Page 61 of Captive Souls
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t get up and walk away, which was enough for me.
“Come on, Daisy,” I told my sister, walking toward the door.
She was still standing by the sink, looking intently at me, then Knox, then the bowl of food that he had begun eating.
“Daisy,” I urged, uncomfortable with her gaze.
She moved, slowly, looking pensive but thankfully, following me outside.
“You’ve fallen in love with him,” Daisy half-shrieked before the door had properly shut.
I shot a horrified glance at the cabin before grabbing her by the upper arm and dragging her in the direction of the garden. I did not need Knox within earshot of this conversation.
Daisy had been protesting my grasp until her eyes fell upon the garden.
I’d worked with what I had. Most of the seeds had only just begun sprouting through the dirt, the ground worked and lush. The unexpected flowers bordering the space reached for the sun. The weeds were tamed. I’d managed to salvage some of the rotted wooden fence that served as a border. It looked pretty, peaceful, especially with the backdrop of the wilderness behind it.
Daisy’s eyes widened. “I’m guessing this wasn’t here when you arrived.”
I shook my head, uncomfortable with the garden I’d labored over, of what it represented. It had previously been sacred, precious to me. Now with Daisy’s eyes on it, I felt it was being sullied. I was protective over this garden. This cabin. My solitude with Knox.
I’d quite obviously gone over the proverbial deep end.
“Let me get this straight… In the time that I’ve been worried about your fate, your safety and whether you’d be equipped with all of your fingernails, you were here …gardeningand falling in love with a sick fuck?” Daisy’s voice bordered on shrill and hysterical. But there was also a hint of amusement. Daisy was shocked and caught off guard, but a large part of her was delighted.
She consumed romance books like Skittles, nothing too dark for her. She carried an idyllic heart around, unguarded and nonjudgmental. I’d thought it was her weakness, but maybe it was one of her greatest strengths.
“You crazy bitch,” she smacked my arm. “You hide it well, you know.” She tugged on my ponytail.
“Hide what?” I said, folding my arms. I knew she wasn’t talking about my feelings for Knox. Try as I might, I was wearing them on my sleeve for my emotionally shrewd—if not street smart—sister to see.
“That you’re a depraved little romantic, desperate for the villain just like the rest of us,” she giggled. “I always thought the dating of accountants and insurance salesmen was a thin veneer over your true needs.”
I gaped at her, unable to fathom what she had apparently known yet had taken me thirty-two years and a kidnapping to discover about myself.
“I know that route seems safer because of Daddy.” She stroked an iris with melancholy in her gaze.
I still hated that she called our father ‘Daddy’ with a note of fondness that he did not deserve. But that was Daisy, loving things that didn’t deserve it in the first place.
“The safe route may keep you alive, but it doesn’t keep you living,” she continued. “And the ‘safe’ route doesn’t guarantee that bad people won’t come stomping in to steal you anyway. That’s what Stone did. You made all the right choices, and still, the wrong man ruined everything.” She looked back to the cabin. “Maybe noteverything,though. Maybe this was meant to happen all along. And maybe that man—wrong in all the ways he can be—may very well be right for you.”
I refused to look at the cabin. I could practically feel the structure pulsating with life, with Knox, with the intensity of feelings contained in the small space. The layers of skin I’d shed like a snake to reveal my true self.
“Are you trying to find a silver lining in all of this?” I asked, agape. I hadn’t put much thought into what outside parties might make of … this situation, considering I’d been actively trying not to think of it that way. But deep down I’d been ashamed, scared of my wrongness, depravity, still uncomfortable with my shadows. And yet my sunshine sister didn’t so much as blanch at them.
She smiled. “You always have to find the silver lining, Sis.” She reached out to squeeze my hand. “I like this for you.”
Shock tugged at my brows. “You like me falling for the mafioso who was supposed to break me?”
Her eyes glimmered with tears. “If he’s the only one who can protect you from all the darkness you’ve bundled up and hidden inside of yourself.”
The words hit me like bricks.
“I know you’ve spent your life absorbing every blow that might’ve hit me, taking all the ugliness on. You’ve gone through so much, Piper, and you’ve refused to let me shoulder the burden because you don’t think I’m strong enough.” She nodded to the cabin. “I’m thinking me shooting him, and him barely even flinching proves he’s strong enough. And although I may not like him—on account of the near strangling and the ease of violence he seeps out from his very pores—I love that he did it in protection of my sister.”
My vision blurred from tears of my own, ones I choked down. “You don’t think he’s like…?”
“Daddy?” she finished for me. She shook her head. “Daddy hurt us because he took pleasure in it. Because he didn’t know how to love. He was a weak and broken man.” She glanced to the cabin again, suddenly seeming too wise for her years. “He may be broken, but he’s not weak.”