Page 18 of Silent Betrayal

“What is it? Tell me it’s good news, I can’t take any more bad news,” Max groans.

“I… I’m not sure. I think it is, but only Mina can be the judge of that.” I swallow the lump in my throat, afraid of what he has to tell me. I nod, to let him know I’m ready to hear it, whatever it is. Tucker takes my left hand, carefully avoiding my finger, and gently rubs my wrist and arm, while Dom hugs me to him and Ben takes my right hand with his.

“Mina, I looked up your name and the birthday you gave me. Through some digging, I… I found you. Mina Stevens, born May 13, 2004 in Waco, Texas. Your father filed a missing persons report for you when you were six. It was assumed your mother ran away with you.”

Holy moly.That is not what I expected—or remembered. It doesn’t match my last conversation with him, but now I wonder how accurately I remember something that happened so long ago when I was only six.

“He—he left me,” I whisper, unable to hold in the tears as Dom wraps his arms tighter around me, nuzzling my neck with his face.

“What do you mean?” Jasper asks from where he stands at my left side with his hand on my shoulder.

“He—he—” I start coughing and Ben offers me the straw again. Max, who stands beside him, takes it from him to help me drink, while Ben pulls out his phone and offers it to me with the text to speech app opened up. Dom holds it for me while I regain my composure. Atlas and Gideon sit at the foot of my bed, each gently rubbing a foot through the blanket. They’re all touching me in some way, offering me help and their support, and it means the world to me.

I’ve never had anybody care for me like this, not since my dad was around.

I shift my attention to Ben’s phone and type out what I want to say.

“He told me he had to leave, but would be back for me soon, then we could be together. Just the two of us. But he never came back. I thought he abandoned me. My mother always said it was myfault he left.”

Ben shakes his head sadly. “I don’t think that’s what happened. It looks like he was in a rehab facility for alcoholism for about six months. When he got out, you were gone. That’s when he filed the report.”

Alcoholism? I don’t remember him drinking or acting drunk. He was always just my dad, playing games with me and reading me stories, cuddling me to sleep at night.“I don’t understand,”I type into the phone.

“Well, if you want, you could ask him,” Jasper says, and I look at him with wide eyes.

“He’s alive?” I rasp out in my own voice. For some reason, I always imagined he was dead, otherwise, why hadn’t he come for me?

He nods and Ben continues. “Yep. It seems he spent years looking for any trace of you. I’m not sure where he is right now, but I found a few links online that I can use to trace him down if you ever want to try to meet him.”

“Think about it—you don’t have to make any decisions now, Kitten,” Dom whispers in my ear, and I nod.

“Alright, how about a change in subject?” Gideon asks.

“Yeah, like how you can speak? Or why you couldn’t?” Max blurts out, only to grunt as Atlas whacks him in the chest.

“What?” he says, rubbing his chest with a grimace. “We all want to know!”

This is part of my story I was planning on sharing with them anyway, so I decide to type it out and get it out of the way. So far, nothing I have said has pushed them away, hopefully this wouldn’t either. They didn’t believe my dad leaving was my fault… and maybe they’re right.

“After my dad left, my mother started to change. It was small things at first, like locking me in my room for the smallest reason or sending me to bed with no dinner. It didn’t take long before it became more physical.”

The app speaks my words as I motion to Max for another drink. Laying it out like this is hard, but I need them to know.

“That’s when my mother started hurting me. It began with small shoves and light smacks to the back of my head. But pretty quickly, it escalated to her hitting me. And it just got worse and worse as time went on. And if I ever fought back, it got so much worse.”

I pause to take another drink while the app reads it out loud and I watch their faces darken with anger the more they hear.

“When I started asking to go to school, she implied I was four years younger than I really was. But I wasn’t stupid. I knew how old I was and I knew my birthday. When I turned ten, and she claimed I was six, I told her even six-year-olds get to go to school.”

I clutch my throat, thinking about the next part of my story.“That’s when she decided to pour bleach down my throat for speaking against her. It was one of the worst feelings I can ever remember. I vomited for hours, and I’m not even sure how I survived it. She threatened worse if I ever spoke again. So, I didn’t.”

As my words are spoken by the app, I glance at them all. Their faces show varying degrees of anger and sadness. I take another deep breath before finishing this part of the story.

“I tried to speak a few times in the early years, but it always resulted in me throwing up, so I thought maybe something was damaged permanently. Until now.”

“You haven’t spoken in eleven years because of her?” Atlasgrowls.

I nod.

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