Spider's Game ((Book One) #Wattys2016 Winner!)

Chapter 6- Consequences

The countess slapped her husband's hand. A sob escaped her lips before they pressed back together. The glass crashed to the ground scattering glass and little amber droplets over the pale carpet. The couple glared at each other before the countess lifted her hands to her eyes and sobs wracked her body. The count turned from her to the wall, his shoulders stiff.

The nearly silent tears tore at wounds hidden deep within Berrick. That hopeless grief waited under the surface for him, never more than a thought away. In those little gasping breaths, he saw Polly, cold, gray and ugly in death. Only her red curls pretending to life-- blood splattered from several holes in her chest. Berrick witnessed Petyr as he must have been before he died, alone, terrified and splattered with his mother's blood. Suffering for a crime he didn't commit. Petyr's existence was the crime.

"God, I'm sorry. We'll find whoever did this," Berrick said.

I'll kill them. They'll pay for hurting Marim, for crippling Darith. Since Darith's birth, Berrick had been there to watch him learn to write and hunt. Darith had been a rock for Marim when Berrick broke down after they found Petyr's body. And now someone had taken that prideful young man's future and shredded it. What kind of monster harms a kid?

He couldn't pursue the ones who hurt Peytr. Even knowing who they were, he could do nothing but these, the ones who hurt Marim, he could exact revenge from.

"I think you know who did this, Father." Marim emerged from the shadows of the doorway.

Her words slipped through Barrick's ears. The countess's flare of anger also swam by. Nothing took root in his mind except for the frail, changed child in front of him. A contagion corrupted her, and left a black streak creeping down her once fiery orange locks. Marim's altered hair tumbled over her bony shoulders. Clear as day, Silvia left her mark.

Marim wore her night dress, but despite being dressed for sleep, her eyes were rimmed with circles as dark as kohl lining. He had only stayed away for a short while, but his daughter was a different creature. Her eyes made him shiver, and then Marim's legs crumpled, and she toppled to the ground in a pool of white lace.

The countess screamed, and everyone else rushed to Marim.

***

Berrick sat by her bedside, silently watching as Marim came to in her borrowed bed. If he could have helped her open her heavy, drugged eyes, he would have. Instead he put his hand on hers. Alive, she was alive but the dark in her hair was a calling card that things could have gone differently. He turned his badge over and over in his hand— useless. After all he'd sacrificed, all the anger and pain he'd buried, his title was useless to help him once again.

Marim pulled herself to a half-sitting position and fixed him with an imploring stare. From many investigations over the years, Berrick knew that look. His sweet little girl didn't think he would believe her. Possibly, she didn't believe her own memories.

That was easy to understand. From what he could gather from the count, everything Marim remembered about the night was implausible, vague, or both.

"Please, have they found the people who hurt Darith?" Marim asked.

"No. Who are they, Marim? The count says you don't remember." According to the police report, she remembered things, just not anything that made sense. But if he said that, she would shut down and tell him nothing. He wanted to believe her.

"I recall dancing." She closed her eyes. "You'll believe me, Daddy. Won't you?"

Berrick winced. Once she turned ten, she'd stopped calling him Daddy. From then on, he'd been Father. She'd begun to call him Father as they stood over her mother's coffin.