Page 18 of Darkness

“I’ll see you in the morning.” he pats my back as we both make our way to the elevator. “Cain, she’s a woman who is scared, not the woman coming for you. You’ve been watching her all night. All I’m saying is even you deserve a woman in your life.”

“And you?” I know what he’s doing, but he needs to remember since I got him out of The Pit, he does the same thing as me. Fuck someone in the club and that’s it.

“Fuck off.” He laughs, and without another word I walk to my Range Rover to go have a conversation with my uncle. One I didn’t want to have but Hayden is right. He lost everything that day too, not just me.

***

I look at my watch. It’s one in the morning. I know it’s a stupid time to be knocking on the door, but they also know it’s the only time I come over, so no one sees me. You learn how tohide and, how to move when you’re thrown into a dark room to learn to fight from a young age.

Unlocking the back door, I make my way into the house, and straight to the sitting room where I hear the TV.

“Oh, look who it is?” Mason jokes. He gets up and pulls me in for a big bear hug.

“What brings you here at this time?” Uncle David asks, and I sit next to Hayden, patting his leg.

I stay silent for a moment, not sure what to say to him, because how do you start a conversation like the one I want with him? Do I want it alone, or in front of these boys too? He was their grandad, too.

I look at Hayden, Mason and Miles. They’re glancing at me as they watch the movie on the screen. Declan is still in training. The moment I saw him grow up, I knew how I wanted him to train. He moans about it all the time, but little baby Crawford needs to grow up now.

“I made a promise, that if I ever made it out of The Pit, I’d-” The words get stuck in my throat, it’s still so hard to talk about the man who gave his life for me. “-give my uncle a part of his brother he lost. So here I am.”

Uncle David sits up a little, doing nothing to make me feel like he’s going to ask a million questions, but enough to know this is what he’s been waiting for.

Hayden pats my legs and nods to the twins, but I stop him. “He was your grandad too.” Hayden locks eyes with me, and all I can do is give him a nod. Not sure what I’ll be telling them tonight, it might only be something small, or all of it, I have no idea, but what I do know is that this is going to be hard to do.

“Uncle David, I have no idea what or how much I’ll tell you tonight, but it was a promise grandad made me repeat every single night. It might be crazy but he knows I’ve not fulfilled it,and I swear he’s going to keep nagging me until I do what he asked.” Uncle David laughs, like a full hard laugh.

“Sounds like dad.” He tells Hayden to move out the way and sits next to me. “Son, the night you knocked on my door at three in the morning, I got my brother back. I looked into your eyes and all I saw was your dad’s face.” I look out the window at the darkness, it matches my soul, when you never see any light, you slowly become a man with no soul. They know nothing about what happened in The Pit, and I never wanted to relive that fucked up shit.

If you don’t know that hell, there is no need to learn about it. But Grandad always told me to have faith in the family, as they will always be there no matter what. So this is me testing that faith

“Grandad spoke about you every single day.” I turn to Uncle David. “He said out of you and dad you were the one he could always talk to. Dad was the fire, and you were a little calmer and could see things differently. He always hoped, even after everything, that there was still calmness there.” Uncle David laughs a little to himself. “If only he knew it made you like my dad.” I tell Uncle David, because he is now the fire, the one who won’t let anything bad happen to the family again.

“Well, he doesn’t need to know that,” he jokes, but I look over at Mason and Miles. They’ve never been to The Pit like Hayden has. I think that’s more because Hayden told them what went on whenever he came to The Pit. He never went too far in. I never allowed it, but even the gates are enough to make anyone feel the horror which lingers behind the gates of hell.

“It’s hard to talk about The Pit and the fucked up shit they did to us, but you should know what happened to him and me. All I’m asking is to give me time to work out what to tell you.” I turn to Uncle David and I can see the water building in his eyes. “Tonight, all I could hear was grandad’s voice in my head. Tellyour Uncle I love him and he thought about you every night. And always have faith in the family.”

Uncle David nods his head a little repeatedly. I can see it. He’s holding it back, whatever it is. Pain, anger, love, heartache, he’s holding it back.

“Every night he would tell me a story about you and dad, but I want you to know something. Hayden came to see me the other day and asked me how old I was when I first killed someone. I don’t want you to think I didn’t protect grandad I did-”

“Cain, never once have I thought that. Never.” Uncle David cuts me off, because I can see how much even thinking that has annoyed him, but again we’ve never spoken about The Pit before.

“I was ten when I killed a man. It was him or grandad. And I killed a lot more after that to keep grandad alive, but one day-” I stop and shift on the couch, then get up. Fuck, I’ve never spoken about the day grandad died, tried everything to not even think about it again. Never works because the day comes back to haunt me. Reminding me, I let him down.

“Cain, you don’t have to.” I hear my uncle’s voice behind me, and I pick up the picture of dad, grandad and uncle David together. Looking happy, smiling, nothing can touch them.

“You need to know what happened. I know you need to know, but how do I tell you grandad died-” I place my palms into my eyes to ease the shooting pain which is beating through my head right now, and I can feel the burning hitting my eyes.

I knew talking about it was going to trigger something, thinking about it does, talking about it was only going to make it so much worse.

“Cain, no one blames you for grandad, not once have we thought you made it out and he didn’t. Never.” Mason’s voice is who I hear, and I look back out the window, trying to push the pain away.

“Cain, dad knew there was only one thing he needed to do. Protect his grandson, and he did that. All I care about is I have a part of my brother. He might not have made us his family yet, but I never stopped loving you.” Uncle David stands next to me, pats my back a few times. “You have a family here. We never left you.”

“I know Uncle David, I know.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything else if you don’t want to. If you do, I’ll always be ready to listen.” He smiles and all I can do is give him a nod, because I know whenever the conversation starts, it’s going to be hard. But the man deserves to know how his dad died, and how I revenged it too.

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