Page 129 of Axton

I felt anger growing as my last memories of her played out.

“No, Natalie, I’m not ready.”

“Not like this, Nat. Please stop.”

I felt the first tear trail down my face as I looked at that old bed. I could feel the anger, the pain, and everything she caused me. The memory of that little baby, all the blood. All the times she could have come to me for help. She chose to go to someone else, then use me as a pawn. I knew why she did it and that hurt. It was because she was sparing Will’s reputation, and I was just a trashy mountainside kid without any chance of a college career. She saw me as dirt, and nobody would have gave it a second thought if I were the father, but people would have made fun of Will for dating a girl from our mountainside. The pain from that was still so intense it cut through me like a fucking knife. That lie was how Gloria was brought into my life. She suspected something was wrong when she heard I claimed to be the father of her grandchild. Will confessed the truth and Gloria showed up at my work one day.

Kayla and Natalie were who kept me going, day after day, fighting so damn hard to keep us together, but her betrayal, it was unforgivable. She was fucking pregnant when she took what was left inside me and shredded it. A hatred that could only come from the deepest depths in me exploded and I flipped that bed over. “Fuck you!” I screamed. “I fucking hate you, Nat!” I screamed and fell to my knees and cried. Images of that tiny perfect baby came to me, and I screamed in agony. I fucking hated how that innocent baby had to take her first breaths only to have them taken away by the one person that should have loved her more than anything. She may not have been my daughter, and I never got to hold her warm pink body as she cried, but she took a part of my soul to heaven with her because I loved her mother so damn much. But her mother took all my dreams that I worked so damn hard to achieve away from me. I ended up in a fucking war, and had nobody but Kayla. I would have accepted that baby as mine and gotten us all off that fucking mountainside. That baby may not have been my flesh and blood, but I would have loved her the same.

I barely had myself sat up when Belle came running in and hit the floor in her little dress to hold me, not caring about the disgusting floor beneath us. I held on to her for dear life.

“I would have loved her as my own.” I cried.

Belle held me tightly. “She knows you would have.”

“Natalie fucked me up, Belle.” I sobbed.

She ran her fingers through my hair and let me cry. I buried my face in her neck and thanked God for my wife. I loved her far more than I ever could have loved Natalie, and that said a lot.

“She was so tiny and perfect.” I couldn’t hold back all the pain that was strangling my heart. I could barely breathe as I remembered that adorable little girl next door that stole myheart so young. What those men did to her over and over again about killed me. If only Natalie would have known the truth about her daughter. She was Will’s daughter, it was proven by the DNA test that should have been ran years ago, but little baby Hope wasn’t a priority at the time. Natalie thought she was carrying the spawn of evil, but she was carrying the child of an abused young man that was just discovering the best parts of himself. Will was a good man, that Natalie and his father ruined. I hated to blame Natalie, she was a victim, but she created more victims in her downfall.

“I should have known.” I sobbed.

“You were going to school and working several jobs, Michael. You had no way of knowing.” She kissed my head and held on to me. “She knew you would have been there for her, she chose not to involve you. Not because she didn’t care for you, but because she did care for you. Maybe she thought she was protecting you. That’s what her letter said, didn’t it?”

I couldn’t reply, just held on to her, my saving grace, my angel. She was the only reason I would ever have been thankful not to have married Natalie. Loving Belle was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had no doubt I was on the right track, and I had to finish what I came to do.

It took me quite some time to stand on my own and get my emotions under control, but I had to find Natalie and baby Hope. Her old house was empty, just like all the other houses. The State Police made a few arrests over the last week. Two of which were Natalie’s brothers, but then the cops had a warrant and of course found meth in the house. Everyone was arrested, including Natalie’s parents and sisters. The children went into state care, and I bought all the properties. Their house was condemned by the health department because it was so unhealthy.

I went in by myself, wearing an N95 mask, and gloves. There was carcasses of dead animals, and the scent of death, urine, and feces made me run back outside and vomit. It was unbelievable that anyone lived in that house. I went back in, then ran back out, but after several tries I found a box, a cardboard box that was all taped up and had the funeral home’s name on it. I opened the box before taking it out to make sure it was Natalie and Hope, and there was a bag of ashes and a packing slip that verified it was in fact them. I didn’t take the box out of the house, it was too disgusting, but I took the bag. Kayla drove us straight to the hotel so I could shower about five times and tried scalding the invisible slime off that stuck to me. Belle stepped in with me and helped scrub it off my skin. Then I bagged up the clothes I had been wearing to throw in with the trash at the old house the next day. They were going to do a controlled burn of Natalie’s old house. It was too hazardous to do anything else with it.

Belle

Kayla cried and Michael stood with his arms crossed as we watched their childhood home be demolished. There were bulldozers, firemen, an ambulance, the sheriff and a few of his men watching as three houses around us were either burned or bulldozed in.

It was for the best, seeing where they grew up broke my heart. No children should have had to grow up that way. We may have had young brides, which was just as bad or worse, but we had nice clean homes that kept us warm in the winter.

A car came flying up and stopped near us. Michael pulled me behind him, and then told Kayla to stand back. I didn’t know who the people were, but they didn’t look happy.

“You son of a bitch!” Some man came flying at Michael, but that wasn’t wise. In one quick move Michael had the man at his mercy. He held his arm behind him and twisted up as the stranger was falling to the broken asphalt.

“Come at me again with my wife and sister near, I’ll fucking kill you in an instant.” Michael warned him.

A way older man approached and was laughing as Sheriff Broughton walked up and stood next to my husband. “Looky there, my two favorite grandsons wrestling around like brothers.” The old man wearing bib overalls with white hair and a white beard was only acting amused. The man was tall like Michael but far from fit with a belly bigger than Santa’s. “Now, I have a question. What kind of good man has his own grandmother thrown from her home with nowhere to go?”

“Leave now Wayne, you’ve bullied Randy long enough. You’ve lived on his property for years without paying rent. Your days of bullying are over and it's time to move on.” Sheriff Broughton took a step forward and stood just in front of Michael who was just about ready to break the man’s arm he was still twisting.

“Now hear me out. My grandson, from what I hear, is a multi-millionaire and let’s his family live in squalor. Now we are soon to have no home at all. So, grandson, where do you suggest I take your grandmother to live her last days?” The old man ran his hand down his long beard. “You’ve helped that nasty slut of a mother of yours, but not your own grandmother?”

Kayla stepped forward but I grabbed her arm to stop her. “He’s not responsible for you!” Kayla spoke up and the old man looked at her and smiled. Other people were walking up, including an old woman.

“Oh boy, oh boy, it’s my granddaughter. Haven’t you grown up to be a fancy lady? Now, how was that possible? Oh right, you’vesponged off your brother his whole life. Working his hands to the bone since he was itty-bitty. Now that he’s leaving us destitute, you’re just going to stand there and leave us in the cold?”

An old woman stood next to him, but he kept speaking but looked at my husband. “Is that how you treat the only father figure you really ever had?”

Michael growled in his tone. “You beat the fuck out of me, even after your piece of shit son almost killed me. Fuck…you. I don’t owe you or this mountainside a damn thing.”

“I heard you joined some kind of biker gang of vets that struck it rich by killing people. Did you hear that, Sheriff? Our Mikey here makes a killing from assassinating people, immigrants and all that shit.”

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