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Chapter Ten, Where it Hurts
Scars are supposed to heal with time—even the ugly ones. Even the kind reopened by a knife, dragged across skin that had barely started to scab. Even if torn apart again by the same hands that swore they'd protect you.
In the deepest part of her heart, Amelia wanted to forgive him. She wanted to accept the apology he never gave her and pretend she had never been broken by him. She wished she could—she wanted to let it go, to move past it, to pretend it hadn't wrecked her. He was right, and he was her father. And wasn't forgiveness what daughters were supposed to offer their fathers?
She wanted to move on from his cruel doings, because if she did, then maybe she could get a chance at experiencing what having a father was like; what it felt like to be loved and truly protected from his end.
But even in the wreckage of her thoughts, she knew the truth: she'd wished him dead. And she meant it. Dreamt of it even. It was a guilt she couldn't bear, a wound that pulsed louder than her heartbeat. Maybe if she forgave him, the pain would dull. Like a painkiller for a headache. And maybe Margot Bloom would understand. Maybe Amelia would also understand herself.
It was a cruel shame that Father always got what he wanted—always had the upper hand, getting away with his brutal lies.
Even after he left the room, after having made the doctor inject them with whatever drug they had, she wouldn't shut her mouth. Apology after apology spilled out, wild and desperate, thrown at Steve and Robin like bandages she hoped would hold after all the damage she caused. She couldn't handle watching him destroy what she had kept safe from her reality for days.
They told her to stop but she insisted. Stubborn. They were collateral damage in a war they never signed up for. She should've taken every hit, every blow, every ounce of pain.
In the minutes that followed his departure, his words somehow pressed harder than before, harder than any bruise. The experiments, hiding her. A world beneath their feet. A web of lies protecting her from whatever she saw inside that room. He claimed he kept her hidden to save her, but what exactly had he saved her from? The truth? The pain? Or had he just chosen fear over freedom—his fear over her freedom?
If he had known about the unexplained murders, the disappearing children from years ago, the horrors under the floorboards—how long had he kept it secret? How many nights had he come home, pretended not to care about her, while he allowed monsters to claw their way through their dimension?
Were these monsters even real, or was she delusional from the drugs they gave her? Was anything he said real? About this world, her wiped records, her faked birth certificate—was he even capable of doing such a thing?
