Slaughter Daughter by Eve Langlais
37
It was stupid to cry.After all, what made me think the professor was actually my dad? Maybe he forgot he was supposed to be my uncle.
He glanced at me, and in that gaze, I knew. My dad suddenly reappeared from the dead, wearing my professor’s body. I tried not to think of Men in Black and the Edgar suit.
If it was him, then why now? Why not years ago when my life went down the toilet?
Selena clapped. “Excellent disguise. I couldn’t suss you out at all.”
Could she see the colors, too? How did she not notice hers?
“I had time to perfect the spell.” The professor—aka Fake-Uncle and now Wrong-Faced-Daddy—kept moving, past Jag, then past Kalinda. As he moved, Selena spun me with her.
“You led me on a merry chase, Geoffrey. After Oklahoma, I almost lost faith. In the end, I didn’t find you, but I found the whore on the internet.”
“Lily wasn’t on social media,” my professor-daddy declared.
“But her child was.” Selena sneered at me. “I’m surprised you let her post.”
“She wasn’t supposed to,” was the professor’s snooty reply.
Or so I chose to hear it, because I couldn’t deal with a disappointed father. Could this all really be my fault? If I’d not gone through that selfie phase, would Selena have never found us?
“Tell me, how many times did I get close before our final encounter?”
“A few times,” he grudgingly admitted.
“Was that you in Sacramento a dozen or so years ago?”
“Yes,” he hissed.
Selena smiled. “Did you like the present I left in that church?”
If I recalled correctly from my study of the crimes, they’d found a pentagram etched on the altar, the white cloth soaked in blood.
“You’re out of control and need to be reined in,” Professor-Daddy declared. “You don’t have to die.”
The threat tilted Selena’s lips. “Kill me, and my family would be most put out.”
“With the evidence presented to the cabal, your family has already disowned you.”
“Another thing that is your fault.” Selena paced angrily, dragging my bobbing body behind.
“You could have been mature and just let me go.” Professor-Daddy stopped partway between Mary and Cashien. Odd until he held out his hand and it began to glow, pulling at the beams of light projecting from the weapons.
Selena lost her shit. “Don’t you dare try to contain me!”
“Let my daughter go.”
“Drop the containment field, or I’ll kill her.” The knife she’d pulled pressed against my neck, pricked. I bled.
“Last warning. Let her go, Selena.”
“I think not. Enjoy watching your daughter die.” The blade dug deeper into my flesh, and I waited for the slash.
Only to hear a loud pop.
Suddenly, Selena acquired a red third eye.
