AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Malachi is quiet in my head. He is also pondering the picture, yet his rage is potent at the photos we found of her, the ones she has seen. She was just a child. At thirteen, I was worried about school, friends, worried about my parents. Yet she feared something so much worse. I lived like a king while she lived as a sex slave. The vast differences in our upbringing sickens me that someone could do that to a child.
By the time I reach the car, her crying has stopped, and I can feel her breath on my neck, her nose pressed against my mark. Her breathing is shallow, and she hiccups with each breath, but I can feel through the bond she has passed out, fallen asleep. Casen leans against the hood of the car, a smoke in between his lips, phone in his hands. He looks up at me as I approach.
“You okay?” he asks, his eyes going to her in my arms. I nod my head, and he moves to open the back door. I carefully lay her down while he moves to the trunk and pops it open. He returns with a blanket, and I tuck it around her, quietly shutting the door. Casen offers me a smoke, and I take it, before he leans into the car, grabbing the lighter off the front seat.
I pass him the scrapbook, and he presses his lips in a line, but takes it as I light my smoke. He walks to the hood of the car and leans against it as I peer over my shoulder ensuring she is still asleep before following him.
“I need to speak with Dominic,” I tell him, and he nods his head.
He sets the book down on the hood. “I found it in her brother's room,” he tells me.
“Eziah, I found…”
“I know, she saw.” He nods and curses.
“I should have taken them out. I just grabbed it.”
“It’s fine, I should have known there was a reason for your hesitance, I didn’t think I could just tell she wanted it.”
“Reaper wolves are dead though, Andrei and Dominic made sure of it,” Casen tells me, and I nod. He is right, how do they link back to her?
He opens the book, and I growl, making him stop. “Get rid of them.”
“I can’t Eziah, there's something you need to see,” he whispers, and I look at him.
“I don’t want to see her like that. Feeling the things they did to her was bad enough.”
“I know, but that wasn’t all I found, he didn’t just keep mementos of what they did to her,” he murmurs.
“I…” He swallows, “I’ll get rid of the other ones. You don’t have to see them, I’ll just leave the ones you will need.” My brows furrow, but I nod, averting my gaze while he rummages through the pictures. Staring ahead, I try to drown out the thought of Casen seeing her naked, seeing them raping her and torturing her. He removes them, setting them aside, when he suddenly turns and throws up, clutching the hood of the car, the photos clutched in his hand, he heaves throwing up violently. I feel numb and absentmindedly rub his back. I can’t bring myself to take them and discard them myself. He is a good friend. When he is done, he holds out his hand.
“The lighter,” he rasps, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. I give it to him, and he burns them, dropping them on the ground and letting them burn to ashes.
“I do need to ask you something,” I tell him. I need to know, I need to know if he was one of them.
He peers back at me, pale as a ghost, and nods once.
“Did her brother…was he…” I can’t bring myself to say it. Casen’s jaw clenches.
“He was the worst,” Casen answers. I nod.
“When you find him…”
I turn my head to look at him.
“You’ll be there,” I tell him knowing he wants to watch him suffer. Casen nods, turning back to the hood of the car. He flicks through the pages, and hands me something. I take it, readying myself to look at it, praying it's not them violating her. Turning it over, I find it is an ultrasound film. I blink down at it, noticing the date to be around the time she would have been born. When I notice the name and medical identification number.
“Ruth Stell?”
“I think it’s her mother.” I nod in agreement. My eyes are on the ultrasound.
“She was a twin,” I gasp, glancing over my shoulder at her, still asleep in the back seat.
“But that is not all,” Casen murmurs. I look back at him, he holds out a photo and glances away. I take it from him, turning it over, I gasp. It’s Temperance, she is bruised and battered, she has a black eye, she is also naked, but that isn’t what shocks me most, she appears to be about fourteen or fifteen years old. She is crying, the look of anguish on her face evident, and I swallow glancing down at the picture. In her arms, she holds a baby wrapped in a blue blanket. She is clutching him to her chest while another man appears to be trying to take him from her.
I shake my head, and look at Casen only for him to pass me another picture. I take it, to find the baby she was clutching in a basket, the same blue teddy bear blanket wrapped around his tiny body. He is sleeping. I look at the Casen.
“There are more, it appears she had a son,” Casen murmurs, handing me ultrasound pictures, Temperance’s name are on these. And I glance between the picture of the baby and the ultrasound with her name on it.
