Wallflower Ink

Chapter 17

· Jace ·

Sophie sits at the bar glaring at me, her back rigid, her hands balled into tight fists on its surface. Beside her, Merri cowers beneath the tension strangulating the air between us all. I lean against the counter, my gaze darting from one to the other, keeping my trap shut.

The man Merri had introduced as her brother stands just to my right. He's approximately my age, just a bit taller and broader in the shoulders. With the same bronze complexion, amber eyes, and facial structure as his mother, he is a close likeness to her in all but the fury rolling off her in waves. Even the crease between their eyes is the same, though the brand of emotions carving them feel to be inherently different.

I'm glad he doesn't seem to harbor the same animosity toward me as his mother does. To say the atmosphere between Sophie Hallard and myself is tense would be a gross understatement. If looks could kill, I'd be dead ten times already.

Merri hadn't been joking when she'd described her foster mother--her personality isn't for the faint of heart. But even though the whole thing is pretty damned uncomfortable, I'm glad I stayed. Seeing Merri with her foster family has given me a new reason to admire her. I'd had no idea she and I were so much alike: both of us, foster kids. I'd have never guessed that one.

When this meeting is over I'll have to give Katie a call. She'd been right, and I know it'll make her happy to hear that from me. Though I don't know the particulars behind Merri's own situation--and I have no intentions of asking--it is enough for me to know even this little bit more about her.

I'd had foster siblings come and go throughout my own childhood. Some were well-adjusted, others were not, and all of us came with a unique story of our own. While Katie and I ended up being a couple of the more well adjusted, I know there were many more who weren't quite so fortunate. Could it be possible--though the people who are visiting now seem to be great, despite the air of hostility surrounding them--that she'd ended up on the lower end of that category anyway? I think maybe she did, and that thought gives her more leeway to be odd in my mind.

For the first time, I feel like I'm beginning to understand Merri Lonán.

"I'm disappointed in you, Merri. You lied to me. You told me this had absolutely nothing to do with a man, and yet here you are ... and there he is." Mrs. Hallard's eyes dart to mine, and they are just as cold as they were the first time she'd met my gaze. "And just what in the hell have you done to my baby girl, Mr. Declan?"

I open my mouth to speak, but Merri's mother cuts me off.

"She was so beautiful, and you've ruined her. What kind of monster are you? Do you get off on disfiguring little girls, or is torture your thing?"

I open my mouth again, only to be cut off again.

"Don't you speak to me, you disgusting excuse for a human being." She turns from me to stare at Daryl Hallard, who is just as quiet as the rest of our group. "And I don't want your two cents' worth of opinion either, young man. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am," Daryl says, but there is a lightness to his tone that does not match the seriousness of his expression. "Maybe I should take Jace outside while you and Merri talk?"

"That's probably the smartest thing that's been said in this kitchen all day. Y'all go on, but don't you go too far. I'm not finished yet with Mr. Declan."

An involuntary shudder works its way through me at the heat in her words. I'm not quite sure I want to know what else Mrs. Hallard has to say, or what she might be considering doing to me. Merri had been right, I have never met a parent quite like her. And though she is a great cause for concern for me at the moment, I like her just the same.