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More tears are shed as we look at Eli’s baby book. She would be seventeen today. She’d be looking at colleges and fighting her father over the boys she dates. I’d be helping her pick out her senior prom dress and stressing over her leaving the house once she graduated.
My lungs fill with sadness when I think about all that we have missed and will continue to miss in their lives.
Rage sits beside sadness. Pure and raw, and so all-consuming to the point that I would relish in peeling the flesh off the bones of the people who took them away from us. I’d delight in seeing pain fill their eyes and bask in the screams of terror that would flee from their throats.
I’m not a violent person. I’ve never wished death upon anyone. I’ve always believed all people can be redeemed no matter what they do.
But not the man and three teens who tortured, abused, and murdered our children. It wouldn’t matter if they felt true remorse for their crimes. No one, not even God, can stop me from delivering exactly what those bastards deserve when Hunter finds them.
It won’t simply be payback. It won’t even be about revenge.
It’s wiping the bastards from a world they never should have been born into.
After looking through both baby books and returning them to the box, Hunter takes out a piece of paper from his back pocket. I take it from him, unfolding it to see what it is. I smile when I see the familiar handwriting. I find it strange looking at it now, because although my own hand wrote the words, the handwriting resembles that of a child.
It has always been a pleasure to receive the short stories Presley wrote me each time she visited. What I love even more is the subject matter of the stories. At the time, I didn’t realize her words were so significant.
“When did you get this?” I ask, glancing up from the sheet of paper.
“The day Presley came to see me at Slate.”
My brows pucker. “Why wait until now to give it to me?”
He grabs my hand into his big one and brings it to his lap, lacing our fingers together. “It was before your memories came back. For years, your mind has blocked out anything related to that night. Truthfully, I’ve been terrified what state you’d be left in if your memories returned. What you experienced would drive even the sanest person crazy.” He lifts my hand and kisses the back of it. “Don’t misunderstand me, Cat,” he says when he notices my frown deepening. “No matter how you reacted, I love any and all forms of you, so it wouldn’t have changed anything, but I wanted to spare you that heartache.”
Grabbing the front of his shirt, I pull him down until our lips brush. “I love you,” I murmur.
“And I love you.”
After letting him go, I turn my attention back to the paper. It becomes clear why Hunter was concerned after reading the first few lines. Presley held nothing back. No masking of her words or changing things to make the reader believe these are the thoughts of a child.
The thing I loved most about Presley’s stories was her memories and thoughts of her childhood. But they aren’thermemories or thoughts. They’re mine. Every single story she’s written was inspired by moments I’ve shared with Eliana, Ryder, and Hunter. She was telling me the story of my life, and I didn’t even know it. She kept their memories alive when I couldn’t.
Although I don’t need to read these stories anymore since I have the actual memories, I absorb every word. And the more I read, the more guilt rises inside me.
What kind of mother forgets her own children?
I try to give myself some grace. What I experienced—watching the brutal rape of our children and then being asked which one I want to save, while the other dies and then watching both die—was more horrific than what the most disturbed person could conjure up.
My grace is always short lived.
I’ll never forgive myself for not saving them. And I’ll never forgive myself for letting them slip my mind for even a moment in time.
ChapterThirty-Four
Hunter
From outside the bathroom door, I hear my phone ring. I finish running soap over my body before I rinse and shut off the shower. Following a quick wipe down with a towel, I exit the bathroom naked and grab my phone from the nightstand. Mathias’s number appears on the screen just as it begins to ring again.
“What’s going on?” I bark into the phone.
“Cat just left the house.”
“Shit.” I press the speaker icon on the phone and drop it on the bed. “You got someone on her, right?” I ask, grabbing a pair of slacks from the top of the laundry basket and quickly putting them on.
“Yes. Damon’s tailing her. Want me to follow or stick to the house?”
Loud pounding in my ears mixes with Mathias’s answer. “Follow, but send a couple more guys to the house. I want them inside to make sure no one else gets inside.”
