Felicia waited for her father to fill the silence with questions or perhaps stories about his ti in prison. Walter Hardy had never been quiet. He’d been charming and talkative, otherwise, he wouldn’t have stolen her mother’s heart.
Yet he refused to utter a single word as if he hadn’t just reunited with his daughter after a long ti.
This silence felt wrong.
“Dad, how did you get out?” she asked, studying his facial features. “How did you find ?”
“Soone helped .”
Three words without an elaboration. His eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, never glancing at her.
“What do you an soone—”
“Your mother told you I died in a plane crash.” He cut her off, sothing he had never done before. He had always been patient with his kitten. “She wanted to protect you from the truth.”
Felicia’s fist clenched. “I know you’re the Black Fox. I know you’re… the greatest cat burglar in history. Mom couldn’t hide that forever. I trained in martial arts and tech…”
His hands stayed locked on the steering wheel. “Yes.”
“...Dad, about your illness—”
“It’s gone,” he said without a hint of relief such good news should carry. “I won’t be dying.”
Felicia trembled. “ALS had no cure” was what she had concluded after her intensive research. The disease was a death sentence. It had claid Stephen Hawking and thousands of others.
Now her father sat beside her, claiming he was magically cured. It felt like a dream.
“What treatnt did you get?”
“Soone helped ,” he repeated the sa three words in that sa flat tone.
Felicia couldn’t help but feel like she wasn’t talking to her father but a stranger. Perhaps it wasn’t real but a dream.
‘Stop being paranoid, Felicia.’
Cosmic entities existed. Mind-reading mutants existed. Magic was real. Alien parasites had crashed down to Earth. A masked university student had started swinging around New York. A cure to ALS felt mundane in comparison.
“It’s good to be back, Daughter.”
He glanced at her then, just for a second, and his eyes… They were her father’s eyes. Blue-gray, sharp, but the warmth and love behind them was completely absent.
“Welco back, Dad.” Her voice trembled despite her best efforts. “I missed you so much.”
‘He must’ve gone through tough tis in prison.’
Her buzzing phone took her attention away from the dissonance between the father from her mories and the father beside her. She pulled it out and smiled.
Darling
Reviews
All reviews (0)