Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 66503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
“You really want to ignore your own father?”
“Yes,” I mutter, tasting my salty tears as they roll down my cheeks. “Yes, pretending you don’t exist is easier than knowing you’re here.”
Even though he’s alive, even though I just gave him some first aid, even though he’s my father, I don’t want anything to do with him right now.
My father makes a pfft sound and turns around in his chair. “Fine. I’ll sleep here for the night.”
I ignore his obvious attempt at guilt-tripping me. I’ve felt so guilty all this time while I was in that cell beneath Lex’s mansion, and for what? So my father could tell me to my face he never even wanted me? That he’d easily exchange me to save his life? That I’m … a monster?
The mere thought makes me bury my face in my pillow again, wishing I could unsee the world. Unsee my own body and my own hands that have destroyed so much in this life.
I lean up only to look at my own deformity.
I used to see so much hope when I still had my gloves.
But now … all I see is carnage.
Straight from these fingertips that chose to save my father …
At the cost of the life of the only man who sacrificed everything to save me.
CHAPTER 2
Aurora
After a few hours, I abruptly wake from a dreamless, restless sleep to my father touching my shoulder.
“Aurora. I’m hungry. We need to fix something.”
I frown, sighing out loud as I’m still struggling to wake up. “How? I don’t have money.”
“I don’t know,” he hisses. “Go out there and see what you can do.”
Why do I always have to do everything?
I roll my eyes, but then my stomach growls too.
Grumbling, I push myself off the pillow, get up, and walk into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. Then I open the door. There’s a cart in the hallway of another hotel guest that never touched his dinner.
Could I? Should I?
What other choice do I have?
Looking around to make sure no one’s watching, I quickly sneak toward it and push it into our room, then lock the door.
I know it’s bad. I know it’s wrong.
But my stomach is growling, and I need to survive.
I pull off the plastic covers and look at all the delicious food. A steak, potatoes, cheese-covered broccoli, some chips, and a chocolate dessert.
“Well, it’s not much,” my father complains.
“It’s something,” I retort, frowning at him.
I grab the cutlery and cut into the meat, but my father eyes me down. “I’d like that.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine, I don’t care.” And I grab a piece of broccoli instead. The taste is divine and almost makes me want to cry. I haven’t had a decent meal in ages. Most I ever got in the cell was bread, water, and sometimes a bit of soup. This has texture and taste, and actual effort was put into it.
And it almost reminds me of home.
Or at least … what I remember of it before it was stolen from me.
Before my father tainted the mere memory of it.
“Give me the fork and knife,” he says, hurriedly snatching it from my fingers so he can cut into the meat and devour it.
I grab the broccoli and sit down onto the bed, eating it in silence while he stands in front of the cart, refusing to move.
I’m happy with my little cup of broccoli.
And when it’s all finished, I rush back to the cart to take some potatoes too.
“I split it equally,” I say when my father looks at me with disdain again.
He grumbles. “Well, I’m hungry.”
My lip twitches. I am too.
“Do you even know what I went through?” he asks, chewing on one of them. “I was tied down and beaten for days.”
He doesn’t seem to even remotely care to ask me how I was treated as he continues shoveling them inside. So I take what’s mine and jump back on the bed, eating as fast as possible before he tries to steal some away from me.
Hunger makes one do strange things.
When everything’s gone, all that’s left is dessert. And we both eye it like hungry vultures.
“You had the meat,” I mutter.
He raises his brow. “So? You had the broccoli.”
“I’m your daughter,” I say through gritted teeth.
Does he even care?
Suddenly, he chucks the little container at me. “Fine. Have it. Ungrateful little kid.”
I frown and stare at it, refusing to take the lid off. Even if it tasted like a bite out of heaven’s clouds, it still wouldn’t manage to erase the sour aftertaste of his inability to care about his daughter’s needs.
All I am to him is a burden. Something annoying that gets in his way.
And I can’t believe I never saw it before when we still lived under one roof.
I lie down in the bed and place the container on the nightstand.