Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88889 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
I press a kiss to her temple and keep caressing her back.
“When I ran out of my room, one of the men was dragging Mom by her hair.” She clears her throat. “Wesley Porter. Such a plain name for such an evil person.”
Every muscle in my body tenses, and I clench my jaw.
“I tried to stop him, but he was so much stronger than me. He hit me before shoving me down the stairs. In the living room . . . one of the men was kicking Sage. I think he’d already killed her, because she was so pale and had a big gash on the side of her head.”
Her voice breaks, and I almost tell her to stop. To not put herself through the horror again, but by some miracle, I keep quiet.
“The third bastard was stabbing Dad.” Her voice cracks. “God, Levi.” A sob bursts from her, and I turn onto my side, trying to engulf her smaller frame with my body.
Her voice is muffled against my chest as she somehow finds the courage to go on. “I was stuck in a horrified trance while that evil monster kept plunging a knife into Dad’s stomach and chest. He was so aggressive. So deranged.” Kelcie begins to cry heartbreakingly, and her words are strained. “I heard a sound as if someone was choking, and when I looked at the top of the stairs, Mom . . . my mom . . .”
Kelcie loses control of her emotions and weeps in my arms, and I feel so fucking helpless, not being able to take the gruesome memories from her.
I’m well acquainted with hatred, but after hearing what those bastards did to her family, I wish I could reach into their jail cells and tear them apart.
Kelcie sounds broken when she manages to continue. “He slit my mom’s throat, and I watched as she bled out. Dad told me to run.”
Her breaths speed up until they’re coming too fast, and I pull back so I can see her face. “Take a break and focus on your breathing, baby. Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
I go through the same exercise she did with me last night, and when she calms down, I wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“I ran,” she whispers.
I see the guilt in her eyes and quickly shake my head. “You had to run.”
“I ran and left my parents and sister behind. I didn’t even make it to the front door when one of them shot me in the back. That’s the last thing I remember. The sheriff told me I stumbled out onto the porch just as he got to the house. Our neighbors heard our screams and called for help.”
The guilt doesn’t ease from her face, and it has me gripping hold of her chin and forcing her to look at me. “There is nothing you could’ve done to save your family. Don’t for one second feel guilty.”
Because that’s on me. If I had done things differently in the past, I could’ve changed the trajectory of our lives and maybe prevented that night from happening altogether.
Her face crumples under the weight of her grief and trauma. “Those monsters killed my family because my dad was the mayor, and he was clamping down on crime and drugs. They didn’t like it one bit and thought if they could get rid of Dad, they could go on doing whatever they wanted.” She shakes her head. “They were so high on drugs, two of them barely remembered what they did. Trent Crawford and Dustin Baker. But Wesley Porter . . . he remembered every detail and sat in that courtroom looking proud of what he did.” Her eyes meet mine again. “His parents were even there to support their murderous son. His father had the same evil look on his face. It terrified me.”
Jesus Christ.
I close my eyes, and squashing Kelcie to me, I breathe through the destructive mess I feel.
We lie for the longest time, clinging to each other as the horrors of that night hang like a dark cloud over us.
Chapter 18
Kelcie
I quickly came home to shower before I go back to Levi’s place.
At this rate, I might as well move in with him.
While I hurry through my routine, I think about earlier. It was so difficult to tell Levi what happened to my family, but I managed. Even though I started having a panic attack, it wasn’t too severe.
Now that I’ve finally spoken about it, I have to admit, I feel a little better. By taking one step at a time, I’m moving forward.
Levi once told me I had to create a new version of myself, and that’s what I’m trying to do. A version who can be happy with him, and even though the grief might never fade, I hope to learn to live with it.