Page 70 of The Preachers' Promise
Cain looks around at the rest of us. “Should I turn my phone on so Ophelia can call her father and say she’ll be coming to see him?”
I take a deep breath and nod. Rome does, too.
She puts on a brave smile. “Okay, let’s do it.”
Cain takes out his phone and turns off the airplane mode that we’ve all got switched on. All our location services are switched off, too, so no one can track us via GPS.
Cain’s device buzzes on the counter, and he frowns as he looks at the screen. It buzzes again. And a third time.
“What the fuck?” He swipes at the screen and lifts his gaze to us. “It’s my father. I’ve got voicemail messages and three texts from him.”
He’ll be calling to rail at his son for daring to leave college, I’m sure. The same as all our families will be. The thought makes the headache pounding behind my eyes even worse.
“Ignore it for now,” I say. “We’ve got other things to worry about.”
He’s reading something, though, and when he looks up again, his expression is lighter. “He says he wants to help.”
Suspicion fills me. “Why the fuck does he want to help now when he didn’t before?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he feels bad?”
“He’s a goddamn psycho, Cain,” I point out. “He doesn’t feel bad about shit. I’m sure of it.”
“Maybe we should at least listen to his messages,” Roman suggests.
Cain nods his agreement. He flicks to his voicemail and plays the first message.
“Son, I’ve had a call from the dean of Verona Falls informing me you’ve left. That won’t do.”
I almost laugh. So far, so predictable. Next comes the rant about Cain getting his ass back there or else.
“I think it’s dangerous for you to be off the campus grounds right now, if there are people after you and that girl.”
“That girl?” Ophelia repeats, her face a scowling canvas of pissed-off attitude.
“I’ve thought about it, and your actions have made it very clear to me that you are willing to risk everything for this girl. Including your life.”
Here it comes.
“So, I’ve changed my mind. If you won’t listen to reason, and clearly you won’t, then my job as a father is to protect you. I don’t want you to face danger without backup. I’ve organized to send you some men, as you asked.”
Wait,what?
My heart picks up speed as hope races through me.
The message continues. “I’ve spoken with the dean, and he’s agreed to let me have some of our men positioned at the college,so long as you limit their activities to around the water tower you’ve turned into your hangout. They’ll meet you at Verona Falls. Call or message me ASAP. Your mother is worried sick, and I need to know an ETA for you returning to the college, so I can send my men there to meet you.”
Cain stares at the phone for a few long seconds after the message ends. “Well, fuck me.” He shakes his head.
Lifting hopeful eyes to us, he focuses on Ophelia. “Will this persuade your father?”
“I don’t know.” She walks up to the counter, but she doesn’t sit. Instead, she leans forward, still standing, her elbows resting on the granite. “Before this past week, I would have said yes. Now, I feel as if I don’t know him as well as I believed. One thing I do know, he will be angry when he finds out I was almost raped at the facility he sent me to.”
“See, that alone will probably have him agreeing to what we suggest,” Cain says. “He’s going to feel like shit when he finds out.”
He knows so little about human psychology. I open my mouth to speak, but Roman beats me to it.
“Cain, that might be exactly why he goes nuclear on us. People find it hard accepting blame, especially if their actions have put a loved one at risk. It might make him see sense, but it might simply provoke him to double down.”
