Page 188 of Saving Sparrow
Sparrow’s admission didn’t come as a surprise. I had my doubts. I tried pulling away to get a look at him, but his arms tightened around me.
“They hadn’t done anything especially cruel to cause their deaths; it just took someone braver than me to get it done.Shesaved him.”
“The Good One,” I breathed. She knew more than she should have, and her knowledge felt firsthand. She also seemed more than capable.
“I’ll cut ya to pieces!”
Sparrow nodded. “My father had been working on something in the basement for a while. I’d hear him hammering away. Sometimes it felt like the earth was shaking.”
“What was he working on?”
Sparrow squeezed me tighter, our hearts pounding against each other. “Elliott’s grave.”
This time he let me inch away. “I-I thought you said they hadn’t done anything especially cruel?”
He shook his head. “Don’t you understand? Death would’ve been a mercy. I was so tired by then.”
I nodded, resting my forehead against his. “Did something happen to push them to that extreme?” I almost wanted to take the question back because it seemed to minimize all that had happened before somehow. Everything they’d done to them had been extreme.
Sparrow’s words ghosted over my lips. “They’d found out my mother was pregnant weeks before. They’d been happy. God had found them deserving again. Turns out my father had been rebuilding his following, so the pregnancy couldn’t have come at a bettertime.”
“They’d now be seen as fruitful,” I said.
“They lost the baby.”
My insides coiled as I waited to hear what happened next.
“They were smiling when they came for him in the middle of the night.” He said it as if seeing his parents smile was a rare occurrence. “They told him they’d found a way out for him, a way they could all be free. I felt his happiness in that memory once I took over.”
Elliott yearned for love, safety, and kindness. Even from the people who’d hurt him the most. His happiness in that moment didn’t stem from being naïve. I knew this to my core. It came from hope, which meant they hadn’t completely broken him.
“My mother held his hand as she led him to his death.” Sparrow fisted my shirt, and it took everything in me to listen without rage-filled commentary.
“His fear didn’t come on gradually. It was a shock to our already fraying system when I came to the front.”
“What did you see?” I braced myself for his answer.
“Our coffin.”
I kept my tirade in my head, giving myself the freedom to rage internally for all they’d been through. My voice was even when I asked, “Can you tell me what happened next?” Because maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he’d gone as far as he could.
“My mother prayed while my father and I struggled. I couldn’t hold on. The shifts were out of my control, and every time I came back, we were closer to the wooden box. I had no memory of the seconds that passed. I couldfeelthe others, but I couldn’tseeanything.”
Something I said to Sparrow once came to mind.
“You don’t have his memories. Maybe you used to, but at some point that ended, didn’t it?”
“Joshua came to the front, didn’t he?” I filtered through my own memories for something Joshua said to me. I’d asked him about his parents.
“They’re in the basement,”he’d whispered. “I don’t like it down there.”
“Not for long. I-I didn’t leave him unprotected for long. I swear, I—”
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I’d neverjudge you.”
“I focused hard on keeping him and Elliott away after that, but it was hard to focus on themandstaying alive. My father had spread tarp around the area to contain the mess…”
“The mess?”
