Page 36 of Collateral Damage

“Yes. And afterwards things were great. She got her life back together for a while, she was no longer in danger, we were finally atpeace. She was part of the Chicago police department and she worked alongsideJohnfor quite a few years, even when my father was alive, due to your father and my mother being case partners, he and John grew quite close. After his passing, my mom told everyone he fled, that he walked away and left a note that he wasn't coming back. Toprotect me.Your father was by her side through it all and that slowly turned into something more for a while, he became a father figure to me.”

“When was this? Was I born?” I begin to ponder on my younger years. Trying to pull any possible memories that can link to this part of my life I do not recall, he was a father figure to a child I had no recollection of.

“Your father was a single man at this time from what we knew of. He never mentioned he had a daughter; I assume it was to protect you.” At least she can acknowledge he was doing something good.

“He was seeing your mom?” I fiddle with my thumbs, trying to control the lump stuck inside my throat.

“Something like that… That's what we wanted to think. Until one night I woke up to him cursing from her room and instinctively I ran.”

My heart throbs for her. She instinctively ran to her mother’s aid without a second thought and it only makes me wonder what she went through.

“He was snooping to find evidence against my mom for the disappearance of my father.”

This can't be true… He would never use anyone?Would he? What kind of man does that make him?

“He was never interested in her that way. He was using her to get her behind bars.”

I can hear the anger through her teeth, grinding them together as she speaks.

“I tried to tell him it was me. I pleaded with him to listen to me. She told me to be quiet. That she had it under control, yet he was still aiming at her heart, even after she told him she was just trying to protect me, he wouldn’t budge that fucking gun.”

I can't picture him wielding a gun to harm another and everything in me is screaming.

“He said, step aside. Or I will not hesitate to shoot you. And of course she refused. I told her to move, that it was ok, that punishment for my actions was ok as long as I had her to come back to. But instead she refused to let me go. She just stood there.She's my baby, John. Don't do this. Please. It was an accident. She was just keeping us safe. She just a kid John!”She recites her mother’s words calmly, painfully. And I knot withguilt not meant for me.“He just glared straight through her. Like she wasn’t even there. He was so caught up in the case he wouldn't let it go.” I can feel her rage vibrating against me and I know what she's implying.I feel violently sick.“He never walked away,Alora. He was removed for opening fire on a member of the Chicago police department.” Her words bleed down my face, hitching my throat so hard I almost choke trying to hold in my sobs, sobs of uncontrollable culpability.

“He claimed self-defence...” My voice cracks trying to get the words out, remembering the fight we had. The words she spoke that I so desperately wanted to understand.You know what? They would probably believe you too. You're a Blackthorne after all.The name of importance.

How doesn't she resent me?

“He walked away without a scratch. Pledged that she was unstable and went for him first. But I saw it all. I watched her die in my arms. I saw the whole fucking thing. The blood was everywhere. I watched him run, leaving me to pick up his mess. Listening to her tell meshe loved meas she took her final breath. I faced him in court and I got thrown behind bars because my Mother was no longer alive to plead my case. I was almost charged with intentional murder.” She was locked up for self-defence but my dad walked free? That only fuels her hatred towards the man who took her mother’s life. MyFather. My Father took her life.

“Was it…. Intentional?” I hesitate, I don't even know why I'm asking and it's probably rude. She also hesitates, sitting on my question for a while and just by the silence, that tells me my question was not completely out of pocket.

“A sick part of me had always wanted to. I'd thought about it, dreamt about it. Envisioned it. And I knew when the time came, if I had to I would. But I didn't seek it out that night. His deathwas purely to keep me and my mother alive.”But I didn't seek it out that night. She says it so aimlessly.

That first kill started something. In the last four years she's taken fourteen heads and feels no remorse. It awoke something in her.Control. She told me it was power she could control. Her Father’s death gave hercontrol.Freedom. And she lost it as punishment for trying to save her own life.

I'm taking in so much right now it's hard to process. It's overwhelming and I am trying my hardest to hold it together. The monster behind this door is a monster filled with bullet holes and broken armour. A shattered heart that only knows suffering. Her pain is her architect.

This could all be a lie. It could all be a lullaby to make me see something other than a monster. But she's always made it known that she is nothing but. It's taken around two months for her to be honest with me, if she was just honest with me from the start, maybe things would be different. This changes everything… But now it’s too late.

C H A P T E R 22

FUELLING THE FLAME

Puppeteer

Play - ‘Beautiful Pain - Eminem, Sia’

I’m clinging onto distant memories now so heavily resurfaced I'm almost biting my tongue off trying to contain my painfor her.I know she needed to know. But thinking it and saying it are two different things. Maybe it was I who was not ready to relive my past. I've spent so long holding it against its will, caged inside the darkest parts of my vacant heart that I've become accustomed to feeling numb.She makes me feel. This is making me feel and it's destroying me.

I can hear her holding in her cries and I want to shake her for being so stupid. I told her this would kill her but she wouldn't listen. So now she can consume just a fraction of my affliction. She needs to see that I was not born this way.I was created.

I don't want her forgiveness and I never have, I don't expect her to forgive me for the pain I caused her as I would never have forgiven him. I chased him to the ends of the earth trying to end this ache I endeared only to pass it onto someone else. She has every right to hate me. Hate is too nice a word for the way she should feel about me.I just hope that now she understands my actions were not in vain.

I stand to my feet turning to rest my forehead against the door, holding the key ready to turn it. She needs comfort rightnow, and as much as I hate human contact, I'll endure it. I turn it slowly to give her time to hold her body up on her own before slowly pulling the door to. She doesn’t move. She's completely absent, running for her escape in the clouds but she can't dream right now. Mylittle Dreamerneeds to keep her feet on the ground for me. There is no escaping this now. The truth is out and she'll either overcome this or let it swallow her whole.

I kneel to her level quietly behind her as not to startle her, the light from the computer screen highlighting her glossy skin that’s shedding one too many tears which Shep instinctively wants to try and lick off her soft cheeks. He can sense her distress just as much as I can, and all I can see ismyself.

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