Page 119 of The Devastation You Reap

I heave as I step behind his desk, standing exactly where he would have been as he… As he shattered my entire life, my soul, my body.

Anger surges forward and my hands tremble as I begin ripping open the drawers of his desk, looking for anything that will point me toward that care home.

All I need is a name. An address. A clue.

He thinks he’s got away with all this. That he’s going to get to live out his final years in comfort, even if he doesn’t remember most of his days.

He has no idea what’s coming for him.

My eyes widen as I drag open the bottom drawer and a folder appears.

Acorn Lodge.

It sounds like a holiday destination. And staring at the front of the folder, it seems it’s trying to look like one too.

A smile curls at my lips as I stare down at it.

“Got you, motherfucker,” I mutter, slamming the drawer closed.

Falling back into his office chair, I rest forward on my elbows dropping my head into my hands as the images in my head only get clearer as the musty smell in the room gives way to one I remember almost as if it was yesterday.

His smell.

My skin prickles as the shudders wracking my body only get worse.

I’m not stupid, I knew coming back here after all these years wouldn’t be easy, but fuck…

I clench my fists, willing them to stop shaking. Begging my heart rate to slow before I pass out on his fucking office floor.

I bet he would have loved that…

I don’t realize I’ve moved, that I’ve started pacing back and forth battling with the memories playing on loop in my mind until a shadow falls in the doorway.

My entire body recoils, my brain thinking that it’s him, that he’s come back for me.

“Leon, what’s wrong?” Her soft voice flows through me like silk all over my rough and jagged edges.

But when I look up, I’m right back there. Just a helpless child staring into her light blue eyes begging her to help me, to stop him. To save me.

But she didn’t.

My feet eat up the space between us in a flash and I’m standing before her, my fingers around her throat as I slam her up against the wall.

“Lee?” she questions, her voice strained with the tightness of my grip. “Y-you’re shaking.”

My chest heaves as I stare into those blue eyes. The exact ones I’ve dreamed about for years. Sometimes my memories morphed and she saved me but only occasionally because every other time, she left me. She turned her back, she walked away like I wasn’t worth saving.

Like I was nothing.

“You have no idea, do you?” I seethe, lowering down until our noses are almost brushing. “Not a fucking clue what you’ve done.”

“I-I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You fucking ruined me, Macie Fletcher.”

“What are you—” she squeals when I lift her from the floor and drop her onto her uncle’s desk. The one he was so fond of using for activities other than working. Where he taught very different lessons from the ones needed on the field.

Pulling her sneakers off her feet, I throw them across the room, revelling in the sound of things falling from the shelves that line the walls.