Page 44 of Teach Me How To Fly

I couldn’t find a reason why he hadn’t done it yet because he had seen me through the surveillance cameras all day. He could’ve just come in the library and destroyed each book, but surprisingly, he didn’t.

I put the books on the ground and sat beside them, trying to catch my breath and not reveal where I was. I didn’t want them to know that I was here.

“Are you sure she isn’t there?” Katya asked as they were stepping down on the metal stairs.

So my father and Katya needed a private space to talk about something no one would have listened to. Too bad I was already there.

“I looked through all the cameras and she is nowhere to be found. Maybe she’s lost in the forest, which is better for us because we’ll have time to talk,” my father said in a serious tone of voice.

Too bad that Maksen changed the cameras and he was seeing what was happening in the days before and not live. But what were they up to?

They were trying to talk about something that I wasn’t supposed to hear, which made me even more confused and curious.

“My wedding with Maksen is months away, which makes me think that I really should move in with him just to get along with each other,” she said and I heard my father sighing.

“You can move with him whenever you want, my dear.”

She was already planning to move in with him? Alone? I felt my heart being stung by multiple knives and I couldn’t do anything about it.

“I know I can, but I don’t know, I just don’t feel completely at peace doing it alone. I want to see a familiar figure being with me there,” she added in a lower tone of voice.

“Then you’ll take Olivia with you.”

“No, dad, I don’t need Olivia,” she quickly replied, almost angry at his proposal. “I want Annalise to move in with me. I need my sister by my side.”

I felt something getting stuck in my throat hearing her words and I couldn’t believe what I heard. She didn’t ever talk with me more than just mocking and making fun of me every time she had the occasion, and now she was asking our father to take me with her to move in with Maksen? Did she want me to witness their relationship, to laugh in my face, to hear them through the walls?

Confused was the right word to describe me right now.

“You can’t take Annalise with you.”

Katya took a breath in and then let out a deep sigh come out of her mouth. She spent a few moments in silence, then she cleared her throat and started walking in circles.

“I need Annalise, Dad. I know we didn’t have the best relationship as sisters, but me, Annalise, and Maksen were inseparable when we were little, so having her with me will help me get along with Maksen better.”

“Suka blyad,” he swore and I just knew he was getting angry.

“Dad, please, I need her,” she begged in a lower tone of voice. “I can’t do this alone,” she added quickly.

“You can’t fucking take her there, Katya! Maksen is in fucking love with her, and I need you to marry him! I fucking need you to do it, do you understand what I’m saying? Do you fucking understand?”

Maksen is in love with me? How did he know that? But considering how my heart started beating right now, it didn’t even matter how he knew.

I tried to catch a glimpse of them, and the moment I managed to tip-toe, I saw my father grab Katya by her hands and hold her above the ground.

Her face showed no other feeling rather than true fear. She was terrified, and if he was going to hurt her in any way, I was literally going to hop up from the place I was hiding and punch him in the face, something I never thought I’d say about my father.

“Why? Why are you not letting her marry him if he loves her, Dad?” she screamed and tried to escape from his grip.

He looked at her full of anger and willing to do the worst things imaginable to her, which made me fear for her. I was ready to walk to them, but he left her standing on her own feet and hit the desk with his fist, letting out a scream that filled the entire room.

“Because she’s not my blood, and if she marries him, our family won’t benefit from it.Youare my daughter, my DNA runs through your blood and I need you to marry Maksen to connect our families so I can rule this entire empire with him. There’s so much more behind –”

But he stopped talking the moment I ran from the library as fast as I could. I was disoriented, running out of the house and not caring for a second about where I was going.

The bodyguards tried to stop me, but I told them that I needed some time alone. They followed me every time, but when they saw me crying, they knew they had to leave me alone.

They also knew I had nowhere to escape, so that’s why they just let me get out of the house.

---