Page 93 of Dark Surrender

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Dark

Sitting on the front steps at Kali’s with Lily, I pull a bag of M&Ms from my cut and hand over the contraband to my daughter. Who, without a word, rips the brown package open and gets her chocolatey fill. It’s one of our things. Anytime we hang out, I bring her a gift, and today, given that I spent most of my time with Iris, I snagged some candy at the gas station on my way over.

“So, kiddo, how’s your week goin’? Do anything fun?”

“I went swimming,” she mumbles around a mouthful.

“That sounds fun,” I reply in a typical dad fashion, which shows I’m listening but don’t know what else to say. Pops used to pull that shit with me when I was a kid, and it worked.

“It was.” Lily bobs her head and tosses a blue M&M into her mouth. “But Kylie kept splashing me, and I asked her to stop, but she didn’t listen.” She shrugs.

“What did ya do?” I ask, keeping my tone in check. Even though the thought of any person, including a child, fucking with my kid puts me on edge. I keep that to myself, but press for more, in case I gotta pay this Kylie’s parents a visit. Abby might be the kinda mom who shrugs shit off and lets it go. But I’m not. Never have been. Never will be.

“I said mean words,” my daughter explains.

“Like?”

Lily side-eyes me. “You promise not to tell Mom?”

I try my hardest not to smile. “No. I can’t promise that. But I can promise that I won’t be mad.”

“I used the F-word.”

“Fuck?”

“Yes.” She nods sharply. “That one.”

Not wanting to encourage this kinda talk, I swallow back a laugh. My kid is adorable as fuck, and if she needs to say fuck, then it must’ve been important. Still, I keep my expression neutral when I ask, “Okay, and?”

“I yelled that if she didn’t F-word with an ing stop, I would send an Angel to attack her.”

Hell yeah, she did.

“An angel? As in Angel?” I ask about my brother, still doin’ the dad thing.

“Yes, but she didn’t know what that meant. But it made her stop splashing me, and then she told her mom, and now I can’t go swimming for a week.” Crossing her arms over her chest, Lily pouts and rolls her eyes. It shouldn’t be cute, but is. I love the fuck outta this kid.

“Mom punished you?” I guess.

“Yes.”

“Did you tell her what happened?”

“No. I tried to, but she was mad because Kylie’s mom called and said I’d said I was going to put a hex on her. I didn’t say that.”

“And Mom believed her?”

Humming, Lily lifts and drops a single shoulder in a shrug. “I think so,” she mutters. “Mom’s new boyfriend’s a youth pastor at a church. I heard him and Mom talking about Kali’s crystals and smudging.”

Well, ain’t that fuckin’ news to me. Kali said Abby was seein’ someone and getting her slice of happy, but she never mentioned he was a Bible man.

“Do you go to church with them?” I check with my kid. Not that I’m opposed to religion, but Abby was raised in the church. Her father was a hardcore, abusive man of God. Which, in his eyes, gave him a pass to cheat on her mother and abuse his kids. God would absolve him of his sins. As all men are sinners. What the fuck ever. He’s a piece of shit.

When I met Abby, she was running from her father, right into the arms of other men who abused her in a different way. Not to say I’m much better. I’m not deluding myself about what went down and how it all went down. I’m no savior. I knocked her up way too goddamn young, but I tried to do right by her.

Lily sets her bag of half-eaten candy on the step. “Not anymore. But I did.”