Page 21 of Cracked Doll

He laughs — genuine, low, entirely unbothered — and keeps walking toward me. "If that useless sod actually gave a shit about you," he says, "he wouldn't have drowned himself in drink and had you dropping out of school at twelve just so the pair of you didn't starve. If he cared, love, you'd still be in a bloody classroom right now instead of running his shop for him."

My back hits the wall.

He leans in, close enough that the candlelight throws both our shadows into one shape on the wall behind him. "And if he cared," he says, quieter now, almost gentle, "he'd have noticed his only surviving daughter — the last of his three little triplets — can't look at her own reflection without seeing her dead sisters staring back."

My heart stutters. "How do you know that?"

"I know everything about you." His voice is low, certain, utterly without doubt. "You're rather famous in this pathetic little town, Ophelia. Nothing better to gossip about than the girl who won't look anyone in the eye. And for knowing about your fear, it's because I know everything about you."

I don't answer. I just watch him, my pulse hammering somewhere up in my throat.

"Ophelia?" My father's voice, closer now, stumbling through the dark living room, cursing loudly as something clatters to the floor. "Is dinner ready? Bloody hell — where's the — Ophelia, I want to eat before I head to the bar—"

I try to slip past him, but he doesn't let me move an inch.

"He'll see you," I whisper. "You need to go, he'll see—"

"I'm not remotely frightened of the town drunk, sweetheart." His mouth curls, cruel and amused at once. "Your papa's a pussy, and we both know it."

"He's not," I say, though even I can hear how little conviction is left in it. "He'll stop you."

"Do you actually believe that?"

My father appears in the doorway before I can answer, silhouetted against the candlelight, swaying, still mid-sentence about dinner. He goes utterly still when he sees us — me, pinned against the wall, this stranger far too close.

I don't look at the shape of him. I can't. I just feel the weight of his stare land on us both.

The man in front of me doesn't so much as flinch. Instead, unhurried, deliberate, he lowers his head and presses his mouth to my neck, right over the mark already blooming there.

"Papa," I gasp, desperate. "Papa, please — help me, he's — he broke in, he won't let me go, please—"

My father doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Just stands there, swaying slightly, staring at the two of us like a man watching something happen from very far away.

"Papa!" My voice cracks entirely now, tears spilling hot and fast, as the hands at my waist begin to wander, slow and possessive. "Please — I need you, please help me—"

And then my father turns, and runs.

I hear him stumble against the doorframe, curse, catch himself, and bolt — actually bolt, tripping over something in the dark hallway, cursing again as he goes down and scrambles back up — until I hear the shop door bang open, the bell shrieking behind him, and then nothing at all.

He's gone. Out into the night. Away from me.

I stand there in the dark kitchen, held against the wall by a stranger who knows every secret I've ever kept, and understand, with a clarity that feels almost peaceful in its total despair, that no one — no one at all — is coming to save me tonight.

Chapter 8

He wipes the last of my tears away with his thumb, unhurried, as though he has all the time in the world and intends to use every second of it.

"I'll do well towards you, love," he murmurs.

I'm still staring at the doorway my father vanished through, at the empty space where a rescue should have been, when his fingers close gently under my chin and turn my face toward him.

"Every broken thing," he says, low, "deserves a keeper."

His thumb traces the line of my bottom lip, slow, deliberate. "Break for me. I promise I'll keep every piece."

I can't lift my eyes to his — I don't think I'll ever manage that easily, not properly, not for good — but I find myself staring at his mouth instead, at the shape it makes around words that ought to terrify me and somehow, God help me, don't quite manage it.

"What do you actually want," I ask, quiet, "to fix me? Is that meant to make you what — my therapist? My psychiatrist?"