Page 50 of Captured

Sleep didn’t come easily for me. It never had. During times of slumber, my father had come into our rooms, forcing one or all three us to go on what he called hunts. They’d been reminders of how brutal the man was, his cackling laughter as he forced us to chase grown men who’d been stripped naked through the woods something I would never forget.

The woods where at least a dozen murders had taken place were haunted by the spirits of the men he’d destroyed, the blood spilled. I was shocked Creed had remained in the very estate where the game had begun and the last will and testament of our fucking savage father had been read, his wealth distributed as in the same manner in which he’d lived.

Through deception.

Even before the hunts, he’d often entered our rooms to do other unspeakable things to his children, including beating them for whatever infraction he’d believed had occurred.

I jerked up from the desk, taking two long strides toward the bar, grabbing the entire bottle of whiskey instead of pouring my usual two fingers. It would seem going down memory lane had the same effect as it always did.

It put me in a piss poorer mood than I’d been in when speaking with Liam Jacobs. I poured a full glass, once again thumping down in the seat, remembering words my father had spouted off after the conclusion of the first hunt we’d been forced to engage in when we were only eleven years old.

“You will learn the most powerful tool in your arsenal is fear. Use it wisely.”

Fear.

Taught at eleven.

Mastered at thirteen.

Performed a dozen times by the time I was sixteen.

And here I was, lamenting about the meaning all these years later.

I needed my angel, my sweet savior to keep me from turning into my father.

If that was even possible.

When I closed my eyes again, I was able to capture an image of her sweet face to hold onto. Emily truly was the only possible way of gaining salvation.

But as always happened when I kept my eyes closed for too long, Mary’s face replaced anything else I was thinking of.

I fisted my hand around the glass, pulling the drink slowly to my lips.

I could still hear her laugh, the way she hummed when she was doing laundry, and her lilting voice when she greeted me after a long day of seeing patients or surgeries.

“Where have you been all my life?” She’d asked me that question countless times in her sultry voice, almost always laughing afterwards.

A single gulp wasn’t enough, the images too fresh, too real. I heard her favorite song in my head, the way she sang in the shower always drawing me in to share the steamy water with her. And she’d almost always tried in her way to push me out of the small enclosure.

It never worked, not that she’d tried that hard.

Jesus Christ. What was wrong with me?

I hadn’t realized I’d powered down the entire glass until only drops hit my tongue. I grabbed the bottle, my hand shaking as I tried to refill.

There was no way of keeping out the ugliness from that night. The night that had changed my life, the one that had driven me into becoming the man I was today.

Cold and heartless.

It was suddenly as if I was standing on the sidelines, watching as I arrived home from work, the horror of what I’d seen creating a moment of panic. I’d been too fucking late. Too fucking late.

Yet I could still hear her screams.

Oh, God.

It had been her birthday, for God’s sake, and I’d… The guilt was the real rope tied around my neck as it should be.

I took another long pull, immediately tossing the glass across the room, the crackling sound as it shattered doing nothing to dull the pain.

---