Page 36 of Fighting Shadows

“So you were chained up too?” Brenn asks, his eyebrow raised in suspicion.

Sighing, I hold up my arm. The red chafe mark from the chain is stark against my pasty white skin. “We had matching. We were practically besties, just she barely spoke. Y’know, being unconscious and all.”

“Did you speak to her at all?” Atlas asks. The poor big guy looks destroyed, the others just as much, but he seems sadder somehow.

“She was lucid for a day, then in and out of it after that. I’m not sure what happened to her before I got there, but I know that she wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom for a few days after trying to escape. He said it was a punishment,” I tell them all.

A thundering roar comes from Zander as he punches a hole in the wall, his knuckles shredding from the splintered plaster and concrete. I sit there, still as a statue, with wide eyes, taking everything in that’s going on around me. They love her like they genuinely care about her, and a strange feeling takes up residence in my gut.

It's not jealousy; it’s longing to be a part of this. To be part of her life, to keep her safe from my dad’s clutches.

I was stuck in that room with her for four days. Four days of worrying about her day and night, feeling sick at the idea of her passing away while I slept.

Four days of listening to her breathing turn shallow, her lungs struggling to expand as the infection ran rampant through her body because ofhim.

I want my father dead.

I want him to suffer.

And I want to be there when it happens.

Chapter 19

Autumn

Everything hurts.

My lungs struggle to breathe for me as I stay up at the hospital ceiling once again, but this time, I have no idea how I got here.

The good news? There are no bandages on my wrist to indicate that I tried to kill myself again, so there’s that.

Did the stress from my fight with Dad cause this?

The door to the room opens, and Pops walks in, a cheerful smile on his face even though the tightness around his eyes suggests otherwise.

“We’ve missed you,” he says, picking up my chart as he does every time he walks in and I'm in a hospital room. Which seems to be a lot, “but we’re just glad to have you back.”

“What happened? The nurses won’t tell me anything.”

Doc’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. He drops the chart to the foot of the bed, sits next to me, and shuffles the plastic chair closer.

“What do you last remember?” he asks me, his tone serious.

“I got in the car with Ellie to go shopping, and then that’s it,” I tell him, “Did we get in an accident?”

“Fuck,” he mutters, dragging his hand over his face.

“Pops, you’re scaring me. What happened? Did we get in an accident?”

“I’m going to get your dad to come in and explain this to you,” he says.

“No!” I shout.

I don’t want to see him, the reminder that he left me there with her, with Charlie. It makes me feel sick to find out that he knew about the abuse. I can’t face him right now; the feelings are too raw.

I know if he were to walk in here, I would break because the little girl in me still wants her dad, and I don’t have that. I don’t think I ever did.

“Okay, no, Kelvin. What about Brenn? I would say the guys, but I don’t think they are level-headed enough to tell you everything calmly.”

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