its forever family, I was so relieved. So happy. So grateful.
It gave me purpose.
It gave me something to cling to when Drake resumed his extra activities on me.
From seven years to seventeen, I rescued over forty animals. Rabbits found on the side of the roads, cats who’d been feral for years, dogs who’d been kicked out of home, even wildlife who’d been hurt by humans. Birds who’d been hit by cars, squirrels that’d been stuck in traps, and raccoons who’d been mistreated.
Each one, I spent my allowance on and then my pay cheque from working in my parents’ company doing odd jobs while I finished my studies.
Each one, I made healthy and happy, trusting of human care and ready to be adored by a family far away from mine.
And each one, I gave trustingly to my mother to rehome. Sometimes I asked if I could go with her to check up on the people who’d been so kind as to welcome a stray into their lives. But each time, she said it would be too hard on me. That I had an empathic heart and it would break with goodbyes.
She wasn’t wrong.
But she also wasn’t right.
I wanted to see for myself they were cared for, but I didn’t want to ruin the system. I’d saved lives. I wouldn’t put my own wants before their needs.
But of course, I should never have trusted.
And it was Drake who told me the truth.
On the night of my eighteenth birthday, my older brother passed me a beer with a gloating smile. As I’d grown older and matched him in height and size, his torments had stopped to just verbal. He knew if he picked a physical fight with me, I wouldn’t cower anymore.
I’d strike back.
I’d probably win thanks to my regime of outdoor exercise and rock climbing.
So…he bided his time until he could cut out my motherfucking heart and destroy me forever.
He told me what my mother did with all the strays I’d lovingly rescued, repaired, and rehomed. He took me for a drive to Sinclair and Sinclair Group, unlocked the laboratories with his key card and strode past rows upon rows of lab equipment before unlocking a back room.
He’d grinned as I’d stepped into the room and promptly crashed to my knees.
Bile roiled and acid shot into my mouth.
Because there, in a thousand cages were all the animals I’d ‘saved’.
The raccoons from the streets, the dogs from the slums, the rabbits from the roads.
Each one in misery.
Each one a test subject.
Each one poisoned and injected until their skin fell off, their internal organs failed, their will to live non-existent.
My mother, the one person I trusted above everyone, took the souls I loved and locked them in hell.
The animals, who’d trusted me, had been locked into a fate worse than death.
I wasn’t a saviour of animal kind. I was the procurer of torture.
A scientist’s child who provided an unlimited amount of lab rats.
A steady stream of souls.
So many free bodies for their experiments.
“Sully…Sully!”
I shook my head, shoving back memories that had no fucking jurisdiction over me. I’d atoned for my sins. I’d redeemed myself by saving thousands of lab sufferers since.
But no matter how much I did, no matter how many I saved, I couldn’t get rid of the guilt.
Metal rattled, wrenching my attention to the cage trapping Eleanor.
Too much of my past still swirled in my mind. Seeing her behind bars did something to me. It made me want to rip her free. Get on my knees and apologise.
To let her go.
Not just from the prison I’d put her in but the island I’d brought her to.
She still had a soul—just like the animals I’d rescued.
She was still a living, breathing creature who didn’t deserve to be treated like an object. Who was I to own her body instead of her? Who made me god, controlling her lifespan instead of fate?
But…she wasn’t an animal.
She wasn’t some helpless creature who needed me to be her champion.
She was human.
She had the capacity that all humans did—to choose herself over the lives of others. To be superior against feathered or furred. To willingly ignore that their pain was just as excruciating as hers.
But Skittles trusts her…
“Sully!”
I raked a hand through my hair, noticing the quake in my body. “Stop yelling. I’m right here.”
Her hands wrapped tight around the bars, her face strained and worried. “But you weren’t…you still stood there, but you…your mind wasn’t here.”
I snorted, doing my best to dispel the rest of my past.