Page 95 of Stormhold

Which was what I thought, but he returned five minutes later with something in his hand. I simply ate the apple, not saying a word, because I was curious. Did the boy really think he could pry open a heavy-duty door with that flimsy crowbar he had?

Five minutes later, a snap reverberated through the walls, and a slight smile tugged at his lips. “Done,” he said, pushing it open.

I paused, surprised. He really did it?

Within the next second, the sound of alarms went off, and his eyes widened when loud footsteps soon accompanied them. I sighed, throwing the stem away. The boy had no idea the kind of trouble he was in.

“What’s your name?” I asked, lifting myself from the ground.

“Mikhail,” he replied, frowning at the alarms.

“Well, Mikhail. I hope you’re ready,” I said dryly just as the men came to grab hold of us. This was going to be fun.

It wasn’t long before we found ourselves in my father’s study, where he, just as expected, was raging hell upon seeing me.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stormhold,” Georgie begged, tears streaming down her cheeks, as she held Mikhail to her back. “Mikhail made a mistake, but he will apologize and never repeat it.”

Turned out he was Georgie’s son, whom she spoke fondly of at times. No wonder he had the courage to do what he did.

“What’s wrong with what I did?” Mikhail asked instead, fighting his mother’s hold as he eyed my father with a fierce look. “It’s wrong to lock up people,” he said defiantly. “Especially your son.”

Father bristled in anger. “You dare speak to me, boy!” he shouted, hurling the thick crystal glass in his hand toward him.

In a split second, I stepped in front of him, and the glass smashed straight into my jaw. Georgie’s scream hung in the air as the pungent whiskey burned my severed skin. I could feel the broken glass sticking to the lower half of my face, but I didn’t move. I didn’t blink. I simply stared at my father.

For a second, no one spoke a word, and Father’s eyes widened when he realized what he had done. “Arkane,” he gasped, all the anger leaving his face in an instant. Well, too late, Father.

Soon, I was rushed to the hospital, where I spent the next five hours while the best plastic surgeons in the country tried to fix my face as best they could. But only so much could be done for the deep lacerations. It was obvious from the look on their faces that I was going to live with the scar for the rest of my life.

I didn’t know how I felt about it. It didn’t make me happy or sad. I already had plenty of scars, and this simply felt like another addition.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Arkane,” Father said in a somewhat soft tone on the way back home. I didn’t know if it was genuine remorse or petty guilt. Knowing my father, it was possibly the latter.

“And you shouldn’t have done that,” I replied, looking straight ahead.

He sighed heavily and, for once, didn’t say anything else.

“Arkane.” My mother’s eyes widened when we returned home. “What happened to him?” she demanded my father, softly cradling my bandage-covered face. “Does it hurt, hun?”

I slightly shook my head, easing out of her grasp. Hurt flashed in her glazed eyes, but I ignored it like I usually did. Ever since Ronnie’s death, I kept a necessary distance from my mother. It was for the best anyway.

“Arkane had a misfortune accident,” Father said in a solemn tone, almost as if he wasn’t the one responsible for it.

“What do you mean by accident, Victor?” she cried furiously. “Look at our son.” She was on the brink of crying. No, she actually was crying. “That’s it. He’s not going anywhere anymore, Victor. He’s to stay with me.”

My father’s eyes softened as he approached her. “It’s going to be alright. He’ll be fine,” he pacified her in a loving tone, closing his arms around her.

She sobbed against his chest while he held her tight. One good thing about my father was that he stupidly loved my mother. He even loved all my siblings equally, but the same couldn’t be said for me.

Funny how they were both crying for me, but instead were comforting each other while I stood like an invisible being in the room. The sight only brought a humorless smile to my face. And without wasting another second, I simply slipped away unnoticed.

It wasn’t anything new to me. I was so used to it that I no longer felt any of it.

In a way, it was good because it made me the man I am today.

The scar that I would have to live with for the rest of my life was simply a reminder of that.

CHAPTER 26