Reading Online Novel

Sheltered(63)



But it didn’t come to anything like that. Not anything like it. Instead her father sagged all in one big rush, shoulders going down. Face like an emptied bag. She saw it all as clear as anything as Van stepped away, and took hold of her hand once more.

“That’s what I thought,” he said, then after a moment, “Don’t come near your daughter again. She isn’t your daughter anymore. She’s a stranger. If you see her on the street, you don’t know her. You look the other way, understand?”

She had to hold in the gasp, when her father nodded.

And then they just walked right out of his house, as though nothing had ever happened.





It wasn’t as though the bike scared her. She’d made it all the way from the city to her once-was-home on the back of it, without being whipped off into some bushes or a passing car. But it didn’t exactly steady her nerves, either—and especially after a confrontation like that one.

She couldn’t even believe they’d just had a confrontation like that, even as they set off. Van telling her it was okay, just before they did. That everything was okay now, it was fine, just hold on to me Evie, okay?

She did. She held on tight, face pressed into his back. A million fears still pumping through her as the bike throttled up between her legs. It had felt like being in a wind tunnel coming, and it had the same effect now.

Only somehow, it seemed a little different. After a moment of clinging to him and trying to shove the memories of what had just happened away, something happened. She could feel it, going through her—loosening knots as it went.

And though the sudden urge she had terrified her, she found herself doing it, anyway. She pressed hard with her knees and started to let go of Van’s back. Just a little. Just enough to see if she could do it.

She could.

She let go entirely and still stayed on the bike, as he gunned it down Narrowfoot Lane. Heart suddenly pounding in a different way altogether, everything in her letting go all at once. And when she raised her hands to the sky and felt the air running through her fingers, with no one saying stop or don’t or you can’t, she knew it clearly.

She was free. Finally free.