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Page 41 of Castle in the Air (Howl's Moving Castle 2)

“Uncle Dom is really mad,” Griffon whispered. “He never swears this much. Dad does, but not Uncle Dom.”

“Shhhh,” Jake admonished.

Dom gently pulled up Silas’s shirt to inspect his back where there were scabbed over—but not even day-old—scratches and road rash. “Can I check your butt, buddy?”

Silas craned his neck around, his cheeks going pink. But then he nodded.

“We won’t pull your pants down all the way. Just enough for me to check to see if there are any bruises. Does it hurt to sit down?” He carefully, discreetly slid the back portion of Silas’s elastic-waist cargo pants down a little to reveal blue and purple bruises across his sacrum and right where his tailbone was.

“Yeah,” Silas said softly as Dom pulled his pants back up. “It hurts to sit. My teacher got mad at me when I wouldn’t sit still in class … because it hurt to sit.”

“Fuck,” Dom growled, raking his fingers through his hair and tearing out the elastic.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

Fuck waiting until Monday.

Dom hauled his son against him once more. “No, buddy. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry the adults at the school let you down.”

He met Vica’s gaze. “Can you—”

“Of course.”

Dom nodded and stood up. “Thanks.” Then he brought his hand to Silas’s head. “I’ll be right back, buddy. I just need to go do a few things okay?”

Silas nodded, confusion swimming in his sad eyes.

Dom kissed his son on the top of his head, then left, fueled by a rage he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He fired off a text to Wyatt so he could relay a message to Logan at the bar. Then he shot off another one to Chloe, asking her if she could start sooner because something came up.

She said that it wouldn’t be a problem.

Vibrating, he climbed into his truck and nearly tore the security gate off its hinges as the impatience gnawed at him like a rabid raccoon. Then his tires launched gravel skyward when the gate finally opened, and he peeled off down the laneway toward the main road.

The school wasn’t too far from the property.

Nothing on the island was more than twenty minutes away, and he recognized the principal’s car in the parking lot when he pulled in.

He wasn’t even sure he completely shut his truck door, he was out and running to the main doors of the school so fast.

The secretary recognized him through the window and buzzed open the door for him before he needed to raise a clenched fist and break the glass.

“Mr. McEvoy,” Sierra greeted, standing up from her desk, “did Silas forget something?”

“Where’s Pickford?” Dom asked, ignoring pleasantries. He had no time or patience for them. Not after what happened to his kid today.

Sierra went to open her mouth, but Principal Otto Pickford came waltzing out of his office before she could. The man should have retired eons ago. He was as old as fucking dirt and tended to err on the side of old-schooleverythingthan embrace change. If it wasn’t for the younger teachers and the extremely involved parents pushing for progression, equity, diversity, and inclusion, Otto probably would still be teaching the kids about creationism, and that Sally couldn’t have two dads because that was a sin. He was a preacher’s kid and had grown up in the South, landing the principal gig, and a house on the island because of his wife’s generational land. Just because he’d been at the school for the last ten years, didn’t mean he fit in with the rest of the island. In fact, whenever Dom saw the man out in public he stuck out like a gangrenous limb.

“Hello, Dominic,” Otto said, smiling beneath his thick, yellow-tinged, white mustache. “How can I help you?”

Dom pivoted his attention to the tall man in the mustard-colored button-up and brown slacks. “You can help me understandwhymy son came home with a giant gash on the back of his head, bruises, scratches, and road rash all over his back and down to his sacrum and tailbone. He can’t sit down without pain. And I checked my phone and email, and there are absolutely no messages or calls from the school regarding this. Why?”

Otto and Sierra exchanged curious looks.

Otto cleared his throat. “Those must have happened on the bus home. This is the first I’ve heard—”

“Bullshit,” Dom snapped back. “Aya was sent to your office earlier today because she pushed CarnationoffSilas because Carnation threw my kid to the ground, sat on top of him, and threatened to rub mud in his face if he didn’t kiss her. And when Griffon, Jake, Aya, and Silas tried to tell you all this, you said they were ganging up on Carnation because they’re family. And Aya got reprimanded. Nobody else. What the fuck kind of protect-the-bullies institution are you running here, Pickford?”

At Dom’s use of profanity, the ever-so-pious Pickford visibly got his plumage ruffled. “Dominic, there is no need for such language—”


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