Page 78 of Shuttered Hearts

“I can call Caleb,” I offer quietly.

Declan looks down at Tyler. “Who did this?” he asks, his voice gentle.

“It doesn’t matter.” Tyler’s voice has gotten quieter.

“We don’t have time for this. Grab my keys. We’ll take him ourselves.”

I do as Declan says, running to grab his keys and helping him get Tyler out to his truck. “Get in the back with him. I’m going to grab shoes and a shirt.” Declan runs back inside, returning in under a minute, my shoes in his hand.

I look down at Tyler’s head in my lap. His left eye is swollen shut, he’s cradling his right arm, and his breaths sound raspy and shallow—I’m instantly taken back to my attack.

“Tyler,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeats, his voice quiet.

“Of course it does.” I gently push his hair off his forehead and look up, catching Declan’s eye in the rearview mirror.

“It won’t change anything.” Tyler’s voice brings my eyes back to his.

“What won’t change anything?”

“No one cares what happens to me.”

“That’s not true. Tyler, you’re important. No matter what anyone else has said or done, you are important,” I tell him urgently.

He looks up at me through his right eye—a black eye forming there too—studying me, like he’s trying to decide if I’m telling him the truth.

“What happened, Tyler?”

“My mom. I-I didn’t fight back, but she just kept hitting me. She wouldn’t stop.” His voice cracks, and I see a tear leak out of the corner of his eye.

“Okay. It’s okay. It’ll never happen again,” I tell him, tears forming in my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. This moment isn’t about me, it’s about Tyler, and right now, this boy needs to feel seen. Something I don’t think he’s ever felt before. “We’ve got you now.”

thirty-six

DECLAN

“You can see him now,”Caleb says, walking into the waiting room where Quinn and I have been sitting in for the last couple of hours.

Quinn jumps up from her seat. “Is he okay?”

“He’s going to be okay.” He reaches for her, pulling her into a hug.

I know this is different from what happened to Quinn in New York, but I can see the memories this brings up for them in both of their eyes.

“He’s got a lot of cuts and bruises, a broken wrist, a few broken ribs, and a pretty bad concussion,” Caleb says as he pulls back from Quinn. “He won’t say what happened, only that she kept hitting him. If I had to guess, I’d say it was with a baseball bat.” Caleb’s jaw clenches, trying to control his anger.

“Oh!” Quinn gasps, hugging her arms around herself.

“Have you called Child Protective Services?” I ask, moving closer to Quinn and placing my hand at the base of her neck.

“Yeah, and the police. They’ll want to speak with both of you and Tyler when they get here.”

“What’s going to happen to him?” Quinn asks quietly.

“He’ll be here for a couple of days for observation, but after that, it will depend on if he has any other family. He may go into the foster system.”

Quinn turns to me, and I don’t have to ask what she’s thinking. A foster home is the last place he needs to be, especially at his age. He’ll likely be placed in a group home, not with a family. And for a kid who thinks no one cares about him? It could irrevocably change him for the worse. If he ends up with the right people now, there’s still time for him to come back from everything his parents have done to him. There’s still time for him to learn not all people are bad. But I fear he won't learn those valuable lessons if he doesn’t get the love and attention he needs now.

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