Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 76812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
I've witnessed tragedy more times than I can count. We don't always get there on time. We don't always save the day. Statistics and probability don't allow for us to be a hundred percent at all times. The world doesn't work that way.
There are instances where we raid a compound days too late. Sometimes, it's minutes. Sometimes, our entry into a situation is what makes a bad guy pull the trigger. These are all things we have to live with. We fight for the greater good, even knowing that there will be times we're the catalyst for devastation. That sometimes, we're the reason someone doesn't make it back home.
We can't let it stop us from doing our job, but even now, as we pull away from the parking lot, leaving a respectable distance between our SUV and the shitty car Xan is driving, I pray that there's an intervention from some sort of greater power, even though our jobs have proven that there's no such thing as a loving god. We've seen too much. I've experienced too much individually to get lost in hopes and prayers, but it still doesn't stop me from whispering Bible verses my adoptive mother said so very often once I was in her care.
Chapter 4
Brielle
"I can't believe you're actually here," Xan says, his eyes darting toward me as he drives down the street. "Dad said you'd show, but I didn't think you would."
His left leg bounces as he drives, and I know that's something he can't control. I don't know how many times the guy has suffered brain trauma, but I've borne witness twice to Nathan beating the shit out of him.
Xan is a year older than me, and although he's now as evil as his father, he wasn't always that way.
There was a time, years ago, when tears would flow down his cheeks when he was commanded to hurt me. He'd whisper apologies despite the pain he was causing my body. He fought long and hard against having to do it, but just like anyone would, he eventually caved to make his own pain stop.
I can't exactly recall the day something snapped in him, but his tears turned into maniacal laughter, and he'd hurt me even when his father wasn’t insisting on it. The abuse was always worse when Nathan chastised him for doing something wrong. He couldn't take his anger and hostility out on his father, because neither of us was ever that brave. He had to release those pent-up frustrations on someone. Why not turn that anger toward the stepsister? If anything, it might actually put himself back in his dad's good graces.
As he drives, I remember the time Nathan came home to find my wrists bandaged, the cuts so bad the gauze was already red from blood.
"Did she cut herself?" Nathan had asked.
"Only the first time," Xan told his father.
From the smile that spread across the man's face, you'd think he was told he won some sort of prize. He was proud of his son and how Xan, sixteen at the time, had finally become the man he wanted him to be. It was only the beginning of the things Xan would do to me to make his father proud.
Once again, I tug at the sleeves of my shirt, but Xan is all too familiar with the scars along both my arms. He put most of them there.
I know his body to be just as riddled with defects and blemishes. Nathan started his mind-fuck games by making Xan choose between hurting himself or hurting me. He held out a lot longer than I expected. I guess I should be grateful for that as well, but I can't find it in me to care what happens to the man.
"You're going to fucking crash," I growl when he barely pulls his eyes from the rearview mirror long enough to notice the traffic slowing for a red light.
"We're being followed."
I hear the accusation in his tone. "I didn't fucking tell anyone I was meeting you."
I didn't have to. What Victoria didn't overhear, they could pull up from the recording. I was told from day one that all phone calls from the landline, as well as all history online, would be monitored. Some women had the option to get jobs outside of the house, but that was never a choice I had or even wanted. I focused on schoolwork because it was the only thing I could control. As much as I hated it at the shelter, I knew it was the only way I could remain safe, so I never fought against the rules.
I didn't call anyone. I didn't research anything from my old life. I've been in Farmington for so long that I was honestly hoping that Nathan had died or at least given up on me. I don't get updates through the district attorney's office in Columbus very often, not that they really feel obligated since I haven't told them shit about Nathan or Xan.