“Eat up.”

He trailed behind my seat to run his fingers across the side of my neck, fingers soft as wool, as sharp as the prickly legs of a spider. I ignored it; fighting the chills that reverberated through my core and the twitching of my fists that so badly wanted to make acquaintance with his face. He did the same thing to Angelica who sat still beside me at the long, wooden table. 

“Don’t make us late.” Atticus kissed Angelica’s cheek, and she smiled. She always did. She looked so innocent in the milk-white fluffy dress, so sweet. I doubted she could work up the courage to hurt a fly, let alone the abusive men who had kidnapped the both of us and continuously played with us as if we were nothing more than toys. As simple as if he were marking a task off his daily to-do list. I glared into his teasing eyes, making sure he knew I wouldn’t allow him to do the same thing to me.

He made to walk past me, snatched at my hair, and tugged my head back sharply. I grunted at the aching discomfort in my already sore neck. 

“I don’t like that expression on your face, firebird.” His breath was warm against my cheeks. “Don’t make this evening harder than it has to be. Lord knows I love that fire in you… Don’t make me have to put it out.”

He released me but not before pressing chapped, rough lips to the shell of my ear. I gritted my teeth as the gentle thumping of his feet got further and further as he made his way out of the dining room. 

I should have cut his throat open. I should have grinned ear to ear as his blood pooled over my hand. A smile more genuine than any smiles I’ve forced onto my anguished face that year. I didn’t even acknowledge Angelica when she began to speak to me. I couldn’t hear her no doubt comforting words. My ears instead rang with the sounds of pitching screams, the songs of orchestras.

I couldn’t see her apprehensive face. All I could see was my parents, side by side, eyes wide, blood pooling out around them like a blanket of death itself.

I couldn’t feel the bleeding of my fingertips that were digging into deep wood. All I could feel was the smoldering wrath building within my very core.

I was brought out of it by the honey-brown orbs that intercepted my line of vision. 

“Lamb?” Angelica asked.

She was too close.

“Are you alright?”

Too damn close.

“Get away from me,” I pushed out, my jaw tense. My words betrayed me, coming out far softer than I had originally intended. “I can’t… I can’t think.”

Angelica ignored me. At that moment, I almost wished death upon her, too, but my irritation dissipated the second she pulled my head to her chest and began to rake bony fingers through the brunette locks.

“You’re safe, Lamb,” Angelica whispered, breathing in the fragrance of my hair. “You’re always safe if I’m around.”

“Have you always been so weak?” 

The words had slipped out. I meant them with every ounce of my being, but I hadn’t meant to voice the thought out loud. Not for her sake, but more so for my own. I didn’t want to hear her answer. I didn’t want to hear her sweet voice accompanied by her, no doubt, sweeter reply. I didn’t want to like her more, and I didn’t want to hate her less. I was fine with the relationship we already had.

Angelica didn’t even hesitate to reply, her words flowing out in a distant whisper. “I’ve always had heart if that’s what you mean. I’ve never had the strength to hurt another human being. We’re all in this together, aren’t we? The human race possesses the ability that no other species possess to discern right from wrong, a quality that makes humanity’s blatant display of inhumanity all the more unsettling, don’t you think? I can’t… I can’t be like everyone here. In that way, yes, I am weak.”

I gave a humorless laugh. Pushed Angelica away from me with a glare.

“You’re not special,” I bit out, standing to make my departure. “You’re just like the rest of us. Just because you hide your demons doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

Angelica watched in silence as I left, her gaze turned toward the wooden floors as a small shell of her pain escaped from her eye to dampen the ground. I barely caught her whisper as I left.

“Maybe you’re right…”

She reached out a hand, splayed it flat against the chilly window, and sighed. The snow had given way some. She could now see a little beyond and it was— to be completely frank— terrifying. Terrifying in a way that thrilled her more than it made her recoil. Everything was dark, the world before her a pitching black abyss of unknown dangers and equivocal offering. The ground appeared to be a canvas of coal and she imagined the uproar of fires that could tear across all of the land at the drop of a single match.

She shivered, closed her eyes, and imagined the heat caressing her body all over, the flame’s victorious howls, the beautiful chorus of screams of different notes and ages in a backing symphony. It was then, tangled in the precipice of her imagination, that she decided her father was right.

She couldn’t stay and she would be gone the first opportunity she got.