Page 108 of When the Storm Breaks
“I know you are. I’ve known it from the start.”
I took her hand and led her inside. “Come to bed.”
“Why?”
“So I can talk to you in the dark.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Shiloh
We were lyingon the bed in the dark, his face shadowed from the moonlight. Him on his back and me on my side facing him, our hands clasped, fingers entwined while he told his story, his gaze directed at the ceiling.
“When I was nine, I was put in foster care. The couple that took me in were really religious. They had crucifixes all over the house, always said their prayers before meals. Church every Sunday. They had two kids of their own. Both special needs. And the mother … she spent all her time looking after her kids. Both parents did volunteer work at the church. The father… he was a youth leader.” Brody huffed out a laugh. “When I was a kid, I was scared of the dark. If I didn’t have a nightlight I couldn’t sleep. I kept picturing myself in a closet, suffocating in the dark and it freaked me the fuck out. The first time the man came into my room, I’d been living there for about a month. It was the middle of the night and I woke up and it was dark. I was freaking out, screaming and sweating and shit. And he came into my room and locked the door and said everything would be okay. That he’d protect me. It was so fucked up.”
I took a deep breath and kept silent, waiting for him to go on. I had an idea of what was coming. I’d seen it in a vision. But even so, it was impossible to prepare yourself to hear something so horrible. His voice was low, and the room was quiet and while he talked, I got the sense he’d mentally removed himself from the words he was saying.
“That night, he laid down with me on the bed and he held me. It felt wrong. But I didn’t say anything. After that night, he started visiting me more often. Always at night. In the dark. When the rest of the house was asleep. And it started small. Just a touch. As time went on, he got bolder and his hand ventured inside my pajama pants. And he always told me not to tell anyone. Until one night he pulled down my pajama pants and I knew… I fucking knew what he was going to do.”
I felt like I was going to vomit. I wanted to run away and block out the words, but I couldn’t do that. I’d asked Brody for the truth and he was giving it to me. It was a gift and a burden. There was nothing I could do to change what happened to him, and I felt so helpless, but I needed to hear it all.
I squeezed his hand, letting him know that I was right next to him, that I was here for him.
“And he did it. He molested me when I was nine years old. Not just once either. I used to lie in bed, wondering if tonight was the night he’d come to my room. I tried locking the door. Barricading it. I did everything I could think of, but nothing stopped him.”
My cheeks were wet with my tears and my heart hurt so fucking much to think there were such horrible people in this world who would do that to an innocent nine-year-old. TomyBrody who despite it all, had grown up to become a good, true, honest man. How had he survived that? I couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
I pushed myself up on my elbow and touched his face.
“Don’t cry for me, Shiloh.”
“I can’t help it. I want to kill that fucker.” He gave me a small smile. “Please tell me you got revenge.”
“You don’t think I’d let something like that go, do you?”
“No, I don’t. Is he dead?”
He laughed, although I didn’t see anything funny about this or what I’d said.
“If it had been left up to me, he would be. Right after high school graduation, I decided to go and extract my revenge. Damn Jude. He was waiting in my truck that morning and refused to let me do it on my own. He was scared I was going to kill the guy and end up in prison. I don’t know what I’d planned to do when I got there. All I knew was that I wanted to fuck him up. Make him pay for what he did to me. I had no proof. Nothing that could put him away. It had happened ten years before and had never been reported. I knew I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Who were they going to believe? Me or a guy who volunteered at the church and took in foster kids and showed the world that he was a good father to his two special needs kids? But at the time, I didn’t give fuck. I would have rotted in prison rather than letting him get away with it.
“But Jude... he was thinking more rationally. He came up with a plan. Put the guy’s photo on a flyer and alert everyone to the danger lurking right there in their own neighborhood. We made thousands of copies and distributed them everywhere. All over the neighborhood where he lived. The churches. Schools. Grocery stores. Parks. The places that mothers with young children went.”
“So you didn’t fuck him up? You didn’t hurt him?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t say that.”
“Good. I want to hear that you cut off his dick and fed it to him. That man doesn’t deserve to walk the streets.”
“You have a violent streak, you know that?”
“I know. I just ... I want justice for you. What did you do?”
He stroked his jaw. “We delivered all those flyers. But we did itafterwe tied him to a kitchen chair, and I carved his chest up like a Halloween pumpkin.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, I did. I used Jude’s Swiss Army knife and I made sure if he ever took off his shirt, everyone could read the words. Child Molester.”
