Page 34 of Collateral Damage

“Free? There's no such thing asfreedom,Puppet. Your life is a constant tie to shackles far greater than you or I. No one is ever free. We are all chained down to a society and a system thatdoesn't want us. What about that is freeing? Isn't that why you dream?” My fingers find the bottom of her scalp, not rough but enough to make her look at me and hear my words.

“You've moved from one prison cell to another?” I hate the way she speaks as if she knows me. She doesn’t knowshit.

“I find comfort in my solitude.” Being alone is far easier than surrounding yourself with fake pricks who only want something from you.

“That isn't it. What is so special about this place? What are you not letting go of?” She needs to quit it before things get ugly. This house is my own prison as well as my sanctuary. This is where I'm closest to her and it will be that way until I've dropped enough bodies to move on. I endure the terror in these walls for her, because I deserve it. My guilt is embedded in the foundations and that's where it's staying.

“Alora.” She likes to push my buttons. So I’ll push hers, but she doesn’t react at all to me saying her name.

“You've not even given freedom a chance?” She's right. I've not. Because I CAN'T.

“And what? You- you expect me to live a normal life? Find a wife, settle down, have kids? Get a job in a fucking office? I can'tAlora. I'm a CRIMINAL.” I want to rip her hair out and share my grief through her voice as she fucking cries out.

“You could still have lived that life, there was still redemption for you!” Why is she trying to paint me as someone who deserves that!

“And what would you know about me!?...” I deserve this. This life of torment. This life of misery. I wouldn’t even know what a normal life looked like. It sickens me and it's an insult to my mother.

“I know nothing,Hays.Because you refuse to tell me what I'm sitting in the middle of. So don't act like you're trying toprotect me. You're only making it worse!” Her fists find my chest, pushing me with little force.

“This world is ugly. I am ugly! But believe it or not, I am protecting you from answers you don't want to hear!” Does she not see I'm trying to protect her fucking feelings!?

“Why!? What am I missing!?” She barks.

I'm reaching the end of my tether, and her whining is starting to drive me to cut her oxygen.“Because it will kill you!” I shake the sofa with both arms either side of her head, rattling whatever brain cells she has left.

“I'm already dead! And I will only ever be dead whilst still being in your possession!” She definitely knows how to take the air from my lungs.

…

She wants answers?Fine. But I'm done going easy. I'm not spoon feeding her shit. I'll drop her in the deep end until she learns to swim without touching the bottom. She wants to understand me?She has to drown first.

Without uttering another word I find the garage door, barging through nearly breaking them off their hinges.

“Hey! Where the hell are you going!?” To clear my fucking head before I snap hers. The doors feel my fury as I slam them shut and lock the outside door. I was about to get in my car but I'm intoxicated and that's a risk. Not that it would make any difference to me, I'm still as sober as they come, but as she said. I will do nothing to risk this place being taken from beneath me again and the way she knows that frightens me. It's a threat. I've been to fuckingkind. This is what I get for beingKIND.Fuck!

I take off and I dunno where I'm walking but I don't plan on coming back until dark. Maybe I'll feed my anger into someone else's chest just to lessen my load.

She fucking infuriates me! How the hell did she pick me apart? I'm slipping and it's bad.

This is bad.

C H A P T E R 21

SOLVING THE CASE

Puppet

She's stormed out the door like a little girl but I'm so repent to find amusement in this right now. I'm just as angry as she is. She's angry because she knows I'm right. I refuse to be left in the dark any longer. I refuse to talk to a wall. I will get to the bottom of this whether she likes it or not because staying in the unknown is eating me alive.

She didn’t lock the garage door. Giving me access to the office once more and by the temper that shook the house she isn't going to be back for a while.Good.It gives me time to access everything I need to.

Play - ‘Panic Room - Au/Ra’

I waste no time legging for the vault of secrets and as I walk in everything is on. The computer is open, sitting on a court case document. Something I don't recognise but it's once again, a domestic abuse case that got dropped. I'm trembling through my fingers as I surf through folders upon folders of files and images. A folder sits pretty with my father’s name on it.Jackpot. I open it and find it hard to swallow. Hundreds of images plaster the screen including old pictures I've never even seen before. Pictures of him with another woman?That isn't my mom?Maybe that's my biological Mother? Is Hays part of my family?What the hell is going on?I scroll a little further and a group photo sits with my father, the same woman, another man and a child.It's her. It's the same girl I saw in the living room. Why is she in a photo with my dad?

Endless photos later, I put a few pieces together but still things don't make much sense. They were in the detective scene together? But if so, why have I never heard of this woman before? Maybe he mentioned her but I was too young to remember? I rack my brains trying to remember her name but I'm left blank. These pages are full of writing but they are all blank. Is she Hays Mother? Is that how she knows my father? But that still doesn't explain why she killed him! I'm losing myMIND. I stand to face the board on the wall surfing for what feels like centuries and the nameLillieseems to pop up quite a few times next to cases my father was working on. I search the computer for a folder potentially holding her name and I eventually find one.All her documents, case files, birth certificate and contract for the Chicago police department are staring me in the face.Chicago? Am I back home? If so I'm further away than I thought. That’s almost four hours away from Indiana.

Her full name and all her personal information jump out the screen from a documentfrom 1998.

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