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“I could see the toll it was taking on Isaac. He’d just lost his mother and then his father had basically disappeared. It was too much for him to carry on his young shoulders. He was still just a kid and he was lost and scared. I tried my best to keep things as normal as possible for him, making him dinner and keeping the house clean, but I knew it wasn’t the same.” I kept quiet, knowing he needed to get it all out, but one question kept filtering through my mind. Who was there to take care of him?
“Then one night, everything changed again. Isaac and I were eating in the kitchen and talking about how we’d have to go to the store soon for food because we were almost out. Isaac looked so sad when he said he was hungry for mashed potatoes. They’d always been his favorite food and Mom would make them special, just for him. I knew he was missing her and I wanted to cheer him up, so I told him I’d buy the stuff to make them, even though I knew they probably wouldn’t turn out as good as Mom’s.” He pulled in a shuddering breath and I tightened my arms around him.
“I never heard Dad, never knew he’d even come out of his room. The next thing I knew, he yanked me up out of my chair and smacked me across the face. It hurt, bad, but I was mostly in shock. Even though Dad had hit Mom several times, he’d never laid a hand on either of us. He was a terrible husband, but he’d always been a good dad. He coached my little league games and would play catch with us after he got home from work. Suddenly, he had turned into an angry monster who I no longer recognized,” he whispered.
“Dad stayed out of his room after that, but he was never a parent again. He started drinking all the time and we learned very quickly that he was the meanest kind of drunk. This went on for years, with Dad getting drunk out of his mind and then using his fists on us for no reason at all.
“I tried my best to protect Isaac, to step in front of him so he wouldn’t get hurt when Dad went off on one of his rampages. Isaac fought me on it, saying he didn’t want to see me get hurt any more than I wanted that for him, but it was my job as his older brother to make sure he was as safe as possible. I couldn’t always be there and the times that I wasn’t, I would worry sick about him. Isaac was so much more than a brother to me. He was my best friend, the only one who knew what it was really like, living in that house.”
“Was there anyone else who knew what was going on? An aunt or uncle maybe or a grandparent?” I interrupted.
He shook his head against me. “My parents were both only children and their parents didn’t want them to get married so they severed all ties when they decided to elope. Even when he was drunk, Dad was always careful to never leave any bruises where someone might see, and we were both too scared to tell, so no teachers or any of my coaches ever found out,” he explained.
“We were in high school when Dad finally lost his job. He’d missed too many days when he was too drunk to go in, so he told the two of us to go out and find jobs. We were exhausted all the time, but at least working together at the local pizza place got us out of the house and out of our father’s line of fire. I was on the soccer team and my coach said I was pretty good at it. So, I made a plan in my head that I’d get a full ride to some college to play on their team. I’d stay at home until Isaac graduated, then we’d both get an apartment and take classes together,” he said, his voice heavy with sadness over a dream which had obviously been lost along the way.
He went on to tell me about some of the more vicious attacks his dad had made on him, with him taking the brunt of most of them in order to protect his younger brother. I mentally checked off several of the injuries listed in Zane’s file and I knew that I’d definitely found the man that Micah had sent me to find. My stomach seized at all the pain and horror that he’d been through at such an early age; betrayed by a person who was supposed to love and protect him. I longed to be able to go back in time and save him from ever having to experience any of it.
“Then, one night, Dad came storming into my room. I’d been sound asleep, but my bedroom door slamming against the wall jarred me awake. I was disoriented, and it was dark, so I couldn’t see what was going on. I smelled the whiskey on his foul breath and the stench of his unwashed body right before something hard slammed into my chest and I felt my ribs crack. I was stunned by the pain, so he was able to get several hits in with the wooden bat before I could even think to cover myself. He went to Isaac’s room next, but I couldn’t do anything to stop him. There was a blinding hot pain in my side every time I tried to breathe.” He began to shake in my arms and I turned us, so we were lying on our sides, facing each other.
I clenched my jaw and tried to school my features. He didn’t need to see how furious I was. Not only was his father an utter piece of shit, but his mother had deliberately chosen to remove herself from an abusive situation while leaving her two young sons defenseless against the same monster who had tormented her.
There wasn’t anything I could do about his mother, but I was already planning on hunting down his father. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep myself from smiling at the thought of inflicting all the same wounds on the man as he had on his sons. Then I’d turn him over to the police, so he could spend the rest of his miserable life in prison. That would all have to wait though. Zach…Zane, I corrected myself, needed me right now and I wouldn’t let him down. He’d had enough of that in his life.
