“No.” Raven strode toward the door, and the others followed. The hallway was dark, but there was a hint of shuffling coming from the study next door. Raven’s father was awake. As Raven turned to face the three of them, a terrible feeling blossomed in Belle’s stomach. A feeling of warning. A feeling of loss. “I have to do this alone,” Raven said.

Then he was gone.

27 The King of the Castle

Raven’s father was sitting in the study, drinking whiskey in the dark. Three fingers, no fat. Raven smiled at the thought, remembering the first time he’d heard his father order whiskey at a party. Raven had spent the rest of the evening joking about sipping giggle juice and feeling three sheets to the wind.

He’d been five.

He was seventeen now, and that meant, in the eyes of the state, he was almost a man. When he entered the study, his father rose from his desk and walked over to the bottle of whiskey on a corner table. Poured Raven a drink. A moment later, Raven was holding the glass in his hand, swirling the liquid around nervously.

When his father sat, he did the same. They stared at each other across the wide expanse of the desk. Dr. Holloway’s office had been stolen from an era where assistants were called secretaries and sexual harassment law hadn’t been invented. The chairs were leather. The desk, a dark mahogany wood. As Raven leaned forward, his elbows resting on the edge of the desk, he asked himself how well he really knew the man in front of him.

His mother had made him omelets. His mother had taught him how to swim. But his father had always been there, hovering in the background, offering encouragement when he wasn’t working at the hospital. He’d supported his family, and he’d helped plant a garden in Jack’s backyard. He couldn’t have done what Raven suspected.

“How’s the sleepover?” Dr. Holloway asked, taking a sip of his drink. Raven did the same. Even now, he couldn’t help but want his father’s approval. His love. “I don’t think I’ve had a good night’s sleep in the past four years.”

Sleep deprivation, Raven thought, taking another sip. That could explain some things. It could explain a lot. Prisoners of war were kept awake for days on end because their captors believed the lack of sleep would break them.

More often than not, it did.

“I couldn’t sleep after Mom died.” The whiskey burned in Raven’s throat. His eyes stung, and he told himself it was because he wasn’t used to drinking alcohol. He wasn’t about to break down. “I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t eat, and you sent me away instead of helping me.”