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GIDEON | TWENTY YEARS AGO

TERRENEAN REALM

T he air heaves from my lungs as I lie splayed out on the floor catching my breath.

My conscious mind is so disconnected from everything that just happened, it takes a moment for me to realize that coppery warmth on my tongue isn’t my blood, but his.

And yet, I feel nothing as I shove my stepfather’s larger body off mine and sit up.

My mother is a trembling mess in the corner of the living room. When her swollen eyes lift from his body to my face, they’re wide with shock and fear. “You killed him.”

It isn’t an accusation. It’s merely a statement. A tear-streaked whisper that she doesn’t know what to do with, and neither do I because I’m just a fucking eighteen-year-old kid.

“I promised you both that if he touched you again, I’d kill him.”

“But he wasn’t going to kill me.”

“Maybe not on purpose, and maybe not today.”

Her bruised throat dips, but she remains silent. She knows the statistics. I’ve spent the last seven years, since we had access to the internet, showing her domestic violence statistics. Begging her to leave him.

For us to leave him.

Her eyes return to Ret. Or what’s left of him after our brawl, which ended in him trying to strangle me, and me bludgeoning him with the butt end of his unloaded gun.

“Get the tarp out the garage.” Her eyes snap back to mine, chin trembling. She gives me a silent nod and disappears down the hallway.

At this point in time, I’d never in a million years have thought that would only be the first of many lives I would end. That in just a handful of years, I’d make a living doing it as a Navy SEAL.