Man of Honor (Battle Scars #3) - Diana Gardin Page 0,27
He’s never flipped me over before. He pulls down my sweatpants and underwear and slaps my bottom as hard as he can. The sound makes my stomach curl. Bile rises in my throat when he touches me, spreading my legs apart. His weight crushes me, my face mashes into my pillow.
Then his voice is in my ear, and it’s like grease coiling around in a skillet. Slow, oily, and hot.
“Told you to shut your mouth. You like this, just like your mother used to. You’re gonna like tonight even more. Shut up, if you want to tell me how good it is, you whisper.”
I can feel him fumbling around, hear the ragged sound of his zipper as he pulls it down. And then he pounds into me, and I scream again. Oh, God. I’m not strong enough for this.
Then my bedroom door creaks open. The light flips on, and there’s a sleepy eleven-year-old Mikah rubbing his eyes. Almost twelve, he’s halfway between a boy and a man. He’s tall, but gangly. His voice is just starting to change, and he’s outgrowing all of his jeans and sneakers.
Horrified that he’s going to see me like this, I hiss at him. “Get out Mikah! Go!”
My father doesn’t say a word. But he backs up off of me and rises to his knees.
Mikah doesn’t move. I watch as his face flits between sleepy, confused, horrified, and then finally to rage. Blinding rage that he can never come back from. He surges into the room, pulling my father off of me and throwing him to the ground. Standing in front of me, he gulps heavy breaths.
“You’re touching my sister! No…No! Fuck you, you bastard! Don’t you ever touch her again!”
“Mikah,” I whimper. “Please. You have to go.”
Because I’m afraid. I don’t know what this monster will do to my little brother now that he knows. I have to protect him. I have to be in control.
Our father zips up his pants and stares at us, his eyes moving from me to Mikah and back again. Finally, he turns and heads for the door as if nothing happened.
“You’ll both pay for this later. I can promise you that.” And then he’s gone.
We hear his bedroom door shut just down the hall.
Then Mikah flings himself at me. I can barely move I’m in so much pain. And the blood…the blood is all over my bed. Mikah goes for towels and he helps me clean up.
He sleeps with me in my bed that night. Just before we drift off, he murmurs beside me, “I’ll never let him hurt you again, Mea.”
I keep the thoughts to myself, but I know it’s me who can never allow him to be hurt.
The very next day at school, I go to my guidance counselor. And I tell her everything. It changes our lives forever.
Tay’s lip curls in disgust. She never met my father. When he and my mother married, he moved her away to Kentucky and she never kept in touch with her sister. We’ll never know if it was her choice or his, but Mikah and I had never met our aunt and uncle until the day they picked us up from the state care system.
And then my father was found guilty on all counts of child sexual abuse.
“He’s been an exemplary prisoner. He’s undergone hundreds of hours of therapy and counseling over the last ten years that he’s been behind bars. And now he’s up for parole.”
I just sit there. I’m not sure if stunned is the correct word. More like frozen. Chained to my seat. Distraught.
But Mikah, always needing to move, jumps to his feet and begins pacing the room. “How’s that possible, Aunt T? I mean, can’t we go and tell them there’s no way in hell that monster should be out of prison ever?”
She nods miserably. “You could. You could go to the prison in Kentucky in two months for the hearing if that’s what you want to do and plead for his continued containment.”
That’s absolutely the last thing I want to do. I never want to see his face again. I can’t. That will most definitely spin me out of control, and I can’t allow that to happen. Not while I’m in the same room with that man.
Mikah is looking at me like he’s ready to jump a plane to Kentucky right this second.
“I’ll…think about it,” I say quietly to Tay. She nods. She understands completely, I can see it written all over her face.