Truth of Dark Pasts by Serena Wood (free children's online books .TXT) 📖

what I did.” I struggle to get my voice to work at the risk of her punishing me for speaking. She smiles almost affectionately at me.

“I know you’re sorry… And I know I said when I first brought you here that I would never forgive you. But you know I have, don’t you? I forgave you a while ago, do you remember?” I do remember vividly the day she let me out of the basement for the first time, the day she let me see River. The day she forgave me was the day I was given the chance to be a part of their family. And once again I’ve soiled that too.

“Yes…” I nod slightly, still making sure to choose my words wisely.

“I really thought of us as a family. I even started to care for you, like a pet.. or even a daughter at times.” My eyes light up at that and I shift my gaze away from my hands to see her smiling.

“I’ve been thinking for a few hours… I still don’t understand how you could gain my trust like that and then make River leave.” her smile quickly turns into a scowl again and my heart sinks.

“Tell me what you did to make her leave.” I know as soon as she utters the order that I can’t avoid what I’ve done, I can’t go against her order. I have to tell her.

“I… I told her… that I still love her. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…” She doesn’t give me the chance to explain, her right hand comes into contact with the left side of my face with such force it knocks me back a bit.

“How…” Her voice boils over with anger and she can barely contain herself long enough to continue, “… could you do something like that? Do you realize what you’ve done?” Her voice booms and I shrink back in fear as she starts to tower over me. “You confused her feelings again and you made her leave the both of us. You self centered bitch!”

 

☯River☯

Everything is a blur as I run alongside Kathy, we must run at least two blocks before we slow down. We never really slow to a calm walk, we speed walk the whole way whenever she’s not making me run in fear that Chloe will somehow catch us. We never once stop and somehow I end up infront of the door to her apartment, she makes sure to hold onto my arm as she takes the keys out of her pocket and unlocks the door.

She leads me inside, her grip on my arm now gentle compared to how it was when we left that damned house. After shutting and locking the door back, she leads me to the living room like a toddler. From what I can remember, this is usually when she would call out for Shay.

But this time she doesn’t have to, Shay was already sitting nervously on the couch; jumping to her feet as soon as she hears us. For the first time since that last movie night so many months ago, our eyes lock. I had forgotten how caring those green eyes of hers are. The second she sees me she lets out a small gasp, “R-River?” by now I know that tone in her voice means she can’t really believe it’s me, Kathy had given me the same tone when she had first barged into the House. Kathy finally lets go of my arm, stepping back and allowing Shay to move to stand infront of me. She looks me up and down, taking in every detail just to make sure it’s really me.

Before I know how to react, she’s wrapping her arms around my neck in this crushing hug; something I didn’t think the delicate girl was capable of. A small sob leaves her as she starts to let out a stream of relieved ramblings. A few minutes pass and the hug never breaks, barely even slackening.

“I’m so happy to see you, I missed you and Ellie so much…” at last she pulls away and it takes me a second to distinguish this sentence from her other previous ramblings. Then she says it.

“… Where’s Ellie? Oh God, River, please tell me she’s okay.” All in that moment it takes her to say that, I’m reminded of everything that happened over the past hour. I’m reminded of how I had so horribly left her behind.

“I… I-I left her… I left her alone in that basement, with that monster… I left her.” suddenly those three words are the only thing that I can manage to say and as the realization hits me I find myself sobbing into Shay’s shoulder, reiterating those same three words.

Chapter 25, "Choice"

ᧅ Kathy ᧅ

I had been so relieved to have River safely inside the apartment, that I didn’t really think of how Shay would react to seeing her. More importantly, I didn’t get the chance to tell Shay what had happened and she had unintentionally brought up River’s regret for leaving Ellie behind. Now, nearly ten minutes later, River is on the couch; still sobbing into Shay’s shoulder. Shay’s rubbing her shoulder and mumbling words of reassurance but it seems to do little to stop River’s tears.

Finally, I decide that it’s time for me to step in. River and I had always gotten along so well before, I can only hope that will help me to calm her now. I move to sit on the other side of her, setting my cup of coffee on the coffee table. Shay looks over her shoulder to lock eyes with me, I can tell she’s scared; she has no idea what’s going on.

“Do you think you can make her some tea? Something that’ll help her sleep, I’ll try to talk to her.” she nods in understanding when I say that and she carefully wiggles out of River’s grasp. Without Shay to cling to, her sobs seem to worsen and I pull her in for a hug in an attempt to replace her small sense of comfort. Her crying instantly seems to calm with the action and after a minute she moves to lean her head on my shoulder, staring at her hands absently.

“River… You know none of this is your fault, right? You did your best to take care of her.” In the ten minutes she had been crying, she had told me everything Chloe had done to Ellie. She doesn’t say much about the things she endured to prevent Ellie from further harm, but what little details she has said leave me sick to my stomach.

“I promised her I would get her out of there… I failed her.” she sniffles back another sob, covering her mouth to prevent it from seeping out.

“You didn’t fail her, you will get her out. You just had to get yourself out first, you couldn’t have helped her from in there, I know you know that. Deep down.” she thinks my words over for a moment, silently contemplating it all.

“I’m just so worried about what Chloe will do to her now that I’m not there… What if we don’t get to her in time?” she pulls away from my shoulder to lock eyes with me and I hold the gaze with as much intensity as she does.

“You promised you would get her out and so did I. We’re not going to break those promises, she’s going to be okay. You need to trust me on that, okay?” I know trust is a big thing to ask of her right now, after what she’s been through. But I know the old River is still in there, the River I knew before all of this. That River trusted me and I know if she’s still in there, then she’ll be fine.

“Okay…” She mutters quietly and I move to hug her again, she hugs back and it still seem so foreign to me. She always seemed to hate the idea of human contact, unless it was coming from Ellie, and despite my secretly affectionate nature, I never hugged people much. But yet, here we are, hugging each other like we had just lost a relative.

Shay comes in with the tea and we break apart. River takes the tea gingerly, thanking her quietly. I’m not sure what she had put in the tea but within 15 minutes of drinking it, River is passed out in my lap; her legs draped over Shay’s. After she’s sound asleep, Shay motions that we need to talk in the kitchen and carefully we manage to settle the sleeping girl onto the couch.

Once I’m in the kitchen, Shay starts to pace a bit and I wait patiently for her to speak.

“What… What the hell happened? All that stuff she said about Ellie… is it true?” I nod my head silently at the question. I may have only gotten that quick glance at Ellie when she was at the dinner table, but I saw enough of her to know what River said was true. The poor girl has been through hell and back.

“Are you sure? Did you see her? Why didn’t you get her out?” her eyes start to brim with tears at the thought of Ellie in such a terrible situation. I move to hug her, trying to ease some of her worrying. But I know it won’t do any good, none of us will be able to stop worrying until she’s safe.

“There was a metal door, I couldn’t get to her. I tried to pick the lock but…” tears start to fall down my cheeks as well as hers. I start to feel like River was right, like there could have been something we could have done. Shay moves her hands up to rub my shoulder blades and it instantly calms me, just like always.

“It’s okay, you tried. We should call the cops, they’ll know where to go from here.”

I shake my head as much as I can manage while my nose is buried into her shoulder. I grumble my protest almost instantly, “Do you remember how long it took them to do something about your brother? Honestly, I don’t know how you have any faith in them at all, they never seem to get to anyone in time.” I can feel her whole body stiffen at the mention of her brother and I pull away to look her in the eye. It’s been two years and we still haven’t gotten over it.

“I’m sorry…” I start the apology, knowing by now that I should learn to be more careful. But she cuts me off before I get the chance to really say anything.

“It’s fine… My parents brought him up at dinner. It’s getting a little easier to talk about it.” She lets out a small sigh before continuing, “But that’s not the point right now, just because the cops didn’t do anything then doesn’t mean they can’t help now. It was a different situation, they didn’t have much of a choice. But if you just take them to where you found River, they can do something.” I think her words over for several minutes; trying to listen to her. I sit down at the kitchen table and run