“You’re going to make such an amazing mother again someday. You did such a wonderful job with those two little bastards,” he says gently.
“Thank you, Pater,” I say quietly, fighting tears that are dangerously close to spilling over.
I place my hands on his shoulders and attempt to give him a gentle shove, but he’s still hard and still inside me, showing no signs of moving.
“Not yet, Joce. Let’s just lay here like this a little while longer,” he says happily, turning his head up toward me and nuzzling my neck with his lips.
I can’t help but wonder if this is what love is like. To have someone who would do anything to keep you, no matter the cost, with no care of what the outside world would think.
I finally feel him become flaccid and he pulls himself out of me, turning his back to me as he gets comfortable on the bed.
Maybe it’s not love, after all.
“When did you start to hate me?” he asks quietly. “And don’t lie to me, please.”
The question takes me by surprise, because I was always so damn sure he never cared what I thought of him. His demand for the truth tells me he’ll do his mind reading trick that still fascinates me.
“When you made me your wife,” I reply bluntly.
Pater sighs loudly and rolls onto his back. “Would you have preferred that I just killed you instead?”
“Yes,” I admit softly.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” he spits back bitterly. He sits up and runs his hands over his face, then sighs as he glances at me. “You have to understand something. I’ve always loved you the most. That day that I cut you from your worthless mother was the happiest day of my life. You stopped crying as soon as I held you against me, and the way you looked at me...” Pater’s words trail off for a moment as he shakes his head, “I knew right then and there that we would be something great someday.”
“If I knew that this is what my life was going to become, along with Vaughn and Eloy’s, I should have just drawn the blades across our throats when you took us out of Mama,” I spit back.
His desperate attempt at trying to become some kind of human right before my eyes are falling on deaf ears. I’ve had enough of these fucking games, and with as much as I want it to be over, I want my pound of flesh first. The only way to get that from him is to antagonize him to the point of no return.
“’Mama’,” he repeats in a mocking tone. “She was worthless. The only thing that bitch was good for was giving me three kids, and then, once Eloy was born, I was done with her. She died the way she came into this world: screaming and covered in blood.”
I attempt to push myself off the bed, but he grips me by my arm and pulls me right back next to him.
“It doesn’t have to be this way with us, Jocelyn. Ever since I put you in your mother’s womb, I knew you would take her place. Like she had taken the place of the wife before her. I think we work, don’t you? You’re a pain in the ass and I know how to handle you accordingly. I like these games, and being inside you is the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt in my life. Fuck society and their rules; we’re meant to be together,” he says with his damn grin sitting on his ruggedly handsome face.
The same face that was vaguely reflected in Vaughn, and almost an exact match to Eloy’s. The eyes I’m looking into are passed down through blood, and that smile is something I used to wear before all this started. But I have to remind myself that this hasn’t been the face of my father for a long time; it’s always been the face of the man who destroys everything he can’t control, and uses people until he gets bored with them.
“How much longer is this going to drag on, Pater? How much longer am I stuck here being your wife?” I ask him irritably.
“Until you have my baby, of course,” he replies as his grin widens. “Then we’ll see what fate has in store for you.”
That’s been his plan this entire time. That’s been his motive in every wife he’s taken.
Isolate the body.
Break the soul.
Break the spirit.
Fill them with his child and if the child is up to his standards, kill her and replace her with the next one.
Chapter Thirteen
Pater is sitting at the dining room table, reading his newspaper and occasionally sipping on his coffee. He’s invited me to sit with him, but so far the offer of food has not been made, and I’m close to snatching that fucking paper from his hands and eating it.
I don’t know when the last time is that I ate. It must have been a few days ago, when one of the boys dropped some scraps into the darkness, and with as unbelievable as it may seem, that’s usually enough
to hold me over for a little while.