Page 143 of Wasted
He was a bully.
He was like her dad.
Shock hit Cillian harder than the wind, stopping him in his tracks. His throat swelled with disbelief. And disgust.
He fought against bullies. His whole mission in life, his career, everything he did was about freeing victims from people who abused power to get what they wanted. People who manipulated and controlled others.
But somehow, sometime, maybe even while trying to beat the bullies, he’d become one himself.
Memories from his childhood and beyond shifted quickly through his mind. He’d been able to see what the adults around him couldn’t, from as early as he could remember. He saw what drugs were doing to his mother, how she sold herself to the addiction. He saw how she abused and used him to get more supply. He’d known that the men who came in and out of their lives were using her, too.
But he’d been too smart to let them bully him. And he’d decided he would never let anyone else go through what he had. Because he knew what was right.
He knew how to tell when a kid was lying or the adults were. He knew how to use leverage, intimidation, or persuasion to outwit bullies at their own game. He’d freed so many kids from the abuse and control of people in power. He had a perfect record since becoming a social worker.
Didn’t matter how he got that, did it? As long as he was in the right, doing the right thing, it was all good.
But had he always been right? The Mason Blunt case leaped to his mind.
Cillian had freed Mason from the control of a stepfather who had left the boy stranded in the ocean to teach him toughness. Mason had been wearing a life jacket that, combined with a kind stranger who had come along and brought Mason to shore in a boat, saved the boy’s life.
Once Peter Blunt had realized how much trouble he was in, the stepfather became apologetic, promising Cillian he wouldn’t do anything like that again. A far cry from Peter’s initial boasting about his tough-love discipline when Cillian had first visited the family.
Cillian couldn’t risk Peter would gain a judge’s sympathy with his temporary, probably manufactured remorse. So he had gotten in Peter’s face, challenging his ego and masculinity until the man dug-in again, defending his abusive childrearing tactics in front of the judge.
What if Cillian had taken a page from Victoria’s book? Could he have found a more peaceful way to create positive change for the Blunts, one that wouldn’t have broken up their family?
How many other times had Cillian run roughshod over others to secure the end goal he’d determined was best for everyone?
Those other times didn’t matter so much right now. The one that mattered most, the person who mattered most, had been Cillian’s victim.
Was it too late to do anything about it? To make it right? If he could find Victoria, he would set her free from himself, from his own desire to control her and orchestrate her life the way he wanted it to go.
But could he actually do that? He didn’t know how, wouldn’t know where to begin. He needed to be with her more than anything in the world. So much so that he’d tried to force her into the future he’d wanted for them.
It wouldn’t be much of a future if she were forced and manipulated into being with him. And it wouldn’t be any future at all if she…wasn’t alive. Because of him.
He started forward again. At least he thought it was forward. Hopefully, in the direction he’d originally come from.
But what if he was wrong, and he’d gotten turned around in the near-zero visibility? What if it was too late? He couldn’t make it right if he couldn’t find her.
Frustration and desperation rose in his chest until it exploded out of him in a groan, a yell that echoed back to him from somewhere in the storm.
“You could have it, too, Cillian.”
Victoria’s voice came to him on the wind, as if answering his cry, flying to him to touch his aching heart.
“Christ in you, changing who you are. If you truly want to be better, you could ask Jesus to save you, and He will make you a better man, a better person than you could imagine.”
He had called it a crutch, that faith of hers. The declaration of a bully afraid he would lose control over her. It seemed he’d been wrong about that, too.
“He’ll guide you through life and help you to know the best way to live. He’ll give you hope for the future.”
The memory of her words cut deep into his heart, maybe into the soul he didn’t really believe he had until now. He and Victoria might not have any future, thanks to him. It was probably too late to change, to become the better man she had wanted him to be.
If he could see her again, he’d ask her how to do what she said, what she meant by asking God to save him. But God wasn’t in the business of helping people like him, bullies who tried to control innocent people like Victoria and lead her into disasters like this.
According to Victoria, God did help her.
