Page 81 of The Devil

Lucius smirks at my cheeky little pre-teen before mouthing ‘Told you’. We then follow her into the kitchen where I find her already raiding the cupboards for snacks.

“Well, I’m glad you approve, munchkin,” I tell her with relief at the same time as messing up her hair. “You got a couple of letters while you were away; mostly junk mail, I’m afraid.” I hand her the three letters that she’s already gotten at the tender age of eleven. “What did you do at camp then?”

She looks at each letter in detail but it’s the final one that catches her eye.

“Oh, nothing much,” she utters, completely disinterested in anything that isn’t the letter she’s holding. “I’m just going to the bathroom,” she says, taking it with her.

“She’s gone for a month and apparently, she’s done nothing?” I huff to Lucius as soon as she’s wandered out of the room.

“I thought that was a kid’s standard response to everything? It’s pretty much all you would have got from me at that age,” he says as I get up to walk over to where he’s leaning against the sink. “She seems cool though. Better yet, she says she’s fine with us,” he says cheekily as he begins to cage me between his arms. He raises his brow suggestively before leaning in to kiss me, which I am more than ready to give in to, now that I’ve finally calmed down. However, the sound of Jess running ungracefully down the stairs prompts him to instantly push back.

“Jess?” I ask, sounding worried because her eyes are now wet and she’s wearing a huge scowl on her face. “What’s wrong, baby girl? You look like someone just ran over your puppy?”

“Yeah, something’s wrong!” she screams at me. I glance at Lucius who looks equally confused. “I knew it! I damn well knew it!” she cries, letting tears finally fall and stream down her cheeks.

“Jess, whatever it is, we can sort it. Tell me what’s wrong so I can help you,” I beg with my heart thumping at double speed for fear of what has caused her to look so angry and upset. What the hell was in that letter?

“You can help me by telling me who my father is!”

She slams a piece of paper down onto the counter in front of me. Lucius and I both tentatively look down, desperate to know what could possibly be written on it to have ignited such a reaction from her. After casting my eyes over the printed words, I realize it’s a DNA test result, much like the one Evan had brought to my family home all those years ago. However, this one says something else entirely; it clearly states that Evan Michael Stone cannot possibly be the biological father of Jessica Elena Stone.

“W-what is this, Jess?” I stutter, with the feeling of bile climbing up my throat, getting ready to be expelled from my body in a dramatic fashion.

“Ever since I found out what D… I mean whoever he is, did to Aunt Lily, I thought to myself he can’t be my dad; he just can’t be. I don’t want him to be. He’s never liked me, never been nice to me; I’m just an inconvenience!”

Even though there are bigger things at stake here, I still can’t help feeling a stab of pain and guilt over how he made her feel; what I failed to protect her from. I have given everything to Jess, even my life, but I still didn’t protect her as a mother should.

“Billy and I talked about it and he showed me this website for DNA testing. At first, I thought it was stupid, but when I went to Grandma’s before camp, I saw his stuff and thought, why the hell not?” she says, snapping me back to the here and now. “I took some hair from his comb, as well as his toothbrush, anything that might have some form of DNA on it, and sent them all off to be tested. I even used my birthday money to pay for it, and this…this,” she says slapping the piece of the paper with venom, “is the result! You’re a liar!”

I have no words, nothing to articulate the sheer magnitude of this situation or my feelings over it. Instead, I end up covering my mouth with my hands and shaking my head while I try to take it all in. Shock is an understatement, and before I know it, I’m retching into the sink, causing tears to blur my vision. When I stand to face her again, I try to reach for her hand, but she instantly pulls back.

“Don’t touch me! Tell me who he is, Helena!”

She spits out my Christian name with such disgust, it has me feeling just as dirty as I did when I first found out I was expecting. I try to take deep breaths to steady my nerves, but I can’t control it, and my head soon starts to feel dizzy. I reach back to steady myself, but my hand collides with a wall of muscle. Lucius is standing right behind me, so I slowly turn around to face him. We both know there is only one answer to my little girl’s question, but when our eyes meet, he looks at me in such a way, I know he's holding back a rage that is begging to be let loose. His knuckles have blanched white from where he is gripping the kitchen worktop, and his eyes have turned a darker shade of blue.

“Please tell me you know who he is, Mother. You can’t have been that much of a slut!”

Her words are like a slap to the face, but I know she is hurting, so I decide to let her venomous words slide. I have to be her mom and deal with one crisis at a time. The trouble is, I have no idea how to deal with this crisis; I don’t even know where to start!

“I know,” I eventually murmur, but then I look at Lucius again, and he shakes his head at me. I open my mouth to go on, but he storms out of the house, grabbing his keys as he does so.

“Jess, I swear to you, I know who he is, but I need to talk to him first,” I try to reassure her, my words rushing out because I know I need to try and stop Lucius before he shuts me out of his life…again. “Believe me, baby girl, this is just as big a shock for me as it is for you.”

She says nothing, just looks at me like I’m a monster before storming upstairs. Though it’s hard to know she’s hating me, I breathe a little easier, knowing that at least she is contained and I’m not at risk of her disappearing, unlike the angry hulk of a man who’s just headed out the front door. With that in mind, I run outside to try and catch Lucius, only to see him opening up his car door so he can make a quick getaway. I shout for him, and he stops, looks at me, then slams the door closed again.

“You fucking lied to me, Helena,” he growls at the same time as stomping up to me, with each footstep sounding angrier than the last. “You lied to me about my own child! What the fuck is that?”

“Please, Lucius, I didn’t know! I had a letter saying Evan was ninety-nine point whatever it was, her father. My dad saw it too. Do you really think I would have chosen a life with him over you if I knew this was the truth?”

He looks at me intensely for a moment or two, and I begin to believe that he is seeing sense and listening to me. But then the shutters come down, right there inside of his eyes, and I know I’ve lost him. He proves as much when he turns around and begins storming away from me.

“I don’t fucking care,” he shouts over his shoulder. “Stay the fuck away from me!”

When he throws himself into his car, he revs the engine a few times before wheel-spinning off down the gravel road. I hear the screech of his brakes when he hits the end of the road and then speeds off again.

I’ve lost him.

“Fuck!” I whisper shout to myself, gasping for breath as an uncomfortable, panic-induced heat spreads all over me. “This can’t be happening!”

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