I felt that lock inside me open up for the first time since I was a kid as I entered her name in the search box. There was no real fear, just a wild feeling of freedom. Sink or swim the beast was loose…
I was surprised to even get a hit, I don’t know what I’d expected but to see her name come up in little blurbs here and there was kind of humbling. There were snippets here and there about a young girl being terrorized by a local man. At first there was no mention of her name maybe because she was a minor, but somehow my gut knew. As I kept scrolling the story unfolded and then I found her.
There was a story about a court case. I glanced over everything at first just getting the gist of it, my anger growing with each line. I’d forgotten that Josh was still in the room so engrossed was I in the shit that was unfolding right before my eyes. My first inclination was to go get her and bring her here with me. We had high walls and enough security to keep out Blackwater.
“Matt calm down.” My ears were ringing and my head was stuffy, I had no idea what the fuck Josh was talking about, and why the fuck was he holding me down?
“It’s okay bro we’ll take care of it, just calm down.” I looked up at him not knowing for a minute what was going on or even where the fuck I was. A quick look around the room showed the chaos, what the fuck? Did we have a quake? I don’t remember feeling anything. The computer was on the floor on its side, the desk was thrown against the wall and there was shit everywhere.
Dad came bounding into the room with a look of terror on his face. “What is it boys what happened?” he looked from one to the other of us as Josh shook his head at him.
“You two have some sort of disagreement?” his look of parental disappointment was almost comical and I would’ve laughed if my senses didn’t choose that moment to return. I pushed Josh off of me and stood, prowling the room like a cornered animal.
“No dad it’s Kadyn.” Josh patted my shoulder as he answered dad.
“Kadyn? Matt’s lady, what happened to her is she hurt?”
Josh righted the desk and the computer fiddling with it to make sure I hadn’t killed it. I couldn’t talk there was something blocking my throat and my heart hurt like a son of a bitch. I wanted to punch something, hold her and cry all at the same time. I just kept seeing her little face so full of fear as she told me he’d find her. I saw her the first day we’d met and the way I’d treated her and bile rose in my stomach. My poor Kadyn.
“Is this a curse?” I had to ask, first Carrie was almost raped and killed and now this shit. Was my family cursed or some shit that these things kept happening to our women? Had mom ever faced anything like this?
“What’s he talking about Josh?”
“Give me a minute dad I’m trying to get the comp up and running so I can show you.” I heard the barely restrained anger in his voice as he tried to undo the damage I’d done. The three of us read the shit again and I was able to restrain myself this time but barely.
“Well shit son.” That’s all dad could say as he turned to me with a look of sadness. Seems I was destined to be embroiled in drama when it came to the women in my life. “I’ll be back.” No one bothered to ask me where I was headed as I ran from the room and headed for one of my rides in the garage.
All the way back to her I kept trying to figure out the next move. I was no longer worried about her reaction to my going behind her back, after the shit I’d just uncovered it didn’t matter to me if she was mad or not. The only thing I cared about now was her safety and wellbeing. The story I’d just read almost seemed like it had been about someone else, it couldn’t be the girl I’d just left not too long ago.
The fucker was free to roam the streets after the fuckery he’d done and I’m sure the reality was way worse than anything I’d just read. I can’t imagine the horror she’d lived with. No wonder she’d ran here to her dad. But what was being done now to see that she stayed safe from this lunatic? Was she supposed to live the rest of her life in hiding? Fuck that.