Page 69 of The Sentinels

That you'd been one of his victims?

I wasn't ready to expose my shame.

I opened my door and stepped inside my apartment. As I closed the door I reached for the lights, flicking them on. In an instant they were flicked off again, and I was grabbed from behind. The door was slammed and locked as I struggled against the arms that were holding me. My scream was cut off by a hand covering my mouth, and the next thing I knew I was being dragged over to the living room and forced down into a chair that had been situated in front of the TV. The hands that were subduing me were brutal and hard. I soon realized that fighting back was futile. Whoever was behind me moved close, putting their mouth to my ear, and in that heart-stopping moment I knew. I knew who he was.

"Hello, Emmy."

My father was the only one who'd ever called me Emmy. The tears meant for Ace fell down my cheeks.

"I was hoping your boyfriend would come in with you. I was ready for him." He held up a wicked looking knife in front of my face." I shivered with revulsion, and fear for Ace. "You know I've been watching you, daughter. Now I've got something I want you to watch." His laugh was the menacing sound of someone who knew a secret that no one else did. He replaced his hand with some kind of cloth, and then tied me to the chair with rope. "I had twenty years to think of nothing but what I was going to do to you for turning against me. I wanted to kill you, but then I thought of something even better."

He picked up the remote and clicked the TV on. There was a flash and then a picture appeared. It was grainy, black and white, and looked like an old movie. At first I couldn't believe my eyes. There was a naked, pregnant woman tied to a bed, crying with a look of sheer terror on her face. She looked slightly familiar to me, but it was hard to tell with the lighting.

It took me a few seconds to realize that it wasn't something on the TV that I was watching, but a video he'd put in. I blinked to clear my eyes. Someone turned on a light close to the bed, and suddenly everything in the video was very clear.

"Killing you is too easy, too final," my father snarled into my ear. "So I decided the next best thing was to take away someone you cared about, starting with the two bitches that helped send me to prison."

No!I began to shake my head, whimpering with terror when I finally recognized that it was Sophie lying on the bed. Her tear-ravaged voice filled the room as she begged someone who was standing out of camera range. She was begging for her life! Her hysterical tone cut through me like a spear before turning low and sad, as if she were resigned to her fate. I watched her eyes grow large, and then my father walk into view of the camera. He laughed low in my ear, getting a thrill out of the sounds of Sophie begging him not to hurt her and her unborn baby.

"So pretty," he said to her, running the back of his hand over her wet, swollen cheek. It was apparent that she'd been beaten. She'd probably put up a fight. Revulsion caused me to shut my eyes. "I dreamt of you and Gracie and all the others when I was in prison. I remember how sweet and tasty taking your innocence was. But you're not the little girls I remember, are you? Too bad you had to grow up."

"Please don't hurt me," Sophie pleaded. "I have children. They need me," she sobbed.

I closed my eyes and tried to turn away. "No, you watch!" my father sneered when he finally noticed. He shook my chair until I did what he demanded. "I did this for you, Emmy. Or should I say,becauseof you?" His laugh caused chills to run through me. "I want you to watch what I did to your sweet cousins."

"Please," Sophie cried. "Please don't do this. I'll do whatever you want. My baby—"

"It's too late for that," my father said with a smile. "Emmy will need to see this. Watching me kill you and Gracie will be her punishment for turning against me."

I shook my head vigorously, whimpering into the gag he'd stuffed into my mouth. What had he done?

"You'll see," he said into my ear. "This is just the beginning. I've been watching you and making a list of all your friends. Soon you'll have no one. But don't worry, daughter. I won't kill you. I'll leave you behind to live with the knowledge that they all died because of you. All because you cost me twenty years of freedom."

Oh my, God, he was completely insane. I wanted to scream at him that he'd deserved what he’d got for what he’d done to us. Twenty years of prison for ruining our lives and taking away our innocence wasn't enough. I watched him sit next to Sophie on the bed and talk to her in a soothing tone that was meant to disguise his true intentions. But she knew. The terror was written all over her face, revealing that she saw through his act. I saw the knife in his hand before she did. My eyes rounded with stunned disbelief as I sensed what he was going to do, and then I watched him slowly bring the knife up for her to see.

He taunted her with it, holding it so that the light bounced off the blade. The twisted grin on his face emphasized the wild madness in his eyes. He was getting ready to kill an innocent woman with gleeful anticipation. I felt like I was going to be sick, but I knew the danger of that while I had a gag in my mouth. Still, I couldn't stop from gagging as I watched helplessly when my father covered Sophie's mouth with his hand at the same instant that he plunged the knife into her heart. Not once, but over and over again. Bright red crimson spurted out of her each time he yanked the blade out, bringing with it arcs of blood that splashed onto him and the walls.

Once she stopped moving he went into a frenzy, stabbing her all over. When he moved to her protruding belly, I did get sick. The vomit rushed up my throat and I began to choke when it had nowhere to go, until my father realized what was happening. With a disgusted snarl, he yanked the gag from my mouth and jumped out of the way. I vomited violently, and when I was done I began to scream. I screamed and screamed, tears running down my face as insanity claimed me until all I heard was my own screaming, my father's fanatical laughter, and a muffled noise that I couldn't identify.

I sensed a change in my father, a kind of rushed panic, but I couldn't stop screaming. Part of me knew that the video was still playing, but my brain was stuck on the vision of my father stabbing Sophie in the stomach. My screams were deafening, but something warned me that if I stopped, I would die.

I screamed for our lost innocence.

I screamed for Gracie.

I screamed for Sophie and her unborn child.

I screamed for myself.

And I kept on screaming.

Chapter 33

Ace

I kicked the fucking door in so hard that once I stepped through the threshold, it slammed shut behind me. Emerson's screams were ringing in my ears, and my heart raced in fear of what I might find on the other side of the door. I'd known that something was up the minute I’d watched her light flicker on and then off almost immediately. My fucking mistake had been taking the time to analyze my suspicions. Her screams had reached me when I was halfway to the door.

She was still screaming. My eyes found her instantly, taking in the scene as I rushed to her side.

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