Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
He comes towards me with such speed that I desperately try to scramble back but the man at my rear holds me in place. My father’s hands come to my shoulders, fingers digging into my skin.
“You found something other than books, though, didn’t you?” he hisses. “And instead of coming back upstairs, you decided to interact with it.” His fingers tighten so much it feels like my bones might snap. “You even touched it, soiling yourself.”
“I was only interested.”
One of his hands releases my shoulder and moves so quickly that I barely have time to see it draw back before his fist slams into my stomach. I would buckle over if not for being held up. He punches me again and I gag, the sting of the vomit rising in my throat only slightly less painful than the aching in my ribs. You would think my abdomen would be used to it by now. It’s been his main target ever since he stopped beating me with the belt he used in my youth. He switched from a belt to his fists, but the target remains the same.
Always my body. Never my face.
Not because he’s ashamed for me to be seen with bruises, but because someone knowing he had to discipline his daughter at all would bring him shame.
“After all I have given you,” he rages, standing now to pace my bedroom. “You sneak. You lie. Your ungratefulness not only offends me but all that I have helped build here. What use are you to me if you cannot be of benefit to The New Order?”
I freeze at those words, the pain be damned. They are the last ones I ever heard him say to my mother. The very night before he had her committed to the sanitorium for insanity. Her rebellious nature made the choice easy for him when he had already been married, and had several children, from two wives before her. She wasn’t really a loss. Is that what he intends to do with me, too? I have no doubt that he would. I have feared it for years.
I look up at my father through blurry eyes. His face red, jaw muscles twitching, and nostrils flaring. He looks back down at me with such disgust.
“Please, don’t,” I plead, slowly shaking my head. “Not that.”
“And why shouldn’t I send you there?” he spits out. “You can be with your mother, since you have clearly inherited her defiance and vileness.”
“No!” I sob, memories of the times I have visited my mother at the sanitorium flashing through my mind. I cannot go there.
My father’s chest rises and falls with his deep breath, then he begins to straighten his tie. He raises his head, looking down his nose at me.
“Perhaps there is something you can do to earn my forgiveness.”
He has no forgiveness. I have seen and heard more than enough to know that as the truth. But still … a hope rises in me that I can say something, do something to avoid my mother’s fate.
“Wh-what?” I croak.
“You will go back down to the alien.”
My head snaps back in shock at hearing the very last thing I expect.
“You want me to—”
“Did I say I wanted you to do anything, Selina?” he shouts, making me flinch. “I said you will do it to help The New Order. You will go down there and get that thing to speak, to interact, to give us the information we want from it.”
It all becomes so clear in the silence that stretches on after his final word. My father … He needs me to do this. I’ve gotten something from Bothaki that he hasn’t been able to. Does my father even know his name is Bothaki? But with that question comes another realization. My father has been watching me with him in the basement, which means he saw me down there the first night. He knew I would go back down if he left again. He planned on it. I don’t think he ever truly left the house at all, but simply waited somewhere until I was foolish enough to fall into his trap. That’s why I never heard the door open tonight, but only heard footsteps above me.
He watched Bothaki speak to me. Watched us bring our hands to the glass, me showing him the cards, and our first touch. I’ve gotten more out of him than my father has been able to. And if there’s one thing The New Order hates more than disobedience, it’s failure.
He needs me to go back down there and do what he can’t. But what will that mean for Bothaki? I’m pretty sure the only thing keeping him from ending up looking the same way I’ve seen animals down there by the time my father was done with them is the fact that he hasn’t given them what they want yet. Information, about himself, where he’s from, how he got here, and why he’s here. I want to ask my father what, if anything, he does know, but I’ll not tempt further punches to my body. But whatever he has or hasn’t learned yet, I do know that if I do this for my father, the moment they feel they have gained enough information, they’ll kill him. Or at the very least, they will imprison Bothaki for the rest of his life. However long that may be for his kind.