The Ahern Brothers Collection - Claudia Burgoa Page 0,69
Elly and pulled a lighter out of her purse. She lit it and held it under Elly.
“Not Elly!” I screamed, running after her. She dropped my stuffed elephant into the sink. I cried harder while the flames consumed it.
“I hate you!” I yelled at her. “I want Grandma back.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Wes
“Abby!” I shake her lightly trying to wake her up.
“Elly, I need Grandma … I hate you.” Abby thrashes her arms and legs desperately.
She hasn’t been asleep for long. She cried for hours and whimpered a few times after she fell asleep. Everything she says is incoherent, yet scary when I analyze her words. My unsteady hand combs through her long hair as I whisper for her to come back to me, to wake up.
I still hear her voice while I was jacking off.
“I won’t do it, you can’t force me,” she screamed. “This time you won’t catch me.”
Her eyes were lost somewhere else. She’s confusing the present with her traumatic past. Please, God, help me. I can’t handle seeing her hurt this much. I’m at a loss. I have no idea what to do anymore.
“Abby, baby. Please wake up,” I beg her.
Her red, swollen eyes open slowly. Her gaze travels everywhere around the room, and when it finally focuses on me, Abby shuts her eyes again.
“Abby,” I say kissing her forehead.
“I think I’m going crazy,” she lets out a little whimper.
“Why do you think that?”
“Every little thing triggers the memories. Then it’s like they’re following me. I swear, I saw Shaun outside the office.” She looks around carefully not meeting my eyes. She bobs an awkward nod.
“Or was it Corbin? I’m not sure.” She draws a sharp breath. “But how did they find me?”
“What are you talking about?” My mind goes blank. I tilt my head reading her expression. It’s pointless—too many emotions swirl in that lost gaze.
She sits up, moving herself farther away from me. The simple withdrawal feels like a punch in the gut.
Abby covers her eyes, shaking her head. “Don’t mind me. I’m going insane. It’s just my imagination. The guilt eating me. My past finally catching up because of what I did.”
“What did you do?” My mind races, searching for answers.
She goes still, her chin quivering. “I let them abuse her.”
Abby extends her hand toward the nightstand, seeking the teddy bear Dad gave her when she first came to live with us; she grabs it tightly with both hands. As her knuckles turn white, she mutters tearfully to herself: “I didn’t do enough.”
“Baby?” An overwhelming sinking feeling plagues my stomach.
The truth is finally here and it’s truly as dark as she describes, I can feel the shadow overtaking the light and sucking out all the air. My pulse quickens. I brace myself to listen to every word she has to say.
“I should’ve told someone.” She chuckles humorlessly.
“I did once.” Her lips press together in a slight grimace. “He was a police officer, but he didn’t believe me. Corbin and Mom told him I was mentally ill, that I made up stories. Corbin was a respected man. Charming. Everyone loved him. Or they owed him favors.”
From scanning the police report, I remember reading something about mental illness. I just didn’t put two and two together. Without thinking about it, I head to my room for the reports and hand them to Abby.
“Will it make it easier if we read through this together?”
She shakes her head and says, “You do it. I’m not strong enough to read it by myself.”
I arrived home around midnight. I didn’t notice anything different when I drove into the garage, but panicked when I heard the commotion coming from inside the house—the screams, the wailing. My heart beat as I thought of my girls being in danger. They weren’t mine, but I loved them both as if they were. When I came out of the garage, there was a man lying on the ground. Bleeding on the sidewalk. I ran into the house. It was messy. I noticed the lamps were gone. They were expensive antiques that my late wife bought for our anniversary.
Olga, she passed away and now … I didn’t care about the house once I heard the cries. “Ava,” Abigail called her sister’s name. She’s a special kid, but she cared for her little sister. Abigail has problems in the head and makes up shit, but I recognized her tone. It was real pain.
She was in their room, sitting next to Ava crying. My little girl was bleeding. Two gunshot