Defy Me - Tahereh Mafi Page 0,48

it upon yourself. You made yourself an easy target.”

I’m stunned.

Somehow, even after everything, he manages to shock me. “I don’t understand how you can stand there, defending your actions, after you spent twenty years torturing me.”

“I’ve only ever been trying to teach you a lesson, Aaron. I didn’t want you to end up like your mother. She was weak, just like you.”

I need to kill him.

I picture it: what it would be like to pin him to the ground, to stab him repeatedly through the heart, to watch the light go out of his eyes, to feel his body go cold under my hands.

I wait for fear.

Revulsion.

Regret.

They don’t come.

I have no idea how he survived the last attempt on his life, but I no longer care to know the answer. I want him dead. I want to watch his blood pool in my hands. I want to rip his throat out.

I spy a letter opener on the writing desk nearby, and in the single second I take to swipe it, my father laughs.

Laughs.

Out loud. Doubled over, one hand holding his side. When he looks up, there are actual tears in his eyes.

“Have you lost your mind?” he says. “Aaron, don’t be ridiculous.”

I step forward, the letter opener clutched loosely in my fist, and I watch, carefully, for the moment he understands that I’m going to kill him. I want him to know that it’s going to be me. I want him to know that he finally got what he wanted.

That he finally broke me.

“You made a mistake sparing my life,” I say quietly. “You made a mistake showing your face. You made a mistake thinking you could ask me to come back, after all you’ve done—”

“You misunderstand me.” He’s standing straight again, the laughter gone from his face. “I’m not asking you to come back. You don’t have a choice.”

“Good. That makes this easier.”

“Aaron.” He shakes his head. “I’m not unarmed. I’m entirely willing to kill you if you step out of line. And though I can’t claim that murdering my son is my favorite way to spend a morning, that doesn’t mean I won’t do it. So you need to stop and think, for just a moment, before you step forward and commit suicide.”

I study him. My fingers flex around the weapon in my hand. “Tell me where she is,” I say, “and I’ll consider sparing your life.”

“You fool. Have you not been listening to me? She’s gone.”

I stiffen. Whatever he means by that, he’s not lying. “Gone where?”

“Gone,” he says angrily. “Disappeared. The girl you knew no longer exists.”

He pulls a remote out of his jacket pocket and points it at the wall. An image appears instantly, projected from elsewhere, and the sound that fills the room is so sudden—so jarring and unexpected—it nearly brings me to my knees.

It’s Ella.

She’s screaming.

Blood drips down her open, screaming mouth, the agonizing sounds punctured only by the heaving sobs that pull ragged, aching breaths from her body. Her eyes are half open, delirious, and I watch as she’s unstrapped from a chair and dragged onto a stretcher. Her body spasms, her arms and legs jerking uncontrollably. She’s in a white hospital gown, the insubstantial ties coming undone, the thin fabric damp with her own blood.

My hands shake uncontrollably as I watch, her head whipping back and forth, her body straining against her restraints. She screams again and a bolt of pain shoots through me, so excruciating it nearly bends me in half. And then, quickly, as if out of nowhere, someone steps forward and stabs a needle in her neck.

Ella goes still.

Her body is frozen, her face captured in a single moment of agony before the drug kicks in, collapsing her. Her screams dissolve into smaller, steadier whimpers. She cries, even as her eyes close.

I feel violently ill.

My hands are shaking so hard I can no longer form a fist, and I watch, as if from afar, as the letter opener falls to the floor. I hold still, forcing back the urge to vomit, but the action provokes a shudder so disorienting I almost lose my balance. Slowly, I turn to face my father, whose eyes are inscrutable.

It takes two tries before I’m able to form a single, whispered word:

“What?”

He shakes his head, the picture of false sympathy. “I’m trying to get you to understand. This,” he says, nodding at the screen, “this is what she’s destined for. Forever. Stop imagining your life with her. Stop thinking of her as a