Page 90 of Hero Unbound

“Would somebody actually do something like this in Oak Creek?” he asked his parents.

“Yes,” Dorian responded without hesitation. “You don’t want to think it. None of us wants to think it. But always, yes. Could have been some kids or could have been a botched mugging. But living in a small town doesn’t negate that some people are just bastards.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Theo looked out the window at the night speeding by as they left town.

“But your gut is saying something else,” Ray said. His parents had always taught them to listen to their gut.

He nodded. “My gut is telling me that I may have all the info, but I still don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle put together correctly.”

“We’re talking about more than just Gareth Metter here,” his dad said.

“Yes. For all I know, he tripped and decided to use it as an excuse to cause trouble. I’m talking about Eva. I found out some things about her today. Decisions she made in the past that I can’t reconcile with the person I know now.”

Ray turned around and looked at him. “Everybody makes mistakes. You don’t tend to be the type to hold that against someone.”

“No, it’s not that. This feels like more than just mistakes. This is more like an atomic cloud of life-ruining decisions that she either can’t control or can’t remember.”

Ray’s eyes narrowed. “She’s a danger.”

Theo hid his smile. His mom was still willing to go into full battle mode to protect him, even though he was a grown man, had probably sixty pounds on her, and knew just as many ways to take someone out as she did.

“Stand down, Mom. Eva’s not a threat, at least not to anybody but herself.”

Ray’s face softened slightly. “You mentioned some possible mental health issues when we talked before. Those can be tricky to navigate—for you and for her.”

“Everything I ask her about, she can’t seem to give a straight answer. So now I have no idea what’s the truth and what’s not. Hell, I don’t know ifsheknows what’s the truth and what’s not. I’m pretty sure Metter has been gaslighting her for years. But some of the stuff she’s admitted to doing…”

He looked out the window again. Even the stuff she’d admitted to doing she didn’t seem to have a solid recollection about.

“I just don’t know if she’s telling the truth,” he said out loud.

“Is she a liar?” his dad asked. “What does your gut tell you about that?”

“The same. That there are pieces to this puzzle I’m still missing.”

His parents turned and looked at each other, communicating in that silent way they’d been doing for as long as he’d known them. It was downright spooky what they could say to each other without ever using words.

“What if you take everything Eva says as the absolute truth?” his mom asked.

Theo scrubbed a hand down his face. “I want to. I really do. But for some of the things she’s told me, she says she doesn’t know what happened, even though that’s impossible.”

“But if you look at it through the absolute truth lens, then you believe her when she says she doesn’t know. She doesn’t knowfor a reason. Dig into that and figure out why she doesn’t know what she should know.”

Theo sat up straighter. That made sense.

“Before you and Savannah came into our lives or Amari was born,” Ray continued, “I was brainwashed by the people I worked for and forced to do things I would’ve never done if I had a choice.”

Dorian nodded. “She almost killed me. Multiple times.”

Theo couldn’t imagine it. His parents were like two parts of the same whole. “I didn’t know that.”

“Gaslighting is a type of brainwashing too,” Ray said. “IfEva doesn’t know certain things, it may be for a reason outside of her control. If it frustrates you, think of how much it must frustrate her.”

His mom was right. Theo could see Eva’s face from earlier tonight clearly in his mind—she’d been as angry at herself as he’d been upset with her.

“Yeah, she and I had a big talk tonight, and I handled it the wrong way.”

Ray studied him through narrowed eyes. “I’m not completely surprised. Hearing that people have screwed up their own future is a trigger for you. Understandable, given your desire to join the military that never came to fruition.”

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