He Caged Me for Fifteen Years novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Nobody Comes

I did not hide the paper.

I held both letters up in the moonlight where he could see them.

"You knew," I said.

Niall looked at the gray envelope, and then at my face.

"I knew about the first one," he said.

"You knew my father had a choice."

"I knew my father sent it."

"You knew I would be eighteen on the day it ran out."

"Yes."

"And you sat across from me at that table and let me wait for him to come."

"Maeve."

"Eleven days."

My voice cracked on it, and I hated that.

"You bandaged my back. You let me call him from Roxie's phone. You stood in the doorway and watched me hear him hang up."

"I wanted you to hear it from him."

"You wanted to watch."

"I wanted it to be him that told you, not me."

I held out the white sheet.

"Then read what he told Fergus."

He took it.

He read it standing in the doorway with the light of the hall behind him.

I saw the line land.

I watched the color leave his face, and his mouth open and shut.

"Take the girl," he said. It came out of him in a whisper.

"The third of June."

"He said no." He looked up at me. "I wrote him every week. He burned them. I thought he was only being proud. I thought if he saw you, he'd stand up."

"You did not know his answer."

"I swear to God, Maeve, I didn't."

I believed him.

That was the worst of it.

I believed him, and it did not change anything.

"Did you know about this?" I said, and I shook the gray letter. "The one dated March. The part that says one for one."

"I knew the ultimatum."

"And you took the knife anyway."

"I took the knife so my father's men wouldn't take you."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

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