Page 39 of Secrets Within Us

I’d never been anything to anyone a single day of my life.

I let him believe I was done, so he would be done. He had wanted me gone before it all came to light. He had been so mad and so hurt and had wanted me far, far away from him.

So I was giving him that, even after he realized how wrong he had been.

When the young cop shut the door behind me, Kip barreled out of the front door, running towards the car. Mike ran after him, grabbing him, trying to contain him as the young cop scrambled to get in the car and lock the door before Kip got to him. But Kip wasn’t coming after him.

He was coming after me.

He slammed his fists against the window, calling out for me to stop it, to not do it, pleading with me to let him help.

But there was no help for me.

Right before the cop pulled away from the chaotic scene as Mike lost his hold on him, I turned and looked at him through the bars of the window. I saw his face contort in pain and fear, and it broke my heart to witness a man as strong as him break.

He was frantically trying to get to me. Screaming and yelling through the glass, panicking as the end of my nightmare unfolded right before him.

The end of one nightmare. The beginning of another.

“Goodbye,” I said, just as the car pulled away, leaving him standing in the driveway.

Turning in my seat as the car took me down the lane, I made the mistake of watching in horror as he fell to his knees with his head hung in agony.

I’d broken the strongest man I’d ever met.

The only man I had ever loved.

The only man I would ever love.

I rode in silence to the police station as anguish rolled through my entire system. I knew what awaited me there, and it was something I didn’t know if I could survive.

As we drove through town, the sight of a quaint small town filled with media vans and police agency vehicles on every corner surprised me.

When we got to the police station, TV cameras and federal agents instantly swarmed the car. They roughly yanked me from the car and propelled me through the crowd. I didn’t hang my head in shame like you always see criminals do when they were led from the cop car to the station.

Instead, I looked up to the clear blue sky and tried to pretend I was on the beach in Florida and that none of it had happened.

They pulled my elbows to the front of my chest to get me into the station quickly, causing my body to ache and scream out in pain. I had to grind my teeth together to keep from crying out, but I wouldn’t show my weakness out in the public.

I was stronger than that.

A life of growing up on the streets and in horrible foster homes made me stronger than that.

Everyone stared at me as I walked through the halls of the station. Police stopped what they were doing, mid-sentence, mid-bite of dinner, and just stared at me. I could see the shock and disbelief on their faces as I walked by, but I wasn’t sure what part they were surprised by.

Was it the fact that I was tiny, at just two inches over five feet, and that I’d been capable of killing a man over six feet tall and pushing two hundred and fifty pounds? Or the fact that bruises marred every inch of my skin still and that wasn’t what they had expected to see on a cold-blooded killer’s body.

I was quickly ushered into a large interrogation room, with the young cop leading the way and FBI agents trailing closely behind.

My feet stopped moving when the door closed behind me as I looked around at the generic table with 4 chairs and the large mirror on the wall that no doubt had a room full of people on the other side of it. It was all unbelievable.

I was supposed to be on a beach in Florida.

No, I was supposed to be in Kip’s warm cabin getting dinner ready for him.

The young cop grabbed my elbow roughly and jerked me forward again, my lungs exploded with pain, and I gasped in agony. “Please stop ripping my arms around. My ribs are broken!” I pleaded, but he just sneered at me as he threw me down into the chair before lifting my handcuffed hands up over the back of the chair, forcing my chest down onto the table. I hissed through my teeth and whimpered pathetically, even though I tried my hardest to hold it in.

Tears burned behind my finally dry eyes, so I shut them to hold them in. When he uncuffed my right hand, he ripped the left one to the side and attached the empty cuff to the bolt on the metal table, shackling me to the stationary object. The two FBI agents flanked the room, watching silently as he brutalized my already weakened body.

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