Page 169 of Visions of Darkness

In a flash, the temperature dropped by fifty degrees.

It was like standing in Faydor. In the freezing cold that sank all the way to the bone.

Sickness roiling in the pit of my stomach, I eased around, too terrified to breathe as I faced my father.

He was sitting on the floor on the opposite wall where he’d been hidden by the table. His feet were planted so casually on the floor, his demeanor one of careless nonaggression, though he spun the tip of a hunting knife against his knee.

He had on the same brown khakis he’d always worn, but his mind was so far gone that he didn’t seem to notice that blood saturated the material from where the knife had punctured his flesh.

And his eyes ... they were as cold as the room.

He cocked his head to the side, slowly, though there was no missing the fact it was full of menace. Hetsked. “You’ve been such a naughty girl, Aria—running away like that and making your mother worry about you.”

A sob slammed against the tape on my mother’s mouth, and she jerked her arms, trying to loosen the rope that bound her wrists.

It was so difficult to speak, but somehow, I found my voice. “Dad, you have to listen to me ... The voices in your head are lying to you. You don’t have to hurt anyone. You don’t. You have to resist it. Find the love that you have for Mom. Your love for Brianna and Mitch and Keaton. Remember how you promised to always protect them.Remember.”

I begged it, praying to reach him, to touch on the place inside him that remained unblemished. Where his goodness was unmarred. I couldn’t believe that he’d fully succumbed. Couldn’t believe that there was nothing worth saving in this man who’d raised us.

Cared for us.

The memory of his deep laughter rolled through the back of my mind. His infectious energy as he’d wrestled with the boys and made them howl. His cheers for Brianna at her dance competitions. The way he’d run his hand down the back of my head when he dropped me off at school and promised that he loved me.

Only now his laughter was cruel, and he slowly pushed to standing, a phantom that rose in the night. The knife was slack at his side as he took a single step toward me. “Oh, but you’re the reason for it, don’t you know? It’s your fault I have to make sure your sickness doesn’t run through the rest of them. We can’t have those types of delusions tainting the world. Your filth. I’m simply cleansing this place of you.”

His voice twisted on the last phrase, becoming high-pitched, not his own.

At his vicious words, pain speared me to the core, and I held on to the counter behind me, telling myself he wasn’t the one who was issuing the vile insults. I stalled, silently chanting prayers that Pax, Timothy, and Dani would find the Ghorl.

Prayed that their feet would carry them to where I needed them to go. Prayed that there was a chance we could pull this off.

Prayed, above all else, that I could get my mom and siblings out of this. Since she was here, I had to believe the kids were, too.

He took another step forward, and I began to ease back in an attempt to lure him from the kitchen. The farther away from my mother, the better.

He clucked his tongue and his brown eyes boiled black, his voice so twisted it wasn’t recognizable. “There’s no need to run, Aria. I’ll find you.”

He took another step, and I grabbed a chair and swung it around to create a barrier between us. I held on to the back, leaning in his direction, trying to reach him without getting too close. “Look at me, Dad. Look at me. Remember me. You love me. You have love inside you. This is not you. The voices are not your own. You can’t let them control you.”

Hissing, he sliced the knife through the air. I jolted back on a gasp. The tip of it had missed my throat by a mere inch. He roared when he realized he hadn’t made contact, and he grabbed the chair and threw it out of his path.

Wood clattered against the tile as it toppled over. He stepped around it, and I kept backing away, trying to anticipate his moves, what he would do next.

But I knew there was nothing inside him that was rational. He’d lost touch. Had lost logic. Had lost soul.

Still, I tried. “Do you remember when Brianna was born? Do you remember holding her in the chair in the living room, her chest against yours as you patted her back? She used to wind her fist in your hair and tug it as she cooed. You swore she was saying she loved you. She was. She was telling you she loved you, and she’s always loved you as much as you love her. You love her. You love her. Just like you love the rest of them.”

I kept hoping to knock him out of the trance, to make him come to without it having to come to more than that, but I was losing that hope.

The hollowness in his eyes promised I wasn’t doing anything but agitating him more.

I took another step backward, inching toward the living room.

He slashed the knife toward me again.

I cried out in surprise when it nicked my left shoulder.

Manically, he grinned. “We’ll give you some scars now. Real ones.”

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