Page 2 of Diamond Angel

“That’s not what I’m thinking.”

Dad shakes his head. “Yes, it is. But pictures are never a good indication of happiness.”

“And what if you’re wrong?”

He looks at me with sympathy. “Then her happiness came at the expense of yours.”

It takes a lot to keep my face from betraying me. That’s taken practice, too. “You’re implying that I’m not happy?”

“I’m not implying anything. I’m coming right out and saying it.” He leans back with a sigh. “You arenothappy, sweetheart. You haven’t been in years.”

I reach for an apple in the fruit bowl between us. “You read too much into things. I just don’t like having to hide. I don’t like living under an alias. And I don’t like looking over our shoulder every single second of every single day.”

Dad purses his lips and brings the mug up to his mouth. There’s a sadness in his eyes that I’ve grown used to by now. Most days, that sadness is for Mom. But sometimes, I think it’s for me.

“It’s that time again, isn’t it?” I ask quietly. “Time to leave.”

He strokes his chin. “We could manage another year here,” he muses. “Adam’s just settled into kindergarten. It would be a shame to uproot him now.”

“The alternative is what? Give him another year to form relationships he can’t keep? Make friends he’ll have to leave? What’s the point of that?”

With every passing year, I sound more and more angry. But if I stop long enough to examine my choices, I might have a full-on nervous breakdown. So I fall back on denial and hope that everything works out in the end.

So far, so good.

Well, good enough, at least.

“Just think about it,” Dad says calmly. “If you’re ready, I can have new identities sent our way by the end of the month.”

A little shiver runs down my spine. He references his old life a little more often now. Probably because I’ve slowly gone from fighting with him about it to just accepting it.

My dad was a bad person. The father I thought I knew did bad things and hid them from his family.

It used to be jarring. I’m numb to it now. I’m numb to everything, really.

“Priority customers, huh?” I say, rolling the apple in my palm without actually biting into it. “We’re probably keeping this guy in business single-handedly.”

“He’s a friend.”

“Can you evenhavefriends in the underworld?”

“It’s rare, but it happens.”

“Have you thought about what might happen if your ‘friend’ decides to rat you out to Ilarion?”

He tilts his head to the side. “Is that something you’re hoping for?”

I set the apple down hard and shove myself away from the table. “Excuse me. I’ve got to get ready to go pick up Adam from school.”

“Taylor!” he calls after me, but I ignore him and make for my bedroom.

I lock the door as the sobs collect in my throat. I’m familiar with the taste of tears now. More familiar than I ever thought I’d be. I bang the back of my head against the door, trying to distract myself with pain. But just like all my other tricks, that stopped working a while ago.

I’m not sure what I’ll do when I run out of coping mechanisms.

I turn, put my back to the door, and slide down to a seat on the floor. Clutching my knees to my chest, I let the sobs shudder through my body.

And through the prism of tears in my eyes, I see something on the corner of my bookshelf.

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