WARNING: This chapter hints toward sexual content and incest. Discretion is highly advised!

Jimmy caressed Elina's face gently, meeting sheer ugliness with pure beauty as she gazed up at him with those fiery hazel-green eyes. Pity and sympathy were infused in the fires of her pupils, but he wanted to prove to her that he loved her both as a father and as something much more profound. She didn't seem very happy, but he was relieved to see her blush ever so slightly, the soft pink coloring in her cheeks making her cheekbones stand out even more.

"Elina?" he asked.

"What?"

"I love you," he repeated, kissing the corner of her eye where remnants of her tears stuck to her soft, marble-toned skin. She turned her eyes downward to her feet, her full, black eyelashes making her ethereal face look all the more beautiful as he looked down at her. She didn't say a word, but let her mind race a thousand miles per hour. This is wrong, she thought, why the hell don't I have the balls to force him away with my powers?

"Elina, I know this is really weird," Jimmy said. "If anything, I'm probably scaring you."

"No," she replied.

"Then," he began, lifting her chin up to meet his eyes with hers. "Why aren't you talking to me?"

"I don't know, dad," she replied.

"If you don't feel the same way, I understand," he said finally. "I just..." He sighed softly, breathing out through his nose, "want to prove to you how much...I care about you, because I love you, and I care about your feelings more than my own."

"If you say that, why don't you act on it and get away from me?" Elina asked harshly, releasing her arms so their embrace could end; Jimmy seemed reluctant.

"Because...I don't ever want to be distant from you again. I won't let anybody or anything hurt you," he replied tearfully. "I haven't felt that way since...oh, a long time. When she died, the words had no meaning. Now, they do."

"So, let me get one thing straight," Elina said, maintaining poor eye contact with her father. "You never wanted me to see boys for this reason? Is that why you've been such a hog all these years?"

"No," Jimmy said. "I never wanted you to be hurt by some scumbag who would use you for one night only to dump you and never talk to you again. I'd have to rip their balls off."

"Yet that's what you've been doing since we came here. Sleeping with random girls, never the same one twice in a row," Elina sneered. Jimmy sighed at her, looking into her eyes and walking closer to her.

"Elina, I've been trying to take out my...frustrations on them. Also, it was consensual. One woman paid me, even. We needed the money. So...you know," Jimmy explained. "Three hundred bucks I got from her."

"I don't believe you," Elina replied, scowling her face meanly. "That makes you a scumbag, then, right?"

"No, it doesn't matter anymore," Jimmy said haughtily.

"It kinda does if you say you love me in that way," Elina said, her fiery eyes delving into his.

"No, it's not. I stopped sleeping with women two weeks ago. I was probably too drunk to think about sex and...I...I...I kept thinking about you," he said, directing a loving gaze down at his daughter.

"Ew," she scoffed. "Disgusting."

"It's not disgusting, Elina. Yeah, you're my daughter, but if I love you very much, it won't matter," he replied.

"Actually, it does." She was testing him now. "What if I told you I hated your guts and called you a dirty old man?"

"Then I know you'd still love me because I'm your father, and not for any other reason. We'd move on with our lives as if this never happened," Jimmy responded. She chuckled and rolled her eyes, redirecting her gaze up at her father as she pushed her voluminous, curled blonde hair back.

"So let's pretend you never told me you loved me," Elina suggested with a mean undertone in her voice. "You're still getting help, though."

"I can't hide how I feel. I wanted you to know, and for many reasons," Jimmy replied, taking one of her beautiful hands in his deformed, fused-fingered one.

"What's one?" she asked; now she was being very testy.

"Because...if you love someone, you don't hide secrets from them," he told her, taking her hand and kissing it gently; he saw her face blush ever so slightly again. He took a moment to take in the image of her ethereal, pure beauty. "Elina?"

"What?" Her gaze didn't look so cruel and biting anymore-the normal fires of a normal mood blazed in her hazel-green eyes.

"Close your eyes," he said softly. "Relax. Can you do that?"

"What are you going to do?" Elina asked suspiciously, licking her lower lip softly and biting it before releasing it.

"Don't look," he said, trying to charm her. "Just feel."

"So do you promise not to ever drink again?" Elina asked-he seemed to be missing the point of why she yelled at him like a scorpion lashing its spiky tail. She wanted him to stop drinking and acting like a catatonic, delirious, inebriated waste of air. Period.

"I promise," Jimmy replied. "For you. I'll quit cold turkey."

"Good," she said. "And if I ever find Smirnoff or Jack Daniels in the fridge or even see you take a sip to your lips, I will leave. Trust me on that."

Jimmy looked at her sadly-she really was set on leaving just an hour before after she got him sober with her healing powers. Luckily, he was there to stop her and he even went the extra mile to tell her how he truly felt about her other than having the unconditional love of a father. He looked in her eyes and held her close to him, sighing softly and nodding.

"Alright," he said quietly. "I'll even start finding a job tomorrow. Hopefully, there's something."

"There will be," Elina said with a breath. "All you have to do is look."