They Threw Me Away at Twelve, So I Came Home Undefeated novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Miracle

Thora lets her father parade her for the press, then reads the release he wants signed; her old bedroom has a lock on the outside.

My father had not aged a day.

Silver hair, navy coat, the same warm face he wore on billboards and on Sunday mornings in church.

He pulled me into his arms in the rain, and the camera light swung onto us.

"My girl," he said, and his voice broke exactly on cue. "My girl, my girl."

I stood stiffly in his arms.

His hand slid down to my elbow and squeezed it, hard.

That was how he had always steered me through a room.

"Smile," he whispered into my hair.

The reporter pushed a microphone between us.

"Mr. Thornquist, is it true? Your daughter was reported dead five years ago?"

"A tragedy," my father said, and wiped his eye with a thumb. "A fever, and a foreign hospital, and a nightmare of paperwork. We grieved for years."

He turned me gently toward the lens.

"But I never stopped searching. And tonight, by the grace of God, my Thora was found."

"Found where?" the reporter asked me.

My father's grip tightened on my elbow.

I looked straight into the camera.

"Under a warehouse," I said. "In a cage."

Nobody laughed.

The reporter blinked, and my father let out a short, warm chuckle and talked right over me.

"She has been through so much. She needs rest, and she needs her family. That's all for tonight, folks."

He steered me into the back of the car, and Rhett climbed in after us and slammed the door.

Perry got into the second car alone.

The moment the glass went up, my father's face changed.

The warmth went out of it all at once.

"Take that off," he said.

"Take what off?"

"The look. You're not a street dog in my car."

In the front seat, a man in a gray suit turned around with a leather folder on his knee.

My father's lawyer.

He had been at our house every Christmas of my childhood, and he had never once looked me in the eye.

He did not look me in the eye now.

"This is a voluntary release," he said to the folder. "It confirms that during your absence your father managed your shares of the company in good faith, and that you make no claim for the period."

"My shares."

"The ten percent your grandfather left each grandchild," my father said. "Held in trust, and voted by me until you turn twenty-five."

"Which you voted for five years."

"Which I protected for five years, while you were being found in a basement."

I looked down at the paper in the lawyer's hand.

The page was thick, with a yellow tab already stuck where my name went.

I read the first paragraph under the dome light.

It said a doctor had certified my death nine days after I left home.

Nine days.

Under my name, there was a line for a witness.

"If I sign this," I said slowly, "what happens to the grave?"

Nobody answered me.

"Dad. Did you search?"

"Every day," my father said, without blinking.

Rhett smirked out the window.

I took the folder from the lawyer's hands before he could stop me.

"I'll read it first."

"It's standard."

"Then you won't mind."

My father's jaw worked.

For a moment I thought he would take it back by force, with Rhett holding my arm.

Instead he smiled, thin and patient, and reached over and patted my knee.

"Read it," he said. "You'll sign it Friday, at dinner. In front of your grandmother."

The car turned a corner, and the gates of our house came up out of the rain.

I had not seen them since I was twelve.

They were taller than I remembered.

My mother was waiting on the front steps in a pale robe with her arms wrapped around her chest.

She came down two steps and stopped.

She looked at my braid, and my arms, and the tape on my hands.

"You're so strong," she whispered. "You look so strong."

She did not touch me.

She did not say sorry, and she did not say my name.

A woman in a gray uniform took my bag from my hand and led me up the stairs.

The hallway smelled of lemon polish.

At the end of it, the woman opened the door of my old bedroom.

It had been painted white and filled with fresh flowers and a bed made up with a new quilt.

I stepped inside, and then I turned around.

The woman was already pulling the door shut.

Through the narrowing gap, I saw a brass bolt on the outside of the door, one that had never been there before.

I heard it slide home.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend