𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐠, 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐥𝐟?
When a runaway finds herself in a reclusive town headed by a man with a morbid fixation on her, she must find a way to stop her past from exposing everything-- especially when her past...
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06 i n f i l t r a t e
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❝ARE YOU OKAY, Bella?"
That was the eighteenth time Sophie had asked some variation of the question over the course of the day, then night. The first time was with a cup of tea, and six teaspoons of sugar. This time, it was only accompanied by her typical jitteriness.
Sophie had offered up her house, a small cozy abode, after the attack on my car. As soon as I walked in, I was greeted by the smell of cinnamon cookies and incense— Sophie's home was exactly as I expected. Colorful decorations littered the place with no real care and had a huge tapestry covering her ceiling.
Something crossed between guilt and altruism fuelled her actions, but I didn't care to discern which it strayed closer to. The girl was convenient, and I could tell she wasn't the type to say no very much, so that made her advantageous, for now.
I had the mug of tea cupped in my hand and took a slow sip before setting it down. "Just thinking."
At my response, she sank back into a couch that looked like it had been alive longer than both of our ages combined.
Another observation about the girl, she lived to please. I speculated that since she was ignored, she felt the need to be as easy of a child as possible, hence the constant badgering. She had family photos dotted all around the house, which interestingly, barely included her father.
There was only one black-and-white picture with all of them where Sophie seemed to be an infant, likely nothing more than a month old, and the parents with vastly different expressions on their faces. Her mother wore a stretched smile with a mini-version of her, Kylie, hoisted on one hip and Mitchell on the other.
Her father had a small half-smile on his face, and weirdly, an owl perched on his shoulder. Sophie looked a lot like him, I noticed, from the rounded face to the dark sweep of hair. But she was still in her cot like they couldn't be bothered to lift her for the duration of a split-second photo.
The little boy, Jonah, was staring sternly at the camera and stood in front of his sitting father.
The dynamics of the photo were peculiar, but that was unimportant— the chunks of hair were still on my mind.
