Page 118 of The Devastation You Reap

“I’m not sure. He’s getting worse, but while his brain might be failing him, his body is still relatively young so—”

“It could be a long road?” I finish for her.

“Exactly,” she says sadly. Anyone else might believe that sadness is for her uncle’s short life, but I know better and I’m starting to think she hates him almost as much as I do. Which could mean…

No.

I force the thoughts away not wanting to believe they could be true.

“Grab the bags,” she says, swinging open a door in the far back corner of the house. I do as I’m told and get them from where we left them at the top of the stairs and follow her into what I assume is her room.

It’s not what I was expecting at all.

There are almost no signs that a little girl has ever lived here.

The decoration is almost the same as the rest of the house. There are certainly no dolls or toys, or anything from her past.

Sadness for the little girl who lost everything and found herself here makes my chest ache.

She was just as unlucky as me to end up in the middle of this.

“Final rooms then we chill,” she says before I get a chance to really think about what all this means.

“Sure.”

“Where are you going?” she asks when I head for the stairs, there’s only one room I want to search now, one place that could give me the answers I need.

“Going to the first locked door,” I say, hopefully innocently enough. We discovered another five locked doors up here, the easiest thing would be to start here, but I don’t know what they are.

“Okay. Let’s—Shit,” she curses when her cell rings. The fact she’s swearing tells me just how out of her comfort zone she really is here.

“You go, meet me down there.”

“Okay.”

My heart pounds harder with each step I take, and by the time I can see the door in front of me, my head spins to the point I wonder if I’m about to pass out.

I never wanted to come back to this place. I was happy to banish it’s existence from my mind, but knowing it’s possibly the only place I can find out what I need without torturing the information out of Macie. Although, now we're here, that outcome is becoming more and more appealing.

My entire body jolts in anticipation as the lock clicks open.

I’m shaking, my body freezing with fear despite the sweat that coats my body. Disgust rolls through me, threatening to bring up my Chinese all over his ridiculously thick carpet as I swing the door open.

I’m hit with a musty smell which doesn’t help my stomach.

With a huge breath in through my mouth, I step inside and lift my eyes from my feet.

My breathing falters as I take in his huge carved walnut desk in the middle of the room.

My fists curl as the pain of gripping on to the edge hits me as if it’s happening right now.

Images flicker through my mind, the words he said to me. The way he convinced me to come here in the promise of showing me his trophies, all the incredible things he collected during his NFL career.

I was young, naïve, I had no clue back then that he wanted something else from me. I didn’t even give the fact it was only the two of us a second thought.

I was too starstruck to question anything.

I thought he saw potential in me, that he was helping prepare me for greatness, not grooming me to be his own little toy.