Page 38 of Wicked Dreams (Fallen Royals 1)

The worst day of my life.

Mom was already gone, and Dad must’ve wanted peace and quiet before the next step. Before the other shoe dropped on our family.

He releases me as I start to walk. It’s like there’s a ten-year-old Margo guiding me to the exact spot. We were sitting on a bench overlooking the pond. The running path was behind us. The sound of footsteps hitting the dirt wasn’t out of place in my memory.

It’s getting dark, but I find it with ease.

I sit on the bench. The pond has shriveled since the last time I saw it. Caleb sits next to me, his hands in his pockets. I haven’t been here since that day, and if I let down my guard, echoes of the past surround us. I can almost hear my dad again.

I haven’t heard his voice in six years.

“Speak.”

I take a deep breath. “We didn’t notice the detective.”

He nods.

“She came up from his side—where you’re sitting. Up the path. Sat down next to us. Told us…” I don’t know what she told us. “I was ten, and he had given me a handful of seeds for the ducks.”

“How kind,” he says.

“I looked back, and he was in handcuffs. An officer was taking him down the path, but he kept trying to get back to me. It took two… maybe three officers to force him away.”

A social worker had squatted next to me and introduced herself. When she offered her hand, I took it. And that, really, was the beginning of the end.

“Why’d he bring you here, of all places?”

“It was our spot.” There are a few ducks in the pond now. I get up and grab a rock, lobbing it at them. They take off, flying low across the water. Away from us and toward safety. Smart birds.

“So? Your house was—”

“No,” I argue. “Our house was never our house. It was yours. Always.”

He lifts one eyebrow.

“Every inch of that property was yours,” I whisper. “We vanished like smoke. You probably never even realized—”

“Never realized?” he repeats, staring straight ahead. His jaw ticks. “Never realized what, exactly? That you were gone? That you wrecked my whole goddamn life?”

I cringe backward.

“Yeah, Margo. Run and hide like you always do.” He gets up and stalks toward me.

I back away, tripping over fallen leaves and twigs.

He catches me, like he always does.

“You cannot run from me,” he growls. “You can’t hide. And you will fucking pay for what you’ve done.”

My lip trembles. How do I focus on the hate when all I feel is fear? “I don’t know what I did. How am I supposed to make that right? If I don’t know—”

He covers my mouth with his hand. “Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up, you lying whore.”

Shut up, you lying whore.

I close my eyes. Those words—I’ve heard them, but not at me. Not out of Caleb’s mouth.

“Like father like son?” I say against his palm.

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