V - part one

I’d resorted to counting the bugs that’d smashed themselves on the windshield as Ian drove in silence beside me, the tension between us so palpable that it filled up the entire car.

It was all I could do to stop myself from voicing every single thought that raced through my head at the moment.

Part of me was definitely still pissed about the bitchfight inside my grandmother’s study, but surprisingly that wasn’t what occupied my mind most at the moment – my confusion over the questions he’d dropped afterwards somehow trumping my anger over the whole run-in with the stranger. My head was swimming with questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answers to.

Like why Ian and his father knew the contents of my grandmother’s jewelry box.

And what the hell gave them the right to know where those contents now were.

“So when your father said ‘retrieve it’…” I started carefully, my face still angled towards the passenger’s side window. The trees outside were shooting by in a flash. “Are you going to tell me what he meant by that, exactly?”

It didn’t slip my attention that we were driving way too fast, nor did I miss how rigid Ian’s posture was in my peripheral. It took him a few seconds to answer.

“I don’t want you worry about that right now, sugar”, he finally clipped as he eased himself deeper into his leather seat, a short exhale escaping his lips. “Today wasn’t easy for you. All you need to know at the moment is that I am dropping you off at my parents’ place for a bit, and then I’m going to send a driver for you later tonight. I’ll explain everything else when we’re meeting with my father.”

His tone was void of most emotion as he said it. If he hoped for that to diffuse the situation, though, he was shit outta luck with me.

I turned my head with a frown. The stoicism in his expression told me everything he didn’t want to say out loud.

Oh, he had to be fucking kidding me.

“You have to be fucking kidding me”, I repeated out loud, the sentence coming out in a single breath as I leaned forward to try and catch his gaze. I didn’t care that he was driving. I just needed him to look me in the eyes. “Ian, come on... You’ve got to be reasonable about this.”

“Fin baby, you have no idea what you’re—”

“Don’t”, I cut him off. “Don’t pretend something is outside my grasp just because you don’t want to talk about it. I know you don’t like going against your father’s wishes, but I am going to have to insist that you make an exception this time. What he’s asking of you is beyond unreasonable.”

Not to mention illegal, a voice chimed in the back of my head, but I didn’t add that; didn’t feel it was entirely my place to at the moment. It wasn’t the main point anyway.

“Fin baby, I can’t, okay? It’s not up for discussion.”

There was a desperation to Ian’s words, but I couldn’t find it in me to be compassionate at the moment. Not when we were discussing disturbing my grandmother’s eternal rest for what was arguably the second time today.

Not up for discussion? He bet.

“You dig her up, and so help me God, you and your father are going into that casket next.”

The silence that followed between us was so heavy it was stifling.

I glared at Ian in warning. He sneered at the windshield as if he considered using the brakes and my head to shatter it.

“This!” He suddenly broke out into a loud growl, taking such a sharp turn that I jolted in my seat. His knuckles had gone white around the steering wheel. “This is why I don’t tell you shit, Fin! I can’t involve you in anything without you judging me for it. I know it isn’t ideal. I don’t even want to do it, but fuck do you have no clue what you are talking about. If you knew how much trouble that necklace could get you in you’d be happy to have us handle it. Trust me this once, okay? Make yourself a bath at my parents’ place or whatever, and let the men of the family handle it.”

My lips had formed a small ‘o’.

Maybe he even had a point about the judging, but what he was asking of me was simply impossible. Trust him? How could I, when every word that left his lips just seemed to make the situation worse.

What were we even talking about at this point, a horcrux?

“Oh, the men of the family”, I finally singled in on the last part of his rant, opting for a tight-lipped scowl to go with my obvious disdain. “How silly of feeble, girly me. That settles it then. Not like you are trying to steal from my grandmother or anything.”

“She’s dead sugar”, he deadpanned. “It’s hardly stealing if she’s decomposing six feet below the ground. I promise you she won’t feel a thing.”

“Just dead, and you’re talking about illegally excavating a body as if it’s on par with getting your balls waxed. That’s sick, Ian.”

I shifted in my seat until I was pushed all the way up to the passenger side door – my head angled towards the window again. My chest felt like it was brimming with annoyance. I wasn’t sure what else to do or say anymore.

“I don’t wax my balls, and I have no clue what you are talking about. I take digging your grandmother up very seriously.”

Now that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Not the balls-waxing part – my dentist could never accuse me of not flossing again – but the part where he’d admitted to genuinely planning to go through with this, and knowing there was only one thing I could do to stop him.

It’s just a stupid trinket, a voice in the back of my head whispered. And possibly the only heirloom you’re going to get, another voice rebutted.

I needed to just get over myself already.

“Stop the car a moment. Let’s talk about this, please.” I swallowed as I moved my eyes back to the road, his parent’s house with its pearly white fence already looming up in the distance before us. I had absolutely no desire to take this party inside.

“I don’t want to hear it anymore Fin”, Ian replied from between a clenched jaw, the grinding of his teeth audible in his voice. “If I won’t do it, my father will just get someone else to. He’s going to get his hands on that thing either way.”

He turned so that we were angling for the driveway. With a push of a button on his phone the gates began to open.

The words lay on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t know why I was being so unreasonably hesitant about voicing them. I had a way to stop him. It wasn’t like the necklace was worth so much to me that I was prepared to destroy our relationship over it.

Right?

I forced my lips to move before I cowered. “No, listen to me. You won’t have to, alright? Just— Just promise me you won’t be mad, or whatever. Promise me you won’t be more mad.”

My fingers were trembling inside the pocket of my jumpsuit. Pénélope was already waiting for us at the front door. If I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of his family, and I didn’t want my grandmother to become the new mummy, I was going to have to fess up.

This was going to get awkward.

Ian shot me a look from the side, but he didn’t respond; the decrease in the car’s speed the only answer I was going to get.

“Fine”, I sighed as I waved at his mother, and then I wrapped the chain around my fingers, tugging at it until it slipped out of my pocket. I rose it up only just high enough for him to see it. The black stone swung around in circles.

“Don’t judge, okay?”