“Don’t make me hurt you, officer! I’ve been taking care of that boy for three years. He’s got no other family apart from us, and I’m going!” Dakota smiled a little at Beryl as she fought the cop, who eventually let her go with him. His eyes drifted to the burning house one more time before he closed them tightly shut. No need to look anymore.
???
Pyro snapped his eyes open, pushing away the memories and remembering the woman standing in front of him. He couldn’t see anything of his Janey in the uptight woman she’d become. The little wild cat had shoved her personality down deep inside.
“Janey?” he asked Lio again, his voice cracking. “You’re telling me that was my Janey?”
“Her name is Janet Revers. Ms Revers stopped using Janey when she was twelve. You knew her?” Lio asked, although it wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ knew her. How did you find her?” Pyro bit out harshly. His mind was already cursing the fact he’d turned her away. That he hadn’t recognised her. Pyro owed Janey and her parents everything for what they’d done. Tom and Beryl had saved his life and sanity.
“The woman was reported missing yesterday. Janet, ironically, does work in a library, the main one in town. She’s the head librarian there and took a six-month leave of absence, but Janet is two weeks overdue for being back at work, and nobody has seen her. A colleague went to her home and called us when he realised it had been broken into. Janet’s house has been ransacked, and not just once, by the looks of it.”
“Janet’s place?” Pyro said numbly.
“She still lives at her childhood home,” Lio replied.
“Her parents?” Lio shifted comfortably and glanced at Chance. Chance nodded for Lio to tell Pyro.
“Janet’s mother died six months after she and her husband tried to adopt a young boy. The adoption process was going ahead until she was diagnosed with cancer, and the court wouldn’t approve the adoption. Tom Revers was given disability and received his pension early after severely burning his legs in a fire. Tom fought the courts until the very end when they finally denied him even access to the boy.” Lio dropped the bombshell carefully. He wasn’t aware if Pyro had learned any of this. And Lio didn’t know if Hellfire knew Pyro’s past. What Lio now knew made him sick.
“Tom and Beryl tried to adopt me?” Pyro gasped. He felt like he was being kicked in his balls repeatedly. The shocks kept coming.
“They did more than try. Pyro, the shitter, was, if the diagnosis had been two weeks later, the courts couldn’t have done shit. They’d have signed off on the paperwork already.” Pyro thought back to how, for six months, the Revers visited him constantly in the children’s home in which he’d been placed. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, they appeared in the evening and then spent all day Saturday with him. When Beryl stopped coming, he had been confused, but Tom and Janey had come. Pyro had been too selfish to understand the pain in their saddened eyes. Now, as an adult, he recognised it.
“Shit, even with cancer, they still came for me,” Pyro muttered.
“Dude, they seriously wanted to adopt and give you a home. Even with Tom Revers off on disability, they were more than comfortable.”
“Makes little sense why the courts didn’t let me go to them. I ended up living my childhood in the orphanage. No one chose a teen whose father was a murderer.”
“As mentioned, Tom Revers fought until they banned him from seeing you. And even then, Tom did not stop. Not until he passed,” Lio said gently. Pyro rocked back.
“Tom Revers is dead?” he asked, shocked. Bad enough finding Beryl died when he and Janey were eleven. Tom’s death sent him flailing.
“Tom died when Janet was sixteen. Girl’s been on her own since then. Child services tried to take her, but Janet was mature enough to explain how to pay bills and everything else. Somehow the girl talked the courts into minimal supervision and stayed in the family home,” Lio explained.
“Sounds like Janey; once she set her mind to something, nothing could budge her.” Pyro smiled slightly. “How did Tom die?”
“Complications from the fire,” Lio said bluntly. Pyro froze in place as those words ran through his head.
“I killed her father?” Pyro muttered. His temper flared, and Pyro broke free of Chance’s hold, grabbed the stool, and slammed it against the side.
“Lock him down!” Chance roared as Pyro slammed Diesel into the wall and shattered another chair. Diesel flung Pyro back as Bear tripped him. Pyro went crashing to the ground, fighting the entire way. Chatter launched himself at Pyro as Pyro rose and smashed his head into Bear, who fell away. Shotgun and Celt grabbed Pyro’s legs as Chatter and Diesel grasped an arm. They hauled Pyro off the floor and carried him to his bunk, where they threw him in and shut his door. An animalistic roar of pain erupted from the room, and Bear walked towards them, looking pissed.
“Back off. I’ll guard him,” he stated.
“Nah, I’m going in,” Diesel said, his hand on the handle.
“Pyro’s rabid right now, brother. He may be an easy-going brother, but he’s got his darkness and a temper to match it,” Bear warned.
“And Pyro would never leave one of us to suffer in such pain alone.” Diesel shook his head and opened the door. He stepped inside, narrowly missing a thrown mug. Pyro was a mess. His lips were curled in self-hatred. Sweat dripped down Pyro’s face as he repeatedly smashed his bed into the wall.
“Get out,” Pyro snarled.
“Ain’t leavin’ you, brother,” Diesel replied.
“Get the fuck out! I don’t wanna hurt you!” Pyro shrieked, and Diesel winced as he slid down the door and sat with his back to it.