Page 32 of Shadow

“Let him go, Charity,” Faith said, walking up behind me. “He needs this.”

“But the doctor said…”

“The doctor doesn’t know our brother. If Ezekiel says he’s fine, then let him go.”

Charity moved to the side, allowing me to pass.

Thank God.

I was free at last.

Chapter Seven

Joan

It was my day off. Generally, I would have slept in, but I had plans for the day. Mainly, I was going to do my own investigation and make calls to locate my father. It wasn’t going to be a simple task, but I was determined to find the bastard.

While I didn’t relish spending the day thinking about the son of a bitch, I had no choice. I refused to hire another investigator. Instead of being behind bars where he belonged, James Malachi Trinity was roaming free, doing God knows what.

For as long as I could remember, I hated my father. Okay. Hate was such a simple word. I abhorred my father. If I could wish him out of existence, I would in a heartbeat and fuck the consequences.

That feeling started when I was about three years old.

I know most specialists will say that it’s damn near impossible for a person to remember anything from that young an age, but I did.

I remembered everything.

My father was never what anyone would call a good man. He was a drunk, a heroin addict and an all-around menace to society.

I was born in upstate New York on a cold, rainy day in January. My mother, who was just as useless as my father, never wanted kids, but she loved my father.

Me and my siblings…not so much.

I never had much growing up. Then again, a parent’s love should have been enough, but when I didn’t even get that, it was a wonder I turned out the way I did. The first time I realized that my parents weren’t normal was when the New York police raided our home, arresting both my parents for rape.

Yeah, that was a shocker, considering the woman they raped was our babysitter. A sweet woman who was only trying to help. In the end, the police took my parents away and child protective services shipped me and my siblings off to an aunt’s house in Oregon.

The farm, as the family called it, was nothing special, but it was clean, and I felt safe. Almost protected, but like all things in my life, that happiness didn’t last because a few years later our mother showed up and took us away.

When the state of New York released Dad about a year later, that was when shit got interesting. Music had always been a strong interest of my father’s. As a musician, my father would travel around playing gig after gig and, as long as the money was coming in, he was fine. Not great, just fine. But with money came his drinking and drug habits, which led to other vices. Mainly beating and torturing me. There were times I actually believed it was his favorite pastime.

I wish I could say my siblings were immune to the ravages my father inflicted, but that would be a lie. I was just the oldest, so I took the brunt of it all. But when I was away, that left my siblings helpless to his ministrations. It got so bad that for a short while, my mother refused to let me go to school. In her eyes, if I was around, Father would focus on me and leave everyone else alone.

Yeah, mom would never be Mother of the Year.

Through all the beatings, abuse and yes, even being raped and molested, I somehow survived. Even when I didn’t want to. By the time I turned eighteen, I had enough. Snuck out in the middle of the night and never looked back. I couldn’t because if I did, I knew he would suck me back into his hellscape. Instead, I joined the Marine Corps. I needed food, money and a place to stay without fear of my father walking into my room in the middle of the night and killing me, so the Marines it was.

I guess my time in the Corps was good. I made friends, learned a trade, saw some amazing places, but the fear and worry about my siblings never went away. While I logically knew I was safe, my brothers and sister weren’t. I tried to help as much as I could by sending money home, offering to have them come live with me, but in the end, like I did until I was eighteen, my siblings did exactly what my father decreed.

I didn’t stay long in the Marine Corps. Looking back, maybe I should have, but when I got that call, I knew I couldn’t. The day I learned my father beat and killed my mom was a day of celebration. One part of me was happy my mom was free, that her pain ended, while the other part of me rejoiced she finally got what she deserved.

With our father behind bars once again, my siblings and I could finally rest and try to find some normalcy in our lives. My brothers went on to find wives and settle down themselves, but my sister, well, she still lived in fear. I guess in some way, they all did, just like me.

I was the oldest and while all of us were capable of taking care of ourselves, it fell upon me to ensure that our father never saw the light of day. Because we all did the unimaginable. We all testified in court about what the son of a bitch was really like. Our father may have pulled the trigger that killed our mother, but it was our testimony that sealed his fate. His self-defense case flew out the window when I provided evidence that he intended to kill our mom and my siblings backed me up. Coupled with his troubled past and lengthy police record, the judge gave our father a life sentence, with the possibility of parole in fifteen years.

And thanks to some fucking clerical error, he was now free and I knew that son of a bitch was coming for me.

Shaking off the images from my past, I opened the morning paper, reading the latest local news when an obituary caught my attention. Putting my coffee cup down, I leaned closer to make sure I was reading everything correctly.

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