of vodka from a coat-and-tails dressed waiter who passed me a small, silver tray bearing a single drink.

My preference was handed to me by default, despite my absence of the last year. Less than thirty seconds I’d been in the old man's house and already the whisper had spread. He was prepared.

Fabius Palmer wasn't in the ballroom, but the dining room where I should have expected him to be. That table was where he made his best deals. He signed away lives on that slab of ebony wood. Ate at it, fucked on it. Hell, I was surprised he didn’t get a teddy and sleep on the fucking thing.

I strode toward him, expecting him to register some flicker of surprise on his face for my actions. Not for being here; he clearly knew that. But he didn't even acknowledge my appearance despite being bruised and on a two day hike from Rippton, around California and back again to collect reinforcements while turning every shade of purple and black imaginable. My teeth still tasted of my own damn blood. Another shot of vodka hovered on my right hand side. I took it without breaking my stride, swishing it around my mouth before I swallowed, and wished I hadn't.

Because I’d been concentrating on my father alone, knowing this would be the last showdown I’d ever have with him, I ignored the rest of the people around the table. Sure, they packed enough hardware that if I took the wrong step they’d fill me with enough holes to play pin the tail on the dead man. But it wasn’t me who held my father’s attention.

It was the girl in the red dress and the chain wrapped around her throat, dangling down the back of her dress like a leash. The girl with the perfectly made up face who should never have been there at all.

Because she was my girl, and she barely seemed to recognis=ze me.

“Why don't you say hello, my dear," Fabius said, tapping Waverly's wrist.

No, not tapping, caressing. His fingers massaged a gentle circle on the inside of her wrist as she turned a vapid Stepford wife smile at him in a show of twisted perfection.

I swallowed back my horror at whatever the fuck he’d done to her, but neither I could I take my eyes off her.

She rose with a grace I’d never seen on hers but recognized from my father’s women. They all had it, from his drugs. Like it took away all their inhibitions and ignited some sexual beast inside them. Or implanted it.

Fuck it, I wanted my real Waverly back.

But I didn’t get that. Right now she sashayed towards me with the grace of any of the women my father collected at his side, turning them into sluts and bimbos and trained assassins, given enough time and natural tendencies.

Waverly was none of those and everything at once. But my father always had a purpose and intention. My insides burst as I watched her glide toward me. There wasn’t a wobble in those high heels as high stepped it in my direction like she’d been born to it.

And I knew she hadn’t.

“The fuck happened to her?” Crush breathed over my shoulder.

I held a hand out at hip distance and hoped he saw the movement.

My father chose that moment to smile happily at his little display, clapping his meaty hands. "Put your dog on a leash," he hummed in a sing-song tone like a toddler with a new toy.

“The fuck,” grated one of the boys behind me.

Crush made a shushing noise, and I prayed the brawn took notice or this would be a real short trip.

My father smiled when no one attacked from our side, stuffing sliced bread dipped in rare meat juices that dripped off his chin as he shoved more food into his gaping mouth.

Waverly almost made it to me before two figures appeared at the side of the room in my peripherals. All white suits, white hair… I didn't need to ask who they were or turn my head to identify them.

The twins brought her to my father and they would fucking answers for this once I got her back.

Once she was mine again.

Whatever the fuck you fed her will wear off. She has no idea what she's doing.

But my father was brilliant in selecting the most moldable of subjects.

I should know.

He took my fears and fed them to me daily.

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