Dahlia♠️

Chapter 5:

"I had thought it was all behind me, but turns out Romilda had felt betrayed. Like she'd been cheated out of her ace card. She was a woman of up and coming social grace and well feared. Taking after her parents in their line of politics. It was her small dose of revenge to track me down and inform my father where I was. And my father felt obligated to pay me a visit. He felt I owed him for leaving.

When I was working he didn't make Thomas work and he didn't work too much either. I made the most of the home's income. That's why I was worked so much and hard. To maintain our middle class lifestyle. Which was hard with no special skills at 12. But when I left he claimed they lost the house. Thomas had to get a job. He left my father shortly too. He had nothing for years. So he was back demanding I had 3 days to come back with him and do exactly what I did as a child. Work to maintain him. I would legally have to based off just Romilda's word. And no one would question it."

James's eyes were intrigued and hooded. His lashes fanning over his cheeks like soot black feathers, " How did you get out of that? There was no way."

Archer gave a bitter laugh, "Just listen to the end and tell me you'll still hear me out? I didn't know what he had done until later on. It was too late."

He didn't know what look James might have given him. He already was looking at the ground. His voice strained even to his own ears. "I was really drunk. Trying to forget that my worst nightmare would be back in two days to take me. Your father might have seen a broken man or a pathetic wreck but he stopped to talk to me. At first it was about nothing just random topics. Weather, sports, America, the war, but his true interest was my problem. He seemed like such a pure kind man. He even spoke of his family at home. Of you. I never met anyone again with such a selfless demeanor." James snorted his face twisting in derision.

He continued speaking as if he hadn't been interrupted, "He finally got me speaking. I told him if my problem. He seemed truly concerned and sympathetic. He sat with me and drank the rest of the night. I passed out and woke up and he was gone. The next day passed by without a blink. And my final day had come. I had waited for my father to show but he never arrived. It wasn't until late that night I got a letter. From a Stephen Harding. Telling me what he had done. He had waited and headed my father off. Asked for what price it would cost to get him to leave me alone and never speak to me again. He didn't say how much he paid, but I could imagine it was a significant amount if it made my father leave me alone like that. I really never heard of him again until 4 years later that he had died."

James was white faced, his mouth a hard thin line. Archer watched him apprehensively, "James, I never thought-."

"It was you."

"Um...what was me?" Archer asked confused. He flicked back in his head momentarily trying to remember what he said.

"It was your fault. That everything happened. That everything went to shit and fell apart. That my family is in pieces." James had spun to face him. He was trembling in anger, tense with hands clenched. His jaw tight and eyes like hardened slate.

Archer's mouth fell open and closed. He took a step back in wariness before his chest tightened like wire. He wasn't about to take this. He offered help only to have it repeatedly smacked away like a whelp, "Every choice your father ever made was his own. I never asked him for anything. I never even saw him again after that night. I assumed it was a kind miraculous act from a stranger. But don't you dare come at me playing the victim here. I'm sorry if it may have caused you some minor inconvenience. But I have done nothing wrong. And I won't take blame for everything you've done wrong in your life." His eyes flashed like fire.

He never had much patience for children. Much less a spoiled brat who thought he owed him something he wasn't even at fault for. His mistakes were his own. It took maturity to take responsibility for your own actions. But James didn't look like he wanted to back down. He looked angrier than ever. He looked unearthly in the shadows cast on his face. His head wasn't down now. He looked him straight in the eye trapping him like a hook. Archer felt those tunnels burying him. He was catching his breath in his throat. The look of someone who could make a deal with the devil, and still come out on the winning side.