Page 46 of Restitution

From the outline, I know it’s Kade leaning against my door, his head dropping back against the wood. He’s breathing unevenly, running his hand through his hair.

I take slow, careful steps, still hiding myself. “Kade?”

His eyes flicker to me, but he doesn’t move.

He doesn’t have the material covering the lower part of his face either. If anything, he looks a little out of it – as if his mind isn’t here, but his body is.

I move forward and go to turn on the light, but he snatches my wrist. “No.”

“Why?”

“No.”

I blink and swallow, nodding.

“Christopher Fields,” he says in a quiet tone. “Where is he?”

My breathing halts. “Why?”

“Is he here?”

Slowly, in the darkness, I pull my PJs back on. “He’s tied up in the basement. We wanted you to get—”

He’s out the door before I can finish, obviously fuelled by adrenaline.

I swear under my breath and run after him.

“Woah!” Barry jumps out of his chair and drops the gadget he was holding on the floor when he sees Kade abruptly kicking open the door to the basement. “No, boss. Wait!”

Tobias, Aria, Ewan and Kyle stream into the kitchen, and we all follow him as he hammers downstairs and heads straight to Chris, slamming his fist into his face; he comes to with a pained cry.

“Wake up, motherfucker.”

The fear sinks in the second he registers who’s towering above him, and he begins thrashing in his seat, kicking his legs out and getting nowhere.

We all stand at the wall near the stairs, watching Kade blinkinguncontrollably and screwing his face up like he’s trying to rid voices from his mind. “You have no fucking idea how long I’ve waited for this. Do you know who I am?” He points at himself. “I’m the father of the child you killed.”

Kade snatches a blade from a nearby table, flips it in his hand to catch it by the handle and plunges it into Chris’s shoulder.

He screams so loud my ears ring.

“You fucking—”

Kade covers his mouth and leans in, yanking the blade out. Chris looses a harrowing gasp against his palm then silently screams as he sinks it into his other shoulder and twists it.

“How does it feel? Huh? How does it feel to be helpless? To not be able to control your pain? To receive and not give.” He pushes the blade further, and Tobias chuckles while Kyle turns away. “This, right here, is for my daughter, you piece of shit.”

Aria covers her mouth on a whimper and runs upstairs. For once, Tobias and Ewan don’t chase after her.

Kade pulls the blade out again and slaps him across the face, wiping the bloodied knife on his trousers.

“You were full of words in that little recording you took. Why so silent now? Because you don’t have my girlfriend or my brother drugged and at your mercy?”

Chris doesn’t respond, hunching over as far as he can in his restraints, the two stab wounds gushing down his top and onto the dirty floor.

We once sat in this very basement and playedTwister. I got into a position where he could touch my boob without anyone noticing. From then, he was obsessed with touching them. Always looking, trying to grab them. I was never allowed to wear a braaround him.

Hours after that game, he dragged me down here, young and helpless, and made me strip while he touched himself. He took pictures of me. Told me I was his, even as I cried for my dad and took punches to the face until I removed my underwear.