Father Complex (Hazard and Somerset: Arrows in the Hand, #4)

by Gregory Ashe

Does everyone feel like they open their mouth and someone else is speaking for them?

You did what you could, which felt like fuck-all sometimes, and then all you could do was wait and watch and hope.

The words invited a response: they were a childlike fantasy of security, the product of adolescent love, the untested assumption that this feeling, because it was so deep, was strong and true.

Why not? Hazard thought, and he felt himself teetering on the brink of that manic laughter again. Why not? Why the fuck not? He knocked the shit out of you anytime he could get you in arm’s reach. He about beat John to death. He’s a liar and an abusive asshole, and whatever he wants from you, he’ll only hurt you worse, and I can’t stand it, seeing him hurt you again and again, because I’d rather die first than let anyone hurt you.

Another wry smile. A shrug. It was the curse, Somers knew firsthand, of being too good-looking and, on top of it, smart. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you could smile your way out of anything.

“What do you care?” I stay awake thinking about all the wrong turns life can take, Hazard thought. That’s why.

I’m scared, he thought, not brave enough to say the words out loud, that Ashley will break your heart over and over again, and I don’t know how to keep you safe from that.

That had happened too, he thought. Along with all the rest of it. That was his father too.