Broken Knight by L. J. Shen

Author:L. J. Shen [Shen, L. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: All Saints High Book 2
Publisher: L.J. Shen
Published: 2019-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

“Come in.”

Dad looked up from the paperwork on his office desk, still clad in his suit. He shuffled some papers around for the sake of doing something with his hands, flashing me a tired smile. There was something pathologically wary about his expression when he looked at me nowadays. Love dipped in misery, wrapped in a bitter crust of pity.

Not disappointment, though. Never disappointment.

I closed the door behind me, moseying to the camel-colored leather armchair in front of him. I sank into it, the weight of what I was about to do pulling me down. Without breaking eye contact, my nails dug into the tender flesh of my palms until they pierced through my skin. I breathed through the pain.

I could do it. I’d done it with Knight. With Edie. At a party full of complete strangers.

But somehow, this was different.

My father had been tricked by Val. She got pregnant on purpose. He hadn’t wanted me. Yet he had been forced to raise me on his own for the first few years of my life. And it hadn’t been easy, with my lack of communication. They’d called him The Mute because he didn’t speak much, but his daughter truly crushed him with misery over her lack of words.

“Is everything okay?” He furrowed his brows, seeming to realize the atmosphere in the room had shifted. Maybe that I’d shifted, too.

I used to be dependent. Small. Scared. The last few months had changed me. And I was still evolving, changing like clay—spinning through tiny changes that made small, yet significant differences in my life. Each dent shaped me.

I opened my mouth.

He dropped his pen.

My lips moved.

His eyes widened.

I smiled.

He listened.

“Not everything,” I whispered, aware of the way my lips molded around the words.

Sadness laced in my victory. The only reason I was able to speak was because my birth mother had died. There was no reconciliation possible. I’d lost something permanently—but gained something else.

I reached for his hand across the desk, clutching it with shaky fingers. Free at last. The pen he’d been holding a second ago bled ink onto his new leather planner. I only noticed because everything was illuminated, like I was on ecstasy or something.

“I have a confession, Dad.”

I wasn’t sure how I expected him to react. My father had tried everything to get me to talk. I had award-winning speech therapists knocking on my door, the best psychologists and experts in the world at my disposal. I’d seen his back shake from weeping dozens of times when he thought I wasn’t looking, as he mourned the words that never left my mouth.

Then, I wasn’t ready. Now, I was.

“Luna…” He put a shaky hand to his mouth.

I dragged my hand from his, fanned my fingers on his desk. “Val died,” I said.

“How do you…”

“I asked Edie to hire someone to investigate. I’m so sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I needed to know.”

He made a sudden move. The bleeding pen rolled across the desk and dropped onto the carpet.

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