Fen and Mara - Open Novella Contest 2019 Short List

Chapter 14

When Mara comes home that saturday afternoon, she is lucky to find the house empty. Her father is in his lab and a note on the kitchen table tells her Reginald is out grocery shopping. She sends him a quick text to ask him to bring her favourite cereal and then she crashes on her bed. Her mind is racing with all the events from the last 24 hours and her body is still tingling from Fen's administrations and kisses of this afternoon. Being in his arms made it a lot less difficult to talk about everything.

Surprisingly, Fen isn't all that bothered about being kidnapped. He hasn't been from the start, saying it's no big deal because he didn't really got hurt. Being unconscious for the biggest part of it all probably helped. 'I had no time to be scared,' he's said. Knowing it was Mara's father doesn't make much of a difference to him, if only it makes him more hesitant to see the offender prosecuted. It's sweet of him and Mara is grateful for it, yet she also has trouble with the idea that her father should go unpunished for what he did. She doesn't want him to go to jail, doesn't want to lose him. However, it's getting harder and harder to ignore the fact that her father operates on the wrong side of the law. It was easier to brush off when she just had unconfirmed suspicions. No matter how founded those suspicions were, they were easier to live with than seeing the evidence firsthand.

Her sense of justice is at war with her other feelings. Mara doesn't have a very strong connection with her father because she hasn't lived with him for most of her life. In a lot of ways uncle William was more of a father to her than Professor Prince. She's painfully aware of that and she feels that she should get a chance to bond with the man who is her father. That's gonna be difficult when he's in prison. Besides, Fen is right, who knows where she will end up? She's not 18 yet, she can't live on her own. Mara wouldn't want that either. However, her closest family now lives in Bahrain. And that's very far away from here...

***

Mara wakes up with a start when she hears the butler calling for her. It's almost 7 o'clock, dinner time. She has fallen asleep in her clothes, on top of her blankets. There's a red crease in her cheek where the fabric of her jacket sleeve pressed against it. She rubs her hands over her face to wake up, yawning profoundly. Her impromptu nap helped a little to catch up with the missed hours of sleep from last night, though she was happy to lose some sleep for Fen.

She had not counted on being brought home by a cop, though even that turned out all right. He gave her a stern lecture, making her promise she would never do something like this again, yet he didn't wake up her dad when they got home. The officer just parked the car in the designated spot and waited until she was inside, that was all. She got off easy. Really easy. And luck continued to be on her side, because when she saw Reginald and her father the next morning at breakfast, both men didn't seem to know that she had been out that night.

"Miss Mara, we have a guest," Reginald says disapprovingly when Mara walks into the kitchen. He looks her up and down. "Go back and make yourself presentable. At least brush your hair, young lady."

Mara looks around the kitchen confused. Reginald is clearly almost done with dinner, yet the table isn't set. Then his words register.
"We have a guest?"

"Yes, I believe your father told you? Now go and wash your face, you look like you just rolled out of bed."

"That's because I did," Mara mumbles, turning back the way she came. Coming across the door to the - hardly ever used - dining room, she hears voices. Her father, and a woman. Mara rolls her eyes, remembering how her father had told her this morning that he wanted to introduce her to his girlfriend. She had hoped it would be just one awkward moment of saying hello and shaking the woman's hand, though it seems like she has to sit through an entire dinner with them. Great.