The Innocents Nathan Senthil (i wanna iguana read aloud TXT) 📖

THE INNOCENTS

A cop pursues a violent felon to avenge his father

 

 

Nathan Senthil

 

 

 

 

 

Polite note to the reader

This book is written in US English except where fidelity to other languages or accents is appropriate.

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For Dr. Aarthi,

a rockstar surgeon who saves babies for a living.

You are a hero in its truest meaning,

and my inspiration to live with purpose.

 

 

 

To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.

- Martin Luther King

Contents

Part I: Lolly

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Part II: Joshua

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Part III: Gabriel

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

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Part I: Lolly

Chapter 1

July 27, 1967. 02:01 P.M.

 

A determined kick thumped inside Iris Durant’s stomach and rescued her from a near-death state. As her eyes fluttered open, she discerned that she lay on her side, facing the caved in head of a man she had lived with for a decade. The gash, deep and messy, exposed pink brain within the crushed cranium that oozed dark viscous blood.

Another kick pushed her into reality even further—a reality filled with a myriad of unpleasant noises: the distant sounds of assault rifles being fired, military men barking orders, sirens wailing, glass shattering, and people yelling.

A deafening boom stunned her already feebly beating heart. The explosion not only reverberated through her shop, but also shook the very ground she lay upon.

It’s the tanks.

When the electricity still powered their TV, the news had reported that the forty-ton war-machines had arrived to finish the job which men from the National Guard failed to.

Witnessing the carnage, a stranger would have been forgiven for assuming he was smack-dab in the middle of a battlefield. In a way, he would have been correct, but this was not Vietnam or Stalingrad. Iris’s ransacked shop, along with her dead husband, was located on the 12th Street, Detroit.

Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. What had started as a relatively simple raid in an unlicensed bar on the West Side turned into a full-blown riot between the blacks and Detroit PD. Though skin color played a vital role in inciting the incident, the riot later became a free-for-all plundering fest. Iris’s store, ‘Goodwill Electronix’, was in fact robbed by a variety of criminals, including whites. Together.

And the victims weren’t of one particular ethnicity either. Iris was white, and Lawrence was black. Both of them were thrashed with baseball bats wielded by browns. Thankfully, the hooligan who’d hit Iris was only a boy, barely out of adolescence. He had swung the bat from an awkward angle with little force and a lot of hesitation. She just hated it when kids were forced into a life of crime.

Iris moved, trying to get up, but the bump in her stomach prevented her from turning over. Getting her bearings, she planted an elbow and then a hand. The billing counter provided help; she grabbed its ledge and heaved herself up. Her knees shook and threatened to collapse. When she stood straight, her world slipped under her feet. If not for the grip she had on the table, gravity would have triumphed.

Dizzy, while hammers battered within her temples, Iris reckoned her vision was completely black on the right side. She dared to peel a hand from the table and brought it to her head. Trembling cold fingers traced her face. There was a craggy lump, where the eye should have been, but she felt no pain. Hand still holding the table, she stumbled to her left and looked into the shelved mirrored back wall behind the counter, where the radios used to be. The lump was her right eye bulging out of proportion; the blood and vitreous fluid ran down her dust-covered cheek.

As Iris digested the horrible image in the mirror, something tinged in her lower abdomen. Before she understood what happened, warm liquid ran down her inner thighs.

No, no, no!

Accumulating all her strength, she cried out for help but her voice failed, and the desperate scream came out with a gasp of air. Did it really matter, though? She knew no one would come to her rescue. Good people had already fled the neighborhood, leaving it to the mercy of wolves.

The shortage of options disheartened Iris, and the grim situation sank in: she must deliver unassisted.

She bent down, pulled up the hem of her long skirt, and secured it in her mouth. Locking a thumb on the strap of her underwear, she shoved them down but couldn’t get them past the knees. So she stood up, wriggled them further down, used her feet to remove them completely and flung them across the floor with a toe.

Something happened inside, and she felt the contents of her entire body being vacuumed out. Her throat let out another groan, and this time there was no air. It was all pain.

The contraction eventually unclutched her from its stinging grasp, and her heartbeat decelerated, blessing her with