Page 55 of Hers To Keep
After years of thinking I’d never know who he was, after years of coming to accept he was most likely dead or somewhere overdosing on some kind of illegal drug, the bomb they drop on me is like nothing I’d have ever imagined hearing.
The endless time warp comes to a halt as my feet drag behind me following Wesley and my mother toward a closed door, leading to a back room on the property. Once again, I’m terrified of what, or who, I’ll find standing on the other side.
My heart pounds fiercely in my chest, my eyes burn intensely, tears now incessantly flowing out with no end in sight, as Wesley Servite opens the door leading me into the luminous room. I close my eyes as I enter, petrified off what’s before me.
Every time I think I know what to expect, that there is nothing left that can surprise me, another revelation comes to light, another secret exposed, and another lie told. There’s no knowing what’s in store when it comes to these two. There’s nothing they wouldn’t be capable of doing.
I inhale a deep breath that burns as I exhale out preparing myself for whatever I may find as I slowly open my eyes taking in the scene before me.
Just like I’d feared, it’s what I never expected, yet the only thing that makes sense.
It’s him.
The man I briefly met the night I accompanied Ace and Carrington to The Calypsos in the basement of Torment Nightclub. The man who stood beside my mother, sits before me tied to a chair in the corner of the incandescent, storage-like room. His head hangs low, his eyes looking down at the floor beneath his feet, while his body shifts slightly as he hears us enter. At least that proves he’s alive.
An unwelcome ache rushes through me, as my father, my blood, sits in such a compromising position put there by none other than my demonic mother.
Maxwell Smoak. My father.
That he's alive and here before me is suffocating. My body finally gives out on me as I heave forward, throwing up the fluid remnants of my empty stomach that have been threatening to expel for days before the spotless marble floor. No one runs to my rescue. Not a soul comes to help me up, to hold my hair back. My body convulses violently as the bile that’s been harnessed within me since I first arrived here continues to erupt from inside of me. I puke continuously, through my mouth, out my nose, the vomit burning my nostrils as I practically hyperventilate before them.
Yet still no one comes to my rescue, no one bothers to help me. Then again, who would? Not my mother who walks past me disgusted, her heels stepping over my vomit as she heads over to Maxwell. Not Wesley who smugly hands me a towel he’s pulled out from who knows where, though I blatantly refuse to take anything from him.
Instead, I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of my hoodie, straightening up now that I have nothing left in me to release. My body is exhausted, my mind drained, my soul broken into a million pieces scattered over the floor at their feet.
They have him tied up like a criminal, like an animal, just like they had Drake. I guess in Wesley’s eyes he is, since he fears he’s the one who’s blackmailing him. To him, keeping him like this seems fitting, and who knows, maybe he is. It’s not like I know anything about him to use in his defense.
However, for some odd reason, call it intuition, I don’t think Maxwell Smoak is at fault here. I mean, I don’t understand what my father would get out of blackmailing him.
I recall that night, recently when I met him. The way he watched me was disconcerting. I felt he was awkwardly checking me out, just like all the other sick and perverted men I’ve met thus far, but what if in reality he’d recognized me? What if he suspected I was his daughter?
I mean the idea isn’t so farfetched. My resemblance to mymother, I’m told, is quite clear. It’s obvious to anyone who knows us we’re related, so he must have figured it out.
What if he didn’t know? Or what if he did, and this whole time he’s wanted nothing to do with me?
I’m not sure which answer is better. Maxwell obviously didn’t love my mother if she had to drug him and trick him into sleeping with her. He understandably wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with her child.
“Oh, Maxwell, my old friend. It’s so good to see you again,” Wesley says, interrupting my thoughts, the sarcasm seeping like poisoned honey in his voice. “I must admit you look good, being away from this town has surely done you well.”
“Wesley, ever the cynical prick I see. What the fuck do you want from me now, Servite?” Maxwell lifts his head to speak, his eyes for the first time connecting with mine as I stand not ten feet away from him. His blue eyes, my blue eyes, stare meticulously at me, a look of disappointment crossing them as he lowers his head, shaking it silently. I can’t help feeling a stab of dissatisfaction from his actions. “What is she doing here?” he mutters sullenly, and the disdain in his voice is like a knife brutally dug into my already bleeding wound.
“Don’t be so rude to your baby girl, Maxwell, after all it’s her birthday today,” my mother snickers, standing before him and unnervingly tracing her finger over his cheek.
He pulls away flinching disgustingly at her touch, as his eyes once again move to look at me. They widen as he takes in the sight of me, which must be horrifying as I stand here with vomit all over me, my eyes swollen from the tears they’ve expelled, but his eyes sorrowfully look away as he laughs ominously. Not the reaction I was expecting, but I guess I was never expecting this to happen.
“My daughter, you mean the daughter you so selfishly conceived by drugging me and coercing me to fuck you, when I’d rather have choked you to death, Lilith, you selfish bitch!” he shouts, as my mother slaps him harshly across the face. He laughseven harder now, blood dripping from his lips cut by my mother’s ring. Okay, this is so much worse than what could have happened.
I must admit, at least once or twice when I was younger and innocent, I thought about what it would be like to one day meet my father. I’d run to him, and he’d lift me into his arms, twirling me around as he smiled contently at me. Then we’d play at the park, maybe go to get some ice cream walking hand in hand.
After years that foolish, childish dream turned into nothing more than a fading hope, but even after all these years, I never could have been prepared for what it truly feels like to see my father. How he watches my mother with such intense hatred and looks at me with irrevocable guilt.
It’s how I know for a fact there’s still so much I don’t know. Like always, I’m the last to know anything about my life. “There’s more to the story, isn’t there,” I mutter, creeping closer to them, dragging my feet yet somehow finding the strength to not collapse before them.
Suddenly, a door slams in the distance, echoing through the room as Ace emerges rushing through the door of the room we’re now in. He stops in his tracks, taking in the sight before him, and what a sight it must be. Looking between his uncle and me, then toward my mother and Maxwell, then back again at me, shock flashes across his eyes. Ace is stunned to see us all here, but not surprised.
As if he knew, and for once in his life, he makes a choice of his own conviction as he rushes toward me, engulfing me in a tight embrace, my body involuntarily weakening and collapsing into his arms.
Sobs erupt from deep inside me, the fight in me no longer able to hold them back as I weep uncontrollably in his arms. The burning fire in me dying down to nothing more than a windless flame.