Page 34 of Vile Emotion
Me: where’s the retired sheriff that was working on my brother’s case?
Me: Who is the new one working now?
Cassius: New Sheriff is his daughter that changed her last name but it’s his daughter, I checked.
Cassius: Sara Johnson.
Me: Thanks.
“Get dressed.” I tell Juliana and she makes a point at making me look at her diner uniform. “No, you’re not going into work. Wear something else, we’re going to pay the sheriff a visit.”
Juliana rolls her eyes at me and she thinks I didn’t catch it because she turned around but it wasn’t fast enough.
After waiting some more minutes for Juliana to change, she appears out of the bathroom with jeans and a white shirt.
“What?” she asks as I stare back at her with a cocked brow.
“So when you ran away, you didn’t think to take some money to buy a better closet?” I stop her from asking me a question with a hand and shake my head. “Forget it, you’re living in this fucking dump, I can’t expect you to do much with your money, I expect better from someone who was raised with money. Isn’t your family almost as rich as mine?” Emphasizing on the,almost,just to taunt her.
Juliana scoffs but then catches herself by clearing her throat. I heard her anyway, so what was the point of covering it up?
“Is that a dig at my family? Plus, why would my family want to take me back after everything that went down and how it went down? They weren’t even there for my court case.” Juliana clears her throat and looks away.
“Family is family, through good or bad. I had my fallouts with mine but one thing they’re going to do is have my back in my time of need. That is what your family should’ve done. Did you kill one of them?”
“Who? My family? No.” She answers as if the question was offensive.
“Okay then, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be fighting me and trying to put me through hell to get to you. Even if they wouldn’t have won because I am Alaric Crowne. Do you know why it was so easy to get to you, Juli?”
“Because you controlled everything I did inside?” There’s an edge to her voice and it causes me to smirk.
“I didn’t control every single thing you did. I controlled how happy you tried to become in there,” I shrug. “I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t do that. But see, it’s because you had no one in your corner. They all let you down and you blame yourself for the fuck ups in your life. Let this be a lesson to you.”
“Does that mean you’re going to let me go? Lesson learned?” She asks and I chuckle.
25
There’s nothing humorous about Alaric’s laugh. He isn’t really laughing, it’s more like a mock to my question.
I don’t understand him. He hates me but he wants me to learn to use his name, the name he gave me as power to put those who led me to this, under my foot.
I look at him while he looks at me waiting for an answer.
Today, he’s not dressed in a simple tee shirt and jeans either. No, he’s in a full suit like the many times I’ve seen him around the house and before that.
The tabloids and the magazines always called him a sharp dresser. They didn’t lie but I won’t be the one to compliment him on it.
There are things I’m noticing about him but it isn’t in the way you would notice a lover, no… it’s just in the way that you would notice something that you’ve been forced to stare at for a long period of time.
You pick up on things you didn’t think were relevant. Like how Alaric has freckles peppering his face now that the sunlight from the hotel room window is hitting his face.
His eyes, the brown in them sparkle much more now. I thought they were all just dead, expressionless hazel. A shadethat would sell amongst the morbid but for me, I liked the browns, nudes, and blushes. Colors I miss on my body as I'm reminded lately of how my life used to be.
“Let you go?” He repeats.
“Yes.”
“Go where? Huh?” He tilts his head and I want to tell him that his hair has grown out a little bit more and I wonder if he’ll cut it.
