AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I scrub the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand and nod. “Thank you.”
She stands and gives Lorenzo’s shoulder a squeeze. “Holler if you need me.”
She closes the door as she leaves, giving us privacy.
“I remember,” I blurt before he has a chance to speak.
He frowns at me. “Remember what?”
“Well, I remember some of it. I…” I swat away the tears streaming down my cheeks.
“What do you remember, Keres?”
“I remember being in a box, like a trunk. Phoenix and me. I remember being in pain. I was bleeding… My underwear were soaked in it.”
His eyes darken and his brow furrows in a scowl, like he’s reliving that day too.
“The man who b-bought us, he…” I dry heave, and it takes me a moment to continue. “I thought he was going to drive us out into the woods and kill us. I wanted him to kill us, but I knew that he wouldn’t. He didn’t buy us for that. I knew there would be more, that what he’d already done was only the start of it.”
Lorenzo scrubs a hand through his beard, his dark eyes fixed on my face, and the fact that he doesn’t look away from my pain makes me feel valued. Important even. Like I mean something. Like my story means something.
“I wanted to die though. I prayed for it. I wanted to be with my mom.” Tears run freely down my cheeks now, and I don’t bother to wipe them away. “And then the truck stopped and there was shouting and yelling. Then the light…” I blink at the memory of the box being ripped open and a flashlight being shone on Phoenix and me. “Then that deep voice. Promising us we were safe and nobody would hurt us. Your voice.” I search his face but he remains unreadable.
“I told you I was scared and you said… I’ve lived by those words for the past twelve years. Warriors don’t escape fear …” I choke on a sob.
“They conquer it,” Lorenzo finishes for me.
“It was you,” I sob. “All this time.” I shake my head as the jumble of intense emotions and the whole fucked-up fate—or whatever the fuck you’d call it—of the universe sinks in.
He leans back in his chair. “I used to think of that day often. I checked in with Father Mike a few months after to see how you were both doing…”
“Just that one time?”
He shrugs. “You were both settling in well from what he told me. Doing well in school and making some friends at the church. I thought we’d done our part. But then when Raven was born…” His eyes fill with pain. “I found myself thinking of it again. Thinking of those two broken little girls we found locked in a box in the back of a van simply because we showed up at the right time. But how many more did we miss? How many little girls went through—”
“So many,” I tell him.
He takes a deep breath and nods. “When you told me who you were looking for, I thought about that day and wondered if your paths had ever crossed, but I had no fucking idea it was you.” He pauses and studies my face. “I can’t believe that the girl from all those years ago is my half sister.”
Logically I knew that I was their half sister, but thinking of them that way always bothered me. It’s weird to hear him say it now.
“If we’d known, that day when we found you… If we’d known…”
“You’d have what?” I scoff. “Brought us here to your mansion and let me and Phoenix be a part of your family?”
“If I’d known I had a sister who was suffering, I would have saved you a whole lot sooner, Keres.”
“Well, everyone is someone’s something, you know. Someone’s daughter, sister, cousin, mother.”
“What my father did… the things he was involved in—” He sighs and seems to sink into the cushions of his chair. “They’re a stain on this family that won’t be erased for generations.”
“Then help me erase it. Help me find the last man responsible, Lorenzo. Please. Let me deliver the justice he deserves.”
“And what would that look like?” He shakes his head. “You can’t undo the things they’ve done. You can’t bring any of the people you lost back.”
I lean forward, emboldened by the crack in his armor. Of all people, he must understand the need for vengeance. For justice. “But we can stop men like him from hurting anyone else. We can make him feel a fraction of the pain and fear he caused. Doesn’t he deserve that at least?”
He nods solemnly. “At least.”
