Page 9 of Searching for Hope

I sit up, peering over at him. “Is that jealousy I detect there, Mr Priest?”

“Concern, not jealousy.”

I smile, even though he’s not looking at me, and lie back down. “Sure it is.”

“It is. Anything could have happened to you. I had no idea who you were with, or what you were doing.”

“And why should you?” I reply. “You’re just my employer, aren’t you? In fact, are you even that anymore?”

He grunts but doesn’t respond. This back and forth tension between us seems so pointless. I know he’s attracted to me and he knows I want him, it’s plain every time I look at him. Whether he’s afraid of the age-gap between us, or maybe it’s the fact that my father is held captive in his basement, or he’s my employer, whatever it is, he’s keeping far away from me. Even now, he’s pressed to the other side of the mattress as though he’s afraid I’ll suddenly attack him. The thought makes me chuckle. I wonder what he’d do if I simply tried to clamber on top of him. Would he push me off? Would he yell? Or would he welcome me, push all his thoughts aside and claim me as his own? I’m in the middle of imagining this scenario when he speaks again.

“So he’s just a friend?”

“Yes, just a friend.” I hiccup.

Even through the space between us, I feel him relax.

“You know,” I say after a while, thinking of how I ran into Michael earlier. “There’s a quick way we could get into the correct circles.”

“We’ve already discussed it. I’m not putting you at risk like that.”

“It’s not your choice to make.”

He rolls over to face me. His eyes meet mine over the stretch of pillows. You can barely see any blue to them in the dimness of the light. Their darkness holds weight.

“I won’t put you at risk,” he repeats.

I swallow as the low gravel of his voice does stupid things inside me. It’s like my body reacts entirely of its own accord when faced with Jericho Priest. It’s as though it has been starved of him and now it wants to do nothing but bask in his shadow and drown in his presence.

“You said you’d do anything to find her. Why not this?”

“Because this is not something that just involves me. It involves you. It involves you coming out to the world and telling them who you are. It involves you having to acknowledge the very aspects of your life you despise. I can’t ask that of you. I won’t.”

I shuffle closer. There’s still space between us but not a lot. Jericho takes in a deep breath, but he doesn’t move away.

“But you’re not asking it of me, I’m offering. I want to do this. I want to help. It will make me feel like in some small way, I’m fighting my father’s evil with good, restoring the balance of it, even though that can never be done. Please, Jericho,” I reach out and rest my hand on his cheek, turning his gaze toward me. “Let me help.”

He closes his eyes and breathes deeply. “Berkley.” My name is ripped from his throat as though it pains him to speak it. “I can’t.”

I come closer, pushing my body against his, willing him to reach out and take me, hold me in his arms and drown in me. “Then why am I here?” I whisper, leaning forward to brush my lips over his ear as I speak. “Why do you keep me if you don’t want me?”

He could have sent me away. He could have told me to go. He could have kept me trapped as a captive. But he didn’t.

We’re looking straight at each other, our breaths rising and falling in unison. Jericho is searching my eyes, looking for the truth behind my words so I hold his gaze. After a while, he sighs and pulls my hand off his face. He brings it to his mouth and brushes his lips over my knuckles as he speaks.

“Go to sleep, Berkley,” he says. “We’ll talk in the morning.” And then he rolls over, once again putting his back to me and leaving me with an aching need so strong it makes me want to cry.

chapter four

BERKLEY

The girl I used to be is not who I am now. That girl was shallow and vapid. She cared about nothing but pretty dresses and parties and how much money people had. She was young and naive, innocent of the evil that existed in the very same world she did.

And now, as I stand in the bathroom of the apartment and look into the mirror, I see none of that girl. That girl had a quick tongue, a loud laugh and battering eyelashes. She knew how to move in the circles of the wealthy, how to bow and scrape to win their favor, how to shape herself to meet their whims. She also knew how to cut to the ground those she considered less than herself with a simple comment or a sharp look.

She was Everly Atterton.

Daughter of a monster.

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