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  “It won’t work,” I whispered back. I could hear heavy footsteps on the stairs now.

  “He’ll want to help you, Gracelynn. It’s going to work. I know you can do this. Just focus – you’ve got to really want this.”

  “I do,” I assured him, my throat too tight for my voice to come out any louder than a whisper even if I’d wanted it to as my father entered the room.

  The last time I’d seen my father in person, he’d been furious with me. He had kicked me out of my home for dating Sebastian and “tarnishing” our family’s reputation, and he had practically disowned me. We’d spoken on the phone many times since then and though neither of us had ever apologized, I felt like we’d come to a mutual understanding. I wasn’t sure how our relationship stood now though. When Sebastian had erased my memories last Spring, I had gone back to being the “perfect daughter” and since my father wasn’t around anymore, that had meant catering to my mother’s needs. She had banned me from speaking to my father, so I’d only stayed in contact with him through the occasional email sent quickly from a school computer. And I hadn’t contacted anyone in my family at all in the past month and a half since my memory had been returned and we’d be running from the Others. I could understand why my mother would say I’d run away from home – it would certainly appear that way to her.

  My father looked momentarily stunned to see me even though I was certain Dahlia had told him I was waiting upstairs. His eyes rapidly scanned me over, taking in my shorter, messier hair and tanned skin. I smiled nervously and for a second, he almost smiled back. Then his eyes fell upon Sebastian’s hand linked together with mine on my lap. His eyes immediately moved to the tiny curl of the black tattoo peaking out beneath my shirt sleeve and the heavy amber ring nestled so innocently on the fourth finger of my left hand. I felt like cursing under my breath as I could almost see the thoughts flashing through my father’s mind. I could guess at the conclusion he was coming to. His color was already starting to change, a scarlet flush rapidly spreading across his round cheeks. I knew I had to do something to take control of the situation – fast, so I did the only thing I could think of.

  “Daddy!” I cried out, forcing a broad grin to stretch across my face. I quickly dropped Sebastian’s hand and jumped up from the couch, skipping across the room and joyfully throwing myself into my father’s arms. In that moment, I wanted so badly for my father to just love me, to be happy to see me and to give me one of those big bear hugs that I remembered from my childhood. I felt him hesitate, sensed his momentary stunned surprise and then the next thing I knew, his big, strong arms were wrapping around me, squeezing me tightly against his round belly. A sob began rising on a strong wave of emotion within my chest. “I missed you Daddy,” I whispered against the smooth fabric of his dark blue suit. I smiled as I realized he smelt like brandy and cologne, the scent surprisingly nostalgic.

  My father loosened his grip on me and awkwardly patted my head.

  “Hi, sweetheart. I missed you too, Gracie,” he answered, gruffly. I thought I heard Dahlia sniff away a tear behind him.

  I took a small step back and looked up at my father. His color had returned to normal – just the slight red flush to his cheeks that was always present. I could see the emotion sparkling in his eyes but with each passing second, his expression grew sterner, the lines in his face deepening and his joy at seeing me fading.

  “Dad, I’m sorry to just drop in on you like this but we really need your help,” I began, speaking softly and uncertainly. I tried to remain focused, I tried hard to want for him to help us but it was difficult to concentrate with so many conflicting emotions grappling around inside of me.

  My father frowned, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Sebastian who now stood slightly behind me.

  “Why don’t we all sit down,” Dahlia suggested. She gently placed her hand on my father’s arm and he reluctantly moved towards a large leather recliner in the corner of the room that I had assumed would be his chair. Dahlia moved into the kitchen and began making my father a drink while I resumed my seat beside Sebastian, keeping a carefully calculated distance between us this time. My father’s eyes were on me the whole while, his expression stern.

  “Good evening, Mr. Stevenson,” Sebastian greeted him in a polite and respectful tone. My father fixed him with a hard stare, not immediately answering. The tension in the room grew.

  “What kind of trouble have you gotten my little girl into?” my father eventually demanded, sitting up a little straighter as he spoke. He could be quite an intimidating man with his broad shoulders, the hard angles of his features and his sharp, hazel eyes. It was impressive that Sebastian didn’t shrink from his glare.

  “We need your help, Dad,” I repeated, redirecting my father’s attention onto me. I forced myself not to drop my eyes, to meet his hard, unwavering stare. I decided just to launch into it, grasping my necklace tightly in my hand for strength as I spoke. “We need to get out of the country as soon as we can – tonight if possible. There are people following us, very dangerous people. The less you know the better. I wish we didn’t have to involve you at all but you’re the only one who could possibly help us get away…”

  My father didn’t speak, he just continued to stare at me, his face completely expressionless. I focused my thoughts, my emotions, my desires – I focused with everything I had to want him to help us. I silently pleaded with him in my mind. I begged him with all my heart but still, he didn’t answer, didn’t respond.

  “Here you go, dear.” Dahlia stepped between my father and I to hand him his drink, breaking the tense moment between us and offering me just a few moments to recover and refocus. I glanced to Sebastian who gave me a quick, encouraging nod. It was all up to me, I had to do this. My father really was our only hope.

  Dahlia sat down on the loveseat near Sebastian and I, and we all waited in silence for my father’s response.

  “What exactly are you asking me for, Grace?” my father demanded, his voice harsher and gruffer than I’d hoped. But still, at least he was speaking.

  “I’m asking for your help. I want you to help us – I need you to. We need travel documents, identification and passports. We need to be booked on the next flight to Ireland. And we need it done as soon as possible.” There was no way to make my request sound reasonable. My expectations sounded ridiculous as I spoke them out loud but I tried to sound confident nonetheless. I tried to believe that my father would want to help us, that he would find a way.

  “And what makes you think I can accomplish all of this, if I had the inclination?” My father fixed me with another hard stare, he appeared not to even be blinking. The small apartment was becoming increasingly warm with the number of bodies packed inside and a small bead of sweat began forming on my forehead. I resisted the urge to brush it away, focusing all of my attention on the task at hand.

  “You can do it. You have the power and connections to make it happen. You can do anything you want to,” I added, hoping I didn’t sound as desperate as I felt.

  Silence settled over the room once more. My eyes were locked with my father’s as we battled wills, each stubbornly refusing to be the first to look away. Neither Sebastian nor Dahlia tried to speak or intrude upon our conversation; they both recognized that this was between my father and I, and they remained quiet bystanders.

  “I could help you, if I wanted to,” my father eventually agreed. “But I don’t.”

  His proclamation pierced my heart with pain from both his rejection and my own fear. I could feel my panic rapidly rising along with the hurt inside of me.

  “Please… Dad, I wish I could explain but I can’t. I really, really need your help…” I begged.

  “No.” His answer was firm, his expression hard and cold. “If you really are in some kind of trouble, I can only assume that you’ve brought it on yourself by the poor choices you have made.” He looked to Sebastian as he spoke. My amber necklace began to faintly throb against my chest along with the pain in my
heart.

  “I’ll take you to the police if you want and you can tell them your story. I’ll even provide a place for you – and you alone – to stay while you’re in Toronto but that is as much help as I can possibly offer you, Grace.” The volume of his voice was increasing as he spoke along with the color in his cheeks. I could feel my control on the situation rapidly slipping away like sand through my fingers. “I will absolutely not be taken in by some ridiculous scheme that you have let this scoundrel come up with! How can you possibly expect me to blindly commit myself to help you escape the country and commit identity and documentation fraud for who knows what reason? What the hell is really going on here?”

  “Now, now, let’s all just calm down for a minute,” Dahlia interjected. “You know your doctor warned you not to get worked up like this.”

  “I will not calm down!” my father thundered, his face bright red, his hazel eyes flashing. “I haven’t seen or heard from my daughter in months and then she shows up, uninvited and unannounced, looking and sounding like some crazed vagabond with this… this… scumbag so clearly manipulating her!” He gestured furiously at Sebastian as he spoke, a disgusted expression on his face.

  I was shocked to my core. I stared at him numbly, an expression of hurt disbelief frozen on my face. Somehow, I had never anticipated that the situation might go this badly even though I had partially feared it might. To hear my father refuse my honest pleas for help, to listen to him insult us and accuse Sebastian of manipulating me – and that he would believe I could be ignorant enough to allow myself to ever be manipulated… I felt my own temper rising, the furious heat of it a match for my blazing necklace. My anger burnt away the numb shock that had initially seized me within its grip and words flew from my lips without thought.

  “How dare you!” I cried, suddenly as outraged as he. “I came to you because I needed you, because you’re the only one who can possibly help us – who can save us! All I want is your help and this is how you treat me?”

  “No, you don’t! You want my money, you want my connections – you’re just like your mother! What the hell were you thinking, coming here like this?” my father yelled, rising to his feet. I jumped up right along with him, his last comments a slap in the face. I could feel myself trembling with rage.

  “I just wanted you to help us,” I growled.

  “The only way I’ll be helping you is out the door! Now get the hell out of here before I call the cops!” my father bellowed right into my face.

  I didn’t waver for a second, I was far too angry to ever back down and with my anger, a strange, calm control had settled over me. I squeezed my necklace even tighter as it burned red hot into my hand. I focused myself and my will like never before, my eyes burning into my father’s.

  “I want you to help us,” I told him quietly and firmly, my voice a subtle threat.

  “No,” my father answered, his voice just as dangerous. I took a step closer to him, ignoring Sebastian’s sudden hand on my arm. I hadn’t even noticed him stand.

  “Grace,” Sebastian cautioned. I barely heard him speak, letting the rest of the world slip away so that there was nothing but my father and myself, and what I wanted.

  “Please,” I spat out between clenched teeth. The fire from my necklace was burning into my chest, rushing out from my heart and flaring from my eyes with each word I spoke. “I need you to help us. I want you to want to help us.”

  “N–” my father’s voice seemed to stick in his throat. I watched in amazement and numb horror as his hard, steely gaze suddenly softened. His eyes unfocused and glazed over as they started to roll back into his head.

  “Dad!” I cried, snapping out of my furious, trance-like state.

  “Gordon!” Dahlia yelled as my father suddenly slumped backwards, unconscious and unmoving. I stared at him in horror. What had I done?

  Chapter Six – Taking Flight

  I watched in horror as my father’s legs buckled and he dropped backwards into his chair, the recliner creaking and groaning from the sudden impact. Sweat covered his pale, gray skin and his lips were strangely colorless. The surge of anger and power that had swelled through my body and mind moments before was abruptly extinguished. A new panic set in.

  “Oh, God, he’s had a heart attack! Oh my, God!” Dahlia cried, frantically running for the phone.

  “Wait!” Sebastian instructed her, his voice firm and commanding. Dahlia froze in her tracks. “I think he just fainted. He’s already starting to come around.”

  Dahlia rushed back to my father’s side and we all watched as his color quickly returned and his shallow breathing resumed to a more normal pace. My father’s eyelids flew open and he stared into each of our faces in confusion, his eyes darting back and forth between us.

  “What… what just happened to me?” he demanded. His eyes focused on my face. “Grace? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

  I paused, unsure of how to answer but no one else volunteered to speak for me.

  “I, umm… Sebastian and I were in Toronto. We came to ask you for some help, remember?” I prompted uncertainly.

  “But we don’t need to talk about that now,” Dahlia dismissed, giving me a stern look. To all of our surprise though my father shook his head, brushing Dahlia’s fluttering hands aside and sitting up a bit straighter.

  “That’s right - I remember. I was just a little… confused for a moment. Of course, I remember. The passports, the plane tickets… I’ll have it all taken care of by morning.”

  We all gaped at him, shocked and stunned into silence. For once, Sebastian was just as speechless as I.

  “Hunny, I think you need to go to the hospital. You collapsed – you might have had a heart attack or a stroke, and now you’re not making any sense,” Dahlia fretted, the furrow above her smoothly arched brows deepening by the second.

  “Nonsense!” my father declared, standing up and shaking off her hands when she tried to support him. “I feel fine. I just got a little hot-headed there for a moment. I’m not sure what came over me but of course I’ll help you Gracie. I can’t say I understand what’s really going on but if you need my help, I’ll give it to you and I don’t need or want to know any more than that.”

  I blinked, still stunned. I struggled to regain the ability to speak.

  “Um… thanks, Dad. I really, really, really appreciate your change of heart. I wouldn’t ask you for help if there were another way…”

  “Of course not. I know that, dear. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have quite a few phone calls to make. If you want to be on the next flight to Ireland, I’m going to have to call in some favors and wake up a few important people, but we’ll get you on the very next plane,” my father gruffly assured me. He gave my shoulder a heavy pat as he walked past me and even gave Sebastian a grudging nod before going into the small bedroom at the rear of the apartment, cell phone in hand and fingers already dialing.

  Dahlia stared at us wide-eyed for a moment before hurrying into the bedroom after him and quickly closing the door.

  Sebastian sat down heavily on the couch, his fingers pressed against his temples. I dropped down beside him and we both silently contemplated our thoughts, Sebastian slowly massaging circles into his brow.

  “What just happened?” I eventually asked him, feeling strangely calm – almost numb. At first I didn’t think he was going to answer me. He just shook his head and pushed his fingers harder against his skull. I tried to wait patiently for his response but it was difficult when I could feel the seconds ticking away against us. He suddenly began speaking, his voice soft and barley audible, his eyes tightly closed still.

  “It’s not possible to force someone to do or feel something against their natural will. Your magic shouldn’t be strong enough - you told me so yourself.”

  A cold chill rippled down my spine, my heart brittled by its frost.

  “But… you think I did,” I stated, my voice flat and emotionless. I knew we had to both face the truth, there was no av
oiding it this time. “He didn’t want to help us, but I made him. I forced my father to do what I wanted, didn’t I?” My voice shook a little at the end, the guilt and fear quickly threatening to overwhelm me. I desperately tried to push it aside but tears already stung my eyes.

  Sebastian looked at me then, the pain in my voice reflected in the intensity of his eyes.

  “No, you didn’t – you couldn’t have forced him to help us if a part of him didn’t really want to. You would never have wanted to force him against his will,” he quickly reassured me, his doubt vanishing. He brushed the loose curls back from my face and studied me cautiously, my own sadness and pain now burning in the dark depths of his eyes. “There has to be an explanation, Gracelynn. Maybe your father had conflicting wants and you just helped tip the balance. Or maybe the proximity of the Others and their wants influenced what went on here,” he suggested. He leant forward to sweetly kiss my lips. My eyes slowly cleared, my heart wanting so badly to believe his words. He kissed me again slowly, gently and my heart beat faster. His lips lingered on mine and I leant into him. I desperately needed him to help me forget what I may or may not have just done. I needed him to love me, regardless, and to remind me of who I really was.

  “Ahem,” Dahlia cleared her throat nosily as she reentered the room.

  We broke apart, my cheeks dusted with embarrassment. Sebastian was as calm and collected as ever, merely smiling in amusement at the interruption or perhaps at my guilty blush.

  “I think Gordon’s going to be up most of the night on the phone. He’s adamant that he get you on a morning flight, direct to Ireland. I think he believes your lives really do depend on it,” she added, eyeing us both strangely as she came to sit down.

  “They do,” Sebastian answered solemnly. He stared back at her unflinchingly. It was no surprise when Dahlia was the first to look away.

  “I don’t know why, but I’m starting to believe you too. This is all just so bizarre!” she declared with a shake of her head, her messy curls bouncing off her cheekbones.