Page 10 of Legions

“Three days a week for a year, then two days, until finally one day you didn’t wake up screaming in a cold sweat, trembling. Breaking my heart. Those nights when I witnessed the damage that had been done to you, I didn’t question my decision. I even found justice in what I had done. Because the man who had caused my little girl to live with night terrors had deserved to die.”

I didn’t speak. My throat was dry, my body felt as if it were slowly starting to numb. I only blinked.

“Beauden had pictures of you that covered a room in the basement of his parent’s house. They didn’t find it until later. Years later. It wasn’t something the media ever got a hold of, and I had been thankful for the Shephard’s power. No matter their sins. I had been thankful. Beauden Redd’s mother died from a heart attack in her home. His father had been dead for years. No one found her until the smell got too strong. Of course, the property was inspected for any foul play before her cause of death had been determined. It was then that the hidden room was found,” he paused and swallowed hard, causing his Adam’s apple to bob in his throat. “I was only shown the pictures taken of the room. A room where my little girl’s photos covered the walls. Floor to ceiling. Those of you on your bike, outside the church planting flowers, with your mother at the grocery store. And all the guilt that had haunted me. Was gone. Because I had wanted to be the one. Me. A pastor who taught about forgivenessand love. I had wanted to be the one to snap the bastard’s neck.”

I reached out to steady myself, gripping the doorframe. Flashes of moments came back to me. Those of the older boy who had always been there lurking, sneering, making me nervous. The times he had gotten close to me and said things about my clothing. Made fun of my glasses. All the memories I had managed to shut down, erase.

“The day, the one where he had grabbed you and held you against the dumpster. The things he said you refused to repeat. The moment that you would withdraw into yourself and rock back and forth when the therapist tried to get you to talk about it. That day. The last day you saw him.”

“The day he died,” I whispered. Because that was what I had been told, he had died. Nothing more. No details. The television in our house had been removed after that day. My parents had kept me home from church for weeks, telling people I had mono. It was the only time in my life that I could remember them lying.

“Thatcher Shephard witnessed it. He stopped it. Then, after you ran off, he followed Beauden Redd to his car and snapped his neck.”

A rush of air felt as if it had rocketed through my head, and I leaned on the doorframe, sucking in short breaths. My eyes locked on the ground at my feet, but I saw nothing. Until those eyes, the cold, furious expression of a younger Thatcher Shephard began to form in my mind. As if it had been behind a thick fog so dense I hadn’t realized it was there. Yet, the fog was thinning now, the clarity slowly becoming brighter.

“Ohmygod,” I whispered. “Ohmygod.”

“I testified that it was self-defense. That he’d found Beauden attacking you and went to stop him. Beauden got violent. And Thatcher had tried to hold him off. Control him. The snap of his neck was an unfortunate accident,” he paused, and I lifted my eyes slowly from the floor to look at his face. “The Shephardfamily, in return, kept you out of the media, from having to be questioned, and… and they donated three million dollars in cash to the church. Money we didn’t have to claim. Money that wouldn’t be traced. The money that built the life center. It paid off debt.”

My father had lied to a courtroom. Thatcher had killed the boy who had harassed me and threatened to do things to me I hadn’t understood when I was a kid, words I knew were sexual. The week before, he had pushed me against that dumpster, and it had escalated to him getting close enough to say things to me—things I understood now. I shivered with disgust at the perversion that had long since been locked away in my head.

“Beauden Redd deserved death,” my father said. “But the unattached, void of emotion, look in Thatcher’s eyes as he sat in that court chilled me. There is an evilness deep within him. One that controls his actions. He killed someone for you when you were a child. His wanting you now, his claiming that you are his. That’s as mentally disturbed as Beauden Redd. He sees you as a thing to have. Own. And I believe he has stalked you for years. Looking back at things I didn’t understand or thought were simply angels protecting you, I’m not so sure it wasn’t something closer to a demon.”

Still, no words. Nothing. Having been told that the murder attached to Thatcher’s name was because of me and the horrors from my past being let loose again to roam freely in my head, I was struggling to hold it together. It wasn’t Thatcher’s mental state I worried about. It was mine.

• Seven •

Is it so bad that I will do anything to protect you?”

Thatcher

I took the last pull from the cigarette clamped between my teeth before dropping it to the ground and placing my boot over it. My eyes not leaving the back doors of the church from where I leaned against an oak in the woods. She wouldn’t walk out the front. My little doll would be afraid someone would see her.

Clark Jewel had walked inside two hours ago just as the sun rose. He would have found her inside there by now. I scowled as I thought about what he might say to her. He needed to tread carefully. His life might not be in danger due to the fact he was Capri’s father, but the lie he lived could easily be exposed.

I’d kept it to myself. Never used it to punish him or his wife for how they had treated Capri, but it hadn’t been for their sake. It had been for hers. It was always about her. Every fucking breath I took was about her. Yet, my little doll had run. She’d seen too much. It had shaken her.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out, not bothering to look at the screen.

“King,” I said his name, knowing it was either him or my brother. Sebastian wouldn’t be up this early.

“Where are you?” he asked.

I pulled out another cigarette. “Oh, you know here and there,” I drawled.

“Thatch,” he said my name with a sigh. “Don’t do shit that causes problems. None of us want to face Blaise again. Especially so fucking soon.”

I smirked and lit the cigarette. Blaise Hughes, the boss of the southern mafia, didn’t concern me. Besides, this didn’t involve him. This was about what was mine. He took care of what was his. He’d understand.

“The leverage we have on Clark Jewel has its limits,” King went on. “We already know what he is willing to do to protect his daughter.”

I inhaled deeply, slowly letting smoke out through my nose. “You let me worry about Clark Jewel,” I told him.

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t ease my concern.”

I chuckled as the doorknob began to turn. “It’s under control,” I told him, then ended the call and shoved my phone into my back pocket. The door opened slowly, and I took another pull from the cigarette. Waiting. When my reason for living stepped outside, I took my first deep breath before my gaze locked on her face. Throwing the cigarette down, I put it out and silently moved closer to her. Something was wrong.

What had that motherfucker said to her? I’d be paying him a visit. But right now, I had my doll to take care of. She needed me to put her world back in order. Erase the bad that took her smile away. After a night of watching over her and hours out here alone, I’d had time to think. Consider what it was she needed from me.

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