They had purposely stopped that far out. Why? Were they somehow conjuring a terrifying spell in there? A spell strong enough to collapse the defenses Aunt Anastacia had so carefully crafted? Emily could imagine all three of them with their eyes closed and their hands locked together, chanting and humming a spell—a spell that could counteract the defense systems.
Emily hoped that wasn’t the case. She was really looking forward to sleeping a bit before the defenses went down. Maybe they weren’t able to judge just how far out Aunt Anastacia’s barrier extended. Emily didn’t know how the defenses worked. She and her friends had walked right into the house before they met with any defenses. Why was that the case for them? Had Aunt Anastacia somehow programmed it to work only against roves? Maybe that was it. The external defenses prevented roves from gaining access, and the internal defenses disabled burglars?
She’d have to ask her aunt later on, but seeing the vehicle sitting out there was disconcerting. Marion could just hop out of the car and shoot a blue fireball at her like the last time. Perhaps it could cut right through the barrier and burn her, her dad, and the house to the ground.
That would be an embarrassing way to go . . . without a fight.
Emily abandoned the thoughts of the Alfreds and their car for a moment. Instead, she considered her father. Being self-absorbed sometimes prevented one from really seeing how people felt or thought. She’d had a nice time talking with her father after he’d been freed from Gregory Alfred’s mind trap. Her impression was that it was all well and good.
Dad, though he was still awkward with her sometimes, was able to surmount all they had been through for the past year and slip into his role as her father. But then again, was she only seeing what she wanted to see? Was she not seeing through his actions and into his heart?
They hadn’t talked about what happened. Not one bit. All those times she’d had to take him into the bathroom and bathe him. All those times she’d had to feed him. He had bared all before her. Helpless.
All the things he’d had to survive with her should be traumatic in and of itself. Traumatic to her dad. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
Emily swore silently under her breath. Aunt Anastacia was right. Dad might be putting up a brave front, but in reality, he wasn’t all right. He was going through a lot of emotional turmoil. Just that, being a Marine, he’d been trained to lock up his emotions and focus on the task at hand.
However, Emily had to ask, at what expense? Bottled-up emotions were like non-preserved food. Keep it in a locked container and give it time, it would turn rancid and slimy. In other words, bottled-up emotions only became rancorous and potentially explosive with time.
No wonder the witch had told Emily about Dad’s demons. He might not be fighting them now that they had a more tangible foe. But when the Alfreds were gone, when they were not staring down the barrel of an apocalypse even—when it was just them and their home and a simple life, then the fight for his sanity and his life would begin.
Unless Emily started to let Dad know she didn’t blame him. She didn’t mind all the things she did for him. She didn’t think he owed her. Or that it was her responsibility to take care of him, that he shouldn’t feel ashamed for all the things the warlock had put him through.
She had to get through to him, now that he was distracted. At least as he processed his emotions; if it got too much, he could be distracted by enemy fire or the next mission, and not by booze or drugs or a sedentary lifestyle.
Question was, how should she bring this up? She didn’t want him to become defensive. If she wasn’t careful, all his walls would go up, and he wouldn’t trust her enough to open up to her. And Dad was a proud man. How could she get him to open up to her?
“Dad, we didn’t get a chance to talk about the time you spent as an . . .” Emily’s voice trailed off as her tongue got stuck on the word ‘invalid.’ She saw Dad visibly flinch then. A wave of uncertainty washed over him as his shoulders went lax and his eyes lost focus. His fingers began to rattle as though he was about to go into seizure.
Emily’s heart leaped to her throat as she suddenly believed that he was coming under the rove’s spell again. Maybe it was a backup spell that came into effect when his idiot daughter tried to force him to relive his past. She moved to touch him, but he retreated a few inches away, spurning her to think better of it.
Dad struggled with himself for a while. Then his lips tightened in resolve. His eyes regained their focus. He squared his shoulders. The Marine in him had won this time, and he reared his head, proud of his combative roots.
Emily watched as Dad’s walls went up, standing tall like barricades. She sighed. This was going to be harder than she thought, but she had to try.
“We’ve talked about it.” Dad’s voice was a tight monotonous clip. He sounded like a drill sergeant back at the barracks, giving orders to initiates.
“No, Dad, we haven’t talked about you,” Emily stressed. “We’ve talked about me, and there’s still a lot to talk about. But we’ve not talked about you. We’ve not talked . . .” Emily paused. She was about to cross a line she couldn’t return from. The moment she mentioned the times she’d had to bathe him, see his nakedness, and do stuff that he should normally do by himself, she couldn’t come back from there.
She would have let it go,
