❝ Sheep abide by the herd complex; safety in numbers. When all are the same, no one can be singled out.
A fox among sheep is able to infiltrate the herd only a handful of ways: under the veil of dusk, or by clothing itself as the prey, shedding i...
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JONAH'S WORLD CEASED to spin.
He killed my parents.
"Sorry, what?"
The expression of implying silence could suffocate an entire room had always been a peculiar one to Jonah, but the sensation of dense air solidifying in his windpipe made the saying come alive in ways he wished it didn't. His head snapped to where Peter sat opposite him, searching the man's face for any indication of falsehood. Jonah's heart plummeted when his front remained as unbending as the truth, stoic in certitude.
His words had shrivelled up in the arid passage of his throat, stifled by disbelief. Jonah had always been his father's boy; his petit chevalier, a play on their shared last name. If Jonah was his little knight, then Armand was his king. While the man still walked the earth with air in his lungs, Jonah had placed him on a pedestal meant for all things great and mighty. In his naïve eyes, he was a hero— and Jonah wanted to be just like him. Though death had stolen Armand away, time guarded his memory with vitality.
Having since grown into his personality— developing his own hobbies and quirks— maturity had mellowed Jonah's aspiration from being his father's clone, nevertheless, he'd made an impression that Jonah had carried with him into his teenage years. However, the glorified image of Armand he had crafted as a boy, shattered. Jonah was young when he died; too young. Perhaps he never truly knew him at all?
Hesitancy was preventing him from coming to terms with the statement. Withholding information was one thing— and the Dartmoores' former reasons Jonah could apprehend— but to blatantly deceive him? To make him question his father's past, whose timeline Jonah thought his mother had filled in the gaps for with the fondness of her memories and shoebox of tinted photographs tucked under her bed. Opal nor Peter had motive to lie to him, let alone conjure one that unwinded the remaining strings of affection that still shrouded Jonah's childhood.
Although he had died more than a decade ago, Jonah felt as if he was transported back to being a grieving six-year-old all over again. This time, he was mourning the image he had painted instead. From the very beginning, Jonah speculated Armand had wronged the family somehow; he shouldn't be surprised. But murder? Opal gave no gist of it being an accident.
He killed my parents. Her words hadn't been contorted to conceal another meaning, neither did Jonah's hearing fail him. As a firm believer in honesty above all, never had the truth been served to him so bitter.
Jonah had gotten comfortable being the third party, spectating the world around him from afar. There were a handful of times when his curiosity had followed him to his doorstep, but on this affair, the repercussions had taken a sledgehammer to his door, splintering what little of his objective approach had persisted.
Peter glanced at his niece. "Opal, perhaps you should give Jonah and I some space," he conveyed, the armchair creaking as he leaned to rest his elbows on his thighs.
