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"He was obsessed with her," Julian said, picking up the story where his friend had left off. "Part of it was because Quint had fucked with him, and the whole love spell bit, but that's an entirely different story."
Part of my rage left me as my eyebrows rose high on my forehead. Quinton didn't seem like the type to know anything about love spells; I didn't see him as the type who would need one. He seemed like the dark, broody type that broken girls who held a need deep inside them to either fix someone, or please them, would seek out. Not the other way around.
"Forget the love spell," Damien said in an irritated voice.
I wasn't sure if I should have been amused or alarmed by the number of things they were telling me to ignore or forget about in this story, but figured amused was out, because the story ended in my girl's face getting scarred.
"Get to the point," I ground out, sounding a whole lot more irritated than even Damien did.
They both flinched, and Julian said, "Fine," before gesturing with his hand for Damien to continue the story.
I hoped he'd be quick about it, but figured at this rate, it'd be tomorrow afternoon before these jackals got to the meat of the story.
"Fine," Damien spat out angrily. "Chucky, and yeah, that's his name," he said as he gave me a dirty look. "Followed Ariel here one night and then knew she'd stayed the night. We aren't sure if he stayed out there all night or came back the next day, but, either way, he showed up here on the front stoop bright and early the next morning. Dash answered the door, argued with him, and was stabbed multiple times in the stomach when he refused to let Chucky passed him to get into the house and to Ariel. Ariel saw it all go down, and couldn't stop herself from trying to save Dash. She ran outside, and he cut her face up pretty bad. She had her face stitched up in the hospital while Dash was in surgery, and Julian healed it as much as he could afterwards, so now it's a lot lighter than it would have been. I imagine Dash's scars are still dark and angry, but he won't let anyone near them, stubborn bastard that he is."
I rocked back on my feet and couldn't stop my hand from raising and pressing itself against my chest, over my heart that was beating far too fast to be normal. The inside of my mouth was dry, and I had to swallow convulsively to not throw up my last meal all over my beautiful daughter's dark rug.
The water cut off in the next room over and I knew I was out of time to gather more information out of these two. I was almost grateful for it to have come to an end because I honestly didn't think I could stomach any more knowledge of just how horrible my girl’s life had been. It made me sick to my stomach to listen to them talk about it, and I knew they didn't feel much better simply relaying the information to me. They cared greatly for Ariel, and it made me feel just a smidge better about her situation. All of them here seemed to care a great deal about her.
"Did she take clothes into the bathroom with her, do you know?" Damien spoke quietly so as not to be overheard by the girl in the bathroom.
"No clue," I said honestly.
"Maybe we shouldn't be here when she gets out of the bathroom then," he suggested, "just to be safe. I don't want to make her uncomfortable, and walking into her room in only a towel, with the three of us standing around here in her personal space would likely make her so."
He had a point, but I found myself reluctant to leave this space,herspace. I hadn't even really gotten to take in the room in its entirety yet, or scope out her bookshelf, or peek into her closet. Not to snoop, but to get a feel for her personality and her likes and dislikes. I wanted to get to know my daughter. I wanted to know everything there was to know about her, and, yes, even the bad stuff, too.
As one, we turned to face the doorway when slight footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Ariel hesitated in the open doorway, and I was relieved to see she wasn't wrapped up in a towel but instead had clothes on. They looked like comfortable pajamas to wear to lounge in. Light yellow pants with a drawstring in front that must have been long on her because she had them rolled up to just above the ankles. Her tank top was black with a graphic of The Little Mermaid on the front.
I had to turn my head away from the sight of her standing there in the fucking tank top and close my eyes so I wouldn't break down and cry. My teeth clenched painful and a muscle in my jaw ticked.
I would not fucking cry, god damn it.
"Rain," she said in that sweet voice of hers, and that fucking cut me to the quick, too. Rain, not dad. Not father. But simply Rain. I hated it. "Are you okay?"
No, it was safe to say that I was anything but okay.
I wanted to lash out and hurt someone, break something, anything to take away the hurt that I was feeling.
"Yeah," I ground out.
Only an idiot would have believed me, and I did not think my daughter an idiot.
I was correct in my assessment of her.
Her small, warm hand tentatively touched my much larger one. She didn't take hold of it like I had expected her to the moment I felt her gentle touch on my skin. Instead she simply pressed her slender fingers against mine. It was enough to let me know she cared, and told me just how damn brave she was. It took real guts to allow yourself to be vulnerable around another person, and even more to put yourself out there when you were scared of rejection. I hadn't missed the light sheen of tears in her eyes when she'd first seen me, or the way she had said my name since, like her heart was just waiting for me to break it, and she was scared shitless I was going to hurt her. But she kept trying anyways, kept being sweet to me anyways, kept right on putting herself out there. She acted almost as if she expected me to hurt her or reject her in some way, and, after hearing just a small portion of what she'd been through since being taken from her mother and I, I couldn't blame her one bit for feeling that way.
She was the bravest person, the sweetest person, and I couldn't have been prouder of the young woman she'd turned out to be.
I wanted to hug her, but was too afraid of scaring her. We weren't quite on that level yet, and I didn't know how she'd take it.
One step at a time.
Eventually, we'd get up to hugging. I hoped like hell we'd get up to hugging. If she couldn't handle it, though, I would accept that, and she'd never know I would probably be dying a slow death on the inside because of it. If I could help it, she'd never hurt again.
"Rain?" she said my name, and I heard the question in her voice.
