Page 144 of Hunting Pretty

My movements were robotic, almost numb, as I led her to the massive white marble kitchen. Without thinking, I hoisted her up onto the counter, her legs dangling like a child’s. She didn’t resist, just stared at me, broken.

Maybe it was the Irish in me, but I turned on the kettle, my hands moving on autopilot as I rummaged around for tea, trying to fill the silence. Something normal in the face of all this chaos.

“Scáth…” Her voice cracked, soft and trembling, and it broke something inside me. “Did you know your father was hurting me? Please… just tell me the truth.”

The truth.

The truth was that it was all my fault.

I clenched my jaw, gripping the edge of the counter until my knuckles turned white.

The fucking truth was that I should have stopped it sooner. But I hadn’t. I’d let her suffer because I’d been too stupid to realize what was happening.

Down the long dark hallway, I inched toward the cracked door even though I knew it was wrong. My father would kill me if he ever caught me.

My fingertips pressed gently against the door and I aligned just one single eye with the tall strip of yellow light coming from within his personal library.

I saw Ava laid across the couch as usual, her hair damp tonight. She wore her little white nightgown, which fluttered from the slight breeze coming in through the open windows. The lamplight beside her made the gauzy material translucent.

I got hard at the outline of her body naked beneath.

My father was there. Sitting beside her on the couch, his broad back to me. His nightly glass of whiskey finished and set aside on the side table atop an open illustrated copy ofAlice in Wonderland.

He would start to undress her. He would lift her and kiss her throat.

And she would let him.

I would burn with jealousy, with desire. With hatred.

Because she was supposed to be mine.

Nothis.

But something was different that night.

When my father tugged at the little pale-blue ribbon at the high neck of her nightgown, her eyes widened with fear.

His heavy panting filled the library as he began to drag the gown over her limp arms as if he didn’t hear her panicked whimpers.

ButIdid.

My father pulled Ava naked to his chest, but this time she pushed against him, moaning, “No.”

I thought she was complicit.

That shewantedit.

My father had a way of charming people, and I thought she’d fallen into his grasp. Willingly.

Because why else would she just let him? Why else wouldn’t she protest?

She never fought back, never screamed, and I let myself believe that was her choice.

I convinced myself of that because the alternative… the truth… was too horrifying.

But her silence took on a new face that night—a nasty, disgusting, vile mask.

I realized too late. She wasn’t complicit.

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