Page 38 of Fallen Petal

Chapter 19

J

“You were inside her room while I was gone?”

My voice thunders through the hallway, making her jump up from the kitchen table, where she’s been sitting with the newspaper and a cup of coffee.

Malia stares at me through wide eyes, displaying the face of a guilty person. She knows she got caught doing something wrong, and for a moment, I see delicious fear scurrying across her face. The kind of fear I expect to see in a situation like this, the kind of guilt-ridden anxiety that will make a person bend and apologize, pleading to better themselves in the future.

But Malia has never been this kind of person with me. Unlike many, many others, she’s never been struck with awe by me in the same way. I always respected that about her, and it’s one of the reasons I thought we could work well together.

But today, right now, after she betrayed me, being so underhanded and negligent, I expect this kind of discernment from her.

And I grow even more furious when I don’t see it written on her face. There’s a streak of fright when she first sees me, but it’s more caused by my sudden outburst and the volume of my voice, and not so much by the fact that she’s scared of what I might do to her now that I found out about her betrayal.

She has her arms crossed in front of her chest and one eyebrow raised by the time I close in on her at the table.

“We had an agreement!” I bark, pointing my finger at her. “You are not supposed to be in there without my knowledge, and even less when I’m not inside the house!”

I take a breath, trying to keep it together as her provocative stance drives me up the walls.

“How the fuck did you even get in there?” I want to know. “Where did you get the code?”

She laughs at me, only worsening the agonizing fury that’s taken a hold of me.

“Oh, you just hate this, don’t you,” she snarls at me, casting me a sinister smirk. “You have to control everything and everyone around. All the freaking time! It’s a sickness, Jayson. You’re no mysterious genius like they claim, but a psychopath who lives for the control he can exert over others. It’s sick! You are sick!”

I take a deep breath, curling my fists as I pierce her down with a threatening glare.

“How. Did. You. Get. Inside?”

She pauses for a moment, pressing her lips together as she gathers the courage to respond. Despite her unyielding attitude, this obviously still takes a lot of effort for her. But it needs nothing more than a few breaths before she’s back at it.

Malia rolls her eyes. “It’s not that hard to figure out, Jayson. You punched it in about a hundred times in front of my eyes. A fourth grader would have been able to memorize it after a while.”

I flare at her, boiling with rage so violent and hot that it makes me sick.

“You weren’t supposed to! I strictly forbid it—”

“I didn’t do anything!” she cuts me off. “I didn’t tell her anything she isn’t supposed to hear, I didn’t give her anything she isn’t supposed to have, and I didn’t even think about letting her out.”

She scoffs, shaking her head as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

“Even though I probably should have,” she adds, lowering her voice just as her gaze. “With what you’re doing to her...”

I frown at her, jutting my chin forward in question.

“You knew what this was—”

“No, Jayson, I didn’t know!” she interrupts me again, taking a step forward as she glares up at me. “I didn’t know you would beat her up! I never agreed to that! I never said it was okay to treat her this way, and I didn’t know that this is what you wanted her for!”

I close in on her, moving so close that my breath makes her black curls dance. Any other person would be intimidated enough to retreat, uttering an excuse while trying to hide in the shadows of distance. But not Malia. She remains, narrowing her eyes as she stands her ground.

“We warned you,” I hiss at her, closing what is left of the minimal distance between us. “Her and I, we both told you that you might be uncomfortable by some of the things you’ll see.”

“Yes, but—”

“No but, Malia,” I cut her off. “We agreed. We signed a contract, all three of us. I’m not doing anything to her she didn’t sign up for her. She wants this—”

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