Forsaken (The Protectors 4)

“My father left me alone with Nick for a couple of minutes and I sat down next to him. I went to hold his hand when he suddenly opened his eyes. I began screaming for my dad saying that Nick was still alive. I told Nick to hold on, that help was coming, but he kept talking about the proof…said it would keep me safe. He…he told me to call Eli for help and to tell him he was sorry.”

My chest hurt at hearing that and I realized how little I’d really known my stepbrothers…both of them.

“Nick closed his eyes again just before my father came back into the room and I started telling him that Nick was still alive. I told him we needed to call for help, and he knelt down next to Nick and put his fingers against his neck to check for a pulse. He finally told me to go call 911. I did, but when I got back, Dad was leaning over Nick and checking his pulse again. And then he looked at me and said Nick was gone. I was so messed up, I didn’t really pay attention to what happened next. This cop started asking me all sorts of questions, but I couldn’t make sense of anything he was saying.”

“You were in shock,” Jace murmured.

“Yeah,” Caleb said. “I didn’t even realize until the funeral that my dad had told the cops I’d been the one to find Nick’s body. That was when I started hearing people say the Coroner had found heroin in Nick’s system and that was what had caused him to pass out and hit his head on the table.”

Caleb used his free hand to wipe at his puffy eyes. “That was when I knew the truth,” he said quietly.

“What truth?” I asked.

“I think my dad injected heroin into Nick while I was calling 911.”

Terror swamped me at that. Being a kiddie rapist was one thing, but a murderer too?

“Why do you think that?” Mav asked. “Your brother had a drug problem, didn’t he?”

Caleb nodded. “He did, but he was getting help. Part of the treatment program was daily drug screens. He’d had one that morning. I found the test results on his desk in his room when I was looking for pictures to have enlarged for the service. If he’d shot up between then and when he got home, I would have been able to tell that he was high.”

“Where would your father have gotten the drugs?” Mav asked.

“Nick wasn’t the only one with a problem,” was all Caleb said.

“Tell them the rest,” Jace urged.

Caleb nodded.

“The day I called Eli, a friend of Nick’s stopped by to bring me an envelope. Nick had asked him to give it to me if anything ever happened to him.”

“What was in it?” I asked.

“A piece of paper with a location on it. Fisherville Quarry. Nick and I used to freshwater dive there all the time and after we were done, we’d explore these caverns.”

“You think Nick hid whatever proof he was talking about there?” Mav asked.

“He did,” Jace said as he pulled a flash drive from his pocket and held it up. He handed it to Mav.

“Did you check it yet?”

Jace nodded. His eyes shifted to me briefly before he said, “It’s full of videos.”

My chest constricted painfully and I actually reached up my hand as if I could stem the pain that way. “Of all of us?” I asked, unable to lift my eyes from where they were staring at the ugly brown carpet beneath our feet.

Jace was silent for a moment. “Yes.”

I couldn’t stop the tears that fell because I knew what would happen next. I turned to look at Mav and whispered, “Please don’t watch it.”

“Eli,” Jace said gently and I looked up at him. “Caleb told me that Nick saw you and your stepfather the night you got your driver’s license. Apparently Nick asked his mom to bring him over that night to spend the night and your stepdad either forgot or never got the message. When he saw what you and your stepfather were doing, he left and caught up to his mom before she left. He told her he’d changed his mind and didn’t want to spend the night anymore. He told Caleb you were into what was happening to you.”

Humiliation tore through me at that and I gladly leaned into Mav when he pulled me against his chest.

“Eli, listen to me,” Jace implored and then he was leaning across the distance between the two beds so that he could put his hand on my knee. “I found the video of that night and I watched it…all of it.”

Fuck, would this never end? “Mav, please, I can’t do this,” I bit out as the shame sent heat flooding through my entire system. Mav’s arms tightened around me.