Page 134 of Dark Endures

“Hello.” An older woman steps up next to me.

“Hello.” Did I meet her? I don’t remember her from the schedule. Though I was pretty loopy for a few days.

“My name is Emilia. May I join you?”

Why do I think that wasn’t really a question? “Of course. I’m—”

“I know who you are. I know everything about my boys—even though Louisella keeps trying to claim Maddox—he’s one of my sons.”

This woman is Maddox’s mother? She looks too old to have a son Maddox’s age. I mean, it’s possible. But she seems more like a grandmother than a mother.

“But that’s neither here nor there. I heard about your attack.”

The world has, it seems.

“Why won’t you tell anyone who it is? Why isn’t that man rotting in a jail cell somewhere?”

I shrug. Because it’s easier to pretend nothing happened, than it is to shout it to the world. I want my life to go back the way it was. And if I put him in jail, nothing will ever be the same for me again.

She reaches out and takes my hand in hers. “I can see the pain in your eyes. A very long time ago, I was engaged to a manwho enjoyed hurting women. No one else saw it. To them, he was a powerful young man with lots of money and good connections. The perfect man for their daughter to marry. But I saw it. Almost from the beginning, I saw the evil in his eyes when no one else seemed to. When we were kids, he’d bring me frogs and lizards that he killed in a horrible way. But people passed that off as boys will be boys. Then, when we were older, I always seemed to get hurt when I was with him, be it a branch to the face, tripping over nothing, or something falling on me when there wasn’t anything around to fall on me. I knew there was something evil about him. So, I found a man who was good and ran away rather than telling the world who the evil man was. He went on to kill several women that I know of and almost destroyed my family.”

“He was a sociopath.”

“I think so. I don’t know what’s going on in your head after that man hurt you, and right now, it might seem like a good idea to stay silent. But silence is never the right path when it comes to things like these.”

“But what if he’s a good man? A pillar of society. One little mistake shouldn’t destroy his life.” That is, if anyone believes me.

“Is this—” She looks me up and down. “—a little mistake? Or is it the start of many acts of violence against women? If you don’t stand up, you won’t know until another woman finds the courage to do it.”

Guilt wars with self-preservation. Mom always taught me to protect myself first. To let other women take care of themselves.

“I’ve given you a lot to think about for now.” She stands up. “I’ll expect to start seeing you at family dinners on Sundays soon.”

Family dinners? My life is so weird.

Reporting him will have long-lasting effects on my life.

And what if this was one drunken mistake?

I need to figure everything out.

Stop Her

Mindy

A long while later, Maddox walks back. “Are you ready to eat?”

Not really. “Sure.”

“I thought you might enjoy dinner with the snakes since it’s been so long since you’ve seen them.”

“That was so thoughtful of you. I’d love to see them again.” And pretend for a little while longer that everything is going to be normal.

Maddox leads me up to his office, where there’s a table already set up right in the middle. Someone even arranged for there to be flowers in the middle of the table. But even prettier than the table are the beauties surrounding it. “They all look the same.”

“They basically are, except Peaches laid her eggs. We’ve got them boxed up in a special case to keep them warm.”

“You’re going to be a daddy, or is it a grandpa?”

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