“She knew you couldn’t be trusted,” I said through my teeth. “And she didn’t want that treatment.”
“That’s a lie! She’d just given up, is all. And I knew, if we just had the one more chance, she could make it. So when she started talking high about the money and the crimes and making with her names, I tracked one of them down, but he wouldn’t help! He had her cure in his hands and he wouldn’t help!” He snarled out his next words. “And I told him if she died, so would he.”
“But not without you getting his money.”
Dad lurched at me, and I was barely able to jerk the knife back before he impaled himself. I think he realized what he’d almost done, because he seemed to sober a bit. “And why shouldn’t I have it? I didn’t know where your mum hid hers, and we couldn’t pay for your fancy schools without it.”
“So you lured him to the park. Made him show you where he’d hidden the money?”
“They all stashed their last score in that park. Some kind of pact. All that money, buried away, when it could have saved her!”
“So you took it. But that wasn’t enough for you. You had to track down the next one and the next one.”
“Cons, thieves, criminals—”
“No!” My shout stopped him talking, or maybe it was that I’d managed to make another small cut in his neck. His collar had gone red with blood. “Sadie Mae Jackson wasn’t a criminal. She was just a girl standing up for three innocent boys you’d beaten so badly, their little faces were deformed!” I was gripping the knife so hard, my wrist started to ache. I felt like my whole body was trembling with what was left of my restraint. “Nothing you say changes that. Nothing! You terrorized those boys and me, and then you killed my one real friend. And you don’t get to talk your way out of that. You give your life for hers. That is how this ends! And then you burn in the hell of your own putrid nothing of an ever after and that’s still not long enough to atone for what you’ve—”
I hit the floor hard and felt my hand being slammed against the bed frame until the knife fell to the carpet. Before I even knew what was happening, I was completely immobilized and my dad was sitting on my chest and kneeling on my hands, leering down at me, the knife in his hand. I jerked and kicked, but I couldn’t get out from under him. I couldn’t do anything but wait and watch as he turned the knife on me.
But he didn’t point it at me. He rested the edge against his own cheek and then, with a jerk of his arm, left a big gash in his own face. He hissed in pain as he slashed across his chest and then smudged his hand around the hilt and threw the knife across the room. I jerked my head away as drips of his blood sprinkled down on my face. And he was smiling again.
“Two can play this little game of yours, sweetheart.” He leaned down so that his face was right above mine, and I turned away so I didn’t have to look at him. He pressed his lips to my ear. “And now I’ll kill you in self-defense, so I’ll no longer have to look at such a disgusting cow wearing her beautiful face.”
I thought I’d heard it all from my dad, that nothing he said could ever hurt me again. I was so very wrong. Still, it seemed the very look of me was my only remaining weapon, so I used it. I turned my head to stare him down, but before our eyes could meet, he stuffed a pillow over my face. It was one of the pillows I’d split open in my tantrum, but he managed to pile enough of it over my nose and mouth to stifle any air that might have come through. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t move. All I could do was lie there, desperate to take a full, fresh breath, and listen to him explain how everything I’d done would just as easily protect him from being charged with my murder as it would’ve protected me.
But I knew one thing he didn’t. I knew that Sherlock Holmes would avenge me. It wouldn’t take my dad from the world, but it would lock him up for the rest of his life.
At least my brothers would be safe.
That was my last thought as I gasped against the pillow uselessly one last time.
Chapter 22
My mind dimmed only briefly before the coughing started. One moment I hadn’t been able to get enough real air, and the next there was too much and I was inhaling feathers in an attempt to get more. I was pushed over on my side and someone was lightly smacking at my back.
“That’s it, child. Nice and slow. Not too deep yet.” He yelled something about a medic, and then my brain seemed to kick back into gear.
“Mallory,” I wheezed out.
He attempted a smile, despite the grim expression on his face, and then pushed me back down when I tried to sit up. “Not yet, now. Stay down until the medics come.”