Chapter 32: Theodore - Marked By Love

The witch hadn’t moved in hours. Theodore hoped she was only sleeping. He was debating trying to check on her again when the cellar door clanged open.

Two blurry figures descended the stairs, a third stayed vigil from the steps. As they got closer, Theodore could see the woman who kept hitting him was in front. Unsurprisingly, she seized him, bringing her fist into his jaw and then his stomach.

Still spluttering for air, she manhandled him until he was facing the second figure. Gage Prescot’s ugly mug came into view, albeit unfocused from Theodore’s lack of visual assistance.

He sneered. “You’re a lot more trouble than you’re worth, you know that?” Gage said. “After all this, you finally go off the pills, your clinic is stupid enough to broadcast your schedule using an insecure messaging system, we drive all the way out here, and you didn’t even have the damn flash drive on you.”

Gage grabbed Theodore by the hair, craning his head up and back.

“Hmmm, you were pretty once. That’s how we got your dear old pop to cooperate. But look at you now, I can’t even use you at a breeding center; you’re so old.”

The woman holding him laughed and reached around to grab Theodore’s hip while she licked his ear. If he wasn’t trembling so hard, he would have puked on her shoes.

“Tell you what? You tell me where the flash drive is, and I’ll let you go home with Miley. Or, I ship you off to the worst brothel, catering to all sorts of nasty clients where your pretty little holes won’t even last a month.”

Theodore knew he ought to be terrified. He ought to cooperate to buy himself any shred of time for Royce to rescue him. But he couldn’t make himself do it.

“You killed my father,” he spluttered. “You killed my mother.”

Gage stared at him, impassive. “And?”

The shock that had settled into Theodore’s core, cold and unrelenting, gave out to incredulity. This man had ruined his family, killed his parents and who knew how many others. Countless lives forever damaged, and this was how he reacted when confronted by his misdeeds? Theodore’s face was wet as his vision further blurred. He gasped for breath.

Gage released his grip on Theodore’s hair and took a step back. “What? Do you think they mattered? Do you think you, your parents, your pathetic existence and ultimate demise matter to anything in the grand scheme of the universe?”

He’d always known Gage was a monster, as corrupt as a human could get. But this? This lack of emotion, lack of spark in his eyes when he spoke of life and death, Theodore realized Gage wasn’t a man. He wasn’t human, he was a husk governed by nothing but malice.

Unlike what Theodore had previously imagined, he’d never get a scrap of closure from seeing him, from demanding answers for his crimes. Somehow this knowledge lifted the lead cage that had taken up residence around Theodore’s heart and mind, chaining him to the past. In a strangled sob, he was free.

Nothing would bring his parents back, nothing would right these wrongs, and Gage would never care.

Forcing himself to stay shackled to his past, drowning himself in misery and loss, wasn’t going to help him or anyone. But moving forward—his train of thought was cut short.

Overhead, the cabin shook. A great crashing sound rattled through the walls and into the cellar, followed by snarls and shouts. Utter chaos erupted overhead. A bear roared, and a dog barked.

Theodore laughed. “You’re done.”