Where The Ice Gives Way (Charlotte and Blake) novel Chapter 245

Chapter 245 The Name I’d Hoped I’d Never Call

Callum

I watch my daughter as she slowly unravels, and I know this is my fault.

I have done this to her.

Jessica sits curled in the corner of the couch with a blanket pulled around her shoulders, one hand pressed to the centre of her chest, her

eyes fixed on nothing. The television is on, but she has not watched a single second of it.

She looks exhausted.

I know that look because I have spent seventeen years fearing it.

Elena stands in the kitchen pretending to wipe the same clean bench for the third time. She keeps glancing toward less, her fingers white

around the cloth, her face too carefully calm. She has always been better at pretending than me. Better at smoothing her voice, softening

the room, making fear look like ordinary concern.

But tonight, even she is fraying at the edges.

Jess shifts on the couch and winces, and my heart gives one hard, painful thud.

“Jess?” Elena asks at once. “Sweetheart?”

“I’m fine,” Jess says.

She is not.

I see the way her fingers press against her chest, confused and irritated, as if she is trying to quiet something under her skin. The spell

was never supposed to hurt her. It was supposed to hold. It was supposed to keep her safe and give her a normal life.

The doorbell rings, and Jess flinches so hard the blanket slips from her shoulder.

I move to open the door.

Charlotte stands on the porch, bundled in a jacket too big for her, blonde hair tucked around her face, cheeks pink from the cold. She looks younger than the rumours make her out to be. Younger than any child carrying that much power should ever have to look.

Her eyes lift to mine, polite and nervous.

11:18 Wed, Jul 29

Chapter 245 The Name I’d Hoped I’d Never Call

I stand frozen in front of her, because the second she steps close, something old in me recognises her.

Apparently blood remembers what fear tries to forget.

White woll.

The rumours are true,

“She’s inside,” I say, stepping back. “Come in.”

Charlotte hesitates, like she can feel my fear, but then she gives a small nod and steps over the threshold.

Jess looks up the second Charlotte enters.

“Hey,” Charlotte says gently.

Jess tries to smile. “Hey.”

Elena moves closer to me in the hallway, and we watch as Charlotte goes to the couch.

Then Charlotte reaches for the blanket that slipped from Jess’s shoulder and gently tucks it back around her.

Jess looks down at the movement, and something in her face softens.

That is what undoes me.

My daughter being comforted by the very thing I spent her whole life trying to hide her from.

Elena’s hand closes around my wrist.

“We need to talk,” she whispers.

We move into the kitchen, far enough to give the girls privacy, but close enough that I can still hear if Jess becomes distressed. Elena

braces both hands on the bench and drops her head.

“It’s happening,” she says.

I close my eyes.

11:18 Wed, Jul 29

Chapter 245 The Name I’d Hoped I’d Never Call

Elena looks at me. “Callum.”

1 look back toward the lounge room where Charlotte is speaking too softly for me to hear. Jess is listening now. Her hand is stilt at bay

chest, but her shoulders are not quite so tight.

“The boy,” Elena says. “Charlie. He did this.”

I drag a hand over my mouth. “Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe about it.” Her voice cracks, and she presses her lips together before trying again. “Look at her. She has been restless at

day. She keeps touching her chest. She keeps hearing things before I do. When I dropped a spoon earlier, she nearly came out of her

skin.”

I remember it.

Jess was standing in the kitchen doorway, pale and furious, asking why everything was so loud.

I look at my daughter. The little girl I raised. The girl I carried on my shoulders, who begged for skates and fell over a hundred times

before she learned how to fly across the ice. The girl I tucked into bed, kissed on the forehead, and promised I would always keep her

safe.

I look at Charlotte beside her.

A rumour made real.

A danger survived.

“We need to get her help, Callum,” Elena says, touching my arm. “She needs help.”

I lean back against the bench, suddenly too tired to keep pretending there is another choice.

“If we tell her,” I say quietly, “she will hate us.”

Elena’s eyes shine. “Maybe.”

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