Payback's A Nightmare | ✔

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH

"Do you need anything else?" asked Evelina's father as he carefully placed a cup of hot steaming slumberberry tea onto her bedside table.

She gazed at the amethyst-coloured liquid pooling in the flora-patterned mug, not sure what to say. She'd requested the tea on a half-hearted whim, and truthfully she didn't like sedatives, thanks to her mother's phobia of them. She'd always set aside sedatives and restricted her to drink slumberberry tea unless it was an emergency.

It was a kind of unwritten rule in their family.

But then, her mother's opinion didn't really matter anymore...did it?

Sophie had wanted to throw away her family just like that, just to go along with Fitz. If she didn't consider them to be family, why should Evelina?

"No," she said, hating how hoarse her voice sounded.

She cleared her throat, then tried again, avoiding his eyes as she mumbled under her breath, "I don't need anything else."

I just need this all to be over.

Even though she didn't say this out loud, Keefe seemed to know what she was feeling anyway—and Evelina knew it had nothing to do with him being an Empath. He placed a warm hand on her shoulder, forcing her to direct her gaze to land on him.

"Hey," he whispered. The two pairs of ice blue eyes met each other for three long seconds. "It's all going to be okay."

She tore her gaze away from him, sure that if she looked at his sorry state any longer she was going to burst out weeping again.

"Are you so sure?" she mumbled, running her hands through her waist-length hair—which suddenly felt too long. She felt the moisture well up in her eyes once again—surprised that she still had tears left to cry. Her eyesight turned blurry, and her father's outline turned fainter and fainter.

"I thought after what happened in the museum, everything was going to be okay," she cried, her voice choking as she clenched her fists till her knuckles turned white, squeezing her eyes so hard that tears slipped out and streaked down her cheeks in rivulets. "But obviously I didn't think through it all. After feeling so proud and great about myself, I'm really just someone else who's too inexperienced for this life. I couldn't handle Sophie, or Fitz, and even though I poured out my feelings and emotions about them, they really don't seem like they'd change their minds."

She let her sobs rack her body, burying her drenched face into her hands. But after a while of silence, she felt herself being laid back onto her soft bed. As she sunk her tired and aching head into her pillow, she blinked her eyes open warily to see her father smiling sadly down at her.

"Evelina...don't think you're the only one having problems with their relationships. Everyone faces that hurdle—it's an inevitable, never ending stage of life. People have different thinking and different mind-set. Some can even be so stubborn to insist their way, and you can't change that. We're all inexperienced at this when we let our emotions get the better of us. And trust me, as an Empath, I really do know how easy it is to let our negative emotions take charge of us, even for an elf. You'd be surprised what an elf can turn his or her back on without breaking.

"What I'm trying to say here is, Fos—Sophie has her own reasons for what she is doing, and I can't exactly say that I approve of how she feels"—his voice cracked for a moment, and he had to swallow in a deep breath before continuing-"but I still have to accept her decision because it is her choice. And once someone is bent on doing something, it's very hard to stop them. So please. For Sophie's sake, please stop berating her. I know she is wrong...but..." He looked away, his voice turning softer and softer as he whispered, "I love her too much, and so as long as she's happy, I'll be ready to accept whatever choice she makes."