Chapter 28

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

DAPHNE

My sister and I had spent our entire lives mastering the ability to communicate through code. Ani was only two years younger than me, so we had always been close. We only had each other. My memory of my mother is very limited, and Ani’s is non-existent. But we both remember my father and always will. He was an awful, abusive man who we had the misfortune of having to live with. Our only way to survive was by creating a secret code language so that we could communicate in times that we didn’t want him to know what we were saying. A tug of an ear meant beware. A braid of our hair meant dad had over five drinks and was approaching the stage of drunk where he’d pop us for no reason. Biting the lip meant one of us found food so we could sneak a meal in and not starve that night. And a yawn meant for us to get out of the house as fast as we could and meet at a lean to shelter we had built. But once my father died, I never imagined we still needed to speak in code. But we do.

I let the phone ring twice and then hang up. It’s the code needed for Ani to feel the vibration in her pocket and then to go find a place she can speak in private without Mark knowing of her secret phone. I wait five minutes and call again, hoping she’ll pick up, which isn’t always a given. This time, she does.

“Hi,” she says, but I hear sadness in her voice. It isn’t the first time I’ve called and heard the tone.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

There’s a pause. “No.”

She’s never said no. She’s never said anything other than trying to convince me that everything is fine when I know it’s anything but.

Alarm bells are going off. I force myself to take a seat so my knees don’t buckle. “What happened?”

There’s another pause. I can hear her breathing. I hear a sniffle.

“Ani? What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Mark… He went on a two-day bender. When he got home, he started accusing me of awful things. He claimed the baby wasn’t his. He beat me.”

That’s it. The man is dead. I wasn’t sure I could actually give Apollo the green light to actually kill a man. It had all sounded good in theory, but being faced head on with deciding whether a man lived or died. But now…the fucker is going to die.

“Where are you? Are you at the house? I’m coming to get you.” I’ve offered to do this repeatedly and Ani always says no. She always refuses. I’ve even considered just showing up and not giving her an option, but I know my sister. She’s stubborn, and if she says no, then her answer is set in stone. But this time is different. I’m not four hours away. I’m close, and I’m coming. “I’m on Heathens Hollow now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Get your stuff ready.”

“The baby…” she continues and breaks down into a sob. “I lost the baby.”

It was as if Mark had the ability to reach through the phone and beat the shit out of me too. I fell back against the chair and let out a winded gasp.

“I’m calling the police. Do you need an ambulance?” I somehow got the words out, but I’m not sure since I still couldn’t inhale a breath of air.

I can hear her cry on the other end. “No. No. Don’t call anyone.”

“Where is he?”

“Sleeping off the bender. He should be asleep all day. Please don’t call anyone. Don’t.”

“Will you leave with me?”

There’s a pause.

“Apollo and I are here at Olympus. Can we come and get you? Please, Ani. Please. Apollo and I won’t allow anything to happen to you. I promise. ”

There’s still silence on her end other than the occasional hiccup and sob.

“Ani?”

“Yes… Come and get me.”