Overcomer - The Journey, Judy Colella [book reader for pc txt] 📗

who are preparing for independent living.”

“Cian – you there?”

He put the phone back to is ear. “Yes, sir.”

“All right. It seems I was mistaken; I found this, uh, Niall Breslin – ” he pronounced it “Nee-all” but Cian didn’t correct him – “and a, uh Fianna and... Dara MacDara? Is that right?”

“Yes, sir. Names work a little differently in Ireland.”

Cian heard the man expel a long breath. “Fine. But next time, please give me some advanced warning; and by the way, what time are you coming home?”

“What’s the latest I can be?”

Fingernails thrumming on a desktop. “No later than nine o’clock. Can you get a ride?”

“Hold on, please.” Cian looked at Croghan. “Might I get a ride home later?”

“Certainly. What time are you expected?”

“No later than nine.”

“No problem. Tell him it’s arranged.”

“Um, I’m good for a ride, Mr. Geller. Thank you.”

“Communication, Cian. Try to remember it, okay?”

“Okay. And thanks again.” He sat back down, relieved, stuffing the phone into a front pocket. “Sorry about all that.”

Celeste leaned forward, turning sideways to look at Cian with a puzzled tilt to her head. “You live in a group foster home? How in the world did you end up in one of those? I knew you were an orphan, but I guess it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder about where you lived.”

“That’s the part of the story I was coming to before the phone... rang? Why do you use that term? It didn’t ‘ring,’ it sort of, I don’t know, chimed.”

“When phones were first invented,” Mr. Kelly replied, stretching a bit in his chair, “the recipient of a call was notified by an actual bell in the device. You see, cell technology is relatively new. Phones used to be these big, clunky things attached to the wall by an electrical wire – what is it?”

Cian felt the blood drain from his face, and he clutched the arms of the chair so hard it felt as though his fingers would go through the upholstery. He closed his eyes, his breathing shallow and fast, assaulted by the memory of his foster mother…

 

*******

 

…as she grabbed his arm and pulled him into the kitchen where she told him to drop the laundry basket and remove his shirt.

      Cian obeyed, showing no emotion. He knew what he was in for – or thought he did –when she went to the utility closet on the other side of the stove and pulled out a familiar length of electrical wire.

      “Go on. Turn around and grab the back of that chair. You’re in for one hell of a whuppin’, boy.” This time she didn’t need to tell him why. He had been stupid enough to look directly at her daughter.

      He looked down, closing his eyes as he waited. Why did she always make him wait?

But then it began. As always, he remained silent during the beating, but this time it went on longer than usual.

      Letitia grunted and finally stopped. “You ain’t human,” she muttered. “But dammit, I’m gonna get a response out of you yet!”

      Because she hadn’t told him to go, he stayed put, gripping the back of the kitchen chair with white knuckles, teeth clenched, tears splashing down onto the seat joining splatters of blood. He knew if he tried to stand straight, he would fall down. The pain was more intense than ever before, and it was all he could do to keep from sobbing. Not human?!

      Through the familiar ringing in his ears, he heard her rummaging around in one cabinet, then another, finally coming back to the center of the room. He hadn’t heard her put the wire back, and wondered what he was in for now. A small pool of his blood had collected on and around his feet, and he felt it oozing down his back. She would make him clean it all up when she was finished with him. He wondered how he would be able to do that this time.

      “Okay, you manure-faced son of a bitch,” she growled. “How’s this?” She applied to something to his back that at first felt like a water-soaked piece of cloth – only he hadn’t heard her run any water in the sink. A second later, the open wounds began to sting, then seemed to catch fire.

      He gasped, barely able to breath the pain became so extreme.

      “Lemon juice and salt, in case you’re wonderin’,” she told him in a horrible, sweet voice. “It’s a great germ-killer, and we wouldn’t want you getting all infected and whatnot.” And began to scrub it across his back with the same vigor she had made him apply to her dirty pots and pans.

      His knees buckled, and he almost collapsed from the agony, but she put an arm around him and hoisted him back up.

      “Why don’t you yell?!”

He couldn’t. The pain tore at him with such ferocity, it was all he could do to breathe. And then, mercy. The room greyed, the ringing in his ears grew more high-pitched, followed by total darkness…

 

*******

 

Forcing himself to breathe more slowly, he regained control and opened his eyes to find everyone staring at him. He took long, deep breath. “I-I’m all right. It’s just… soon enough I’ll be getting to that part of things.”

“Can I get you anything?” Eileen asked, half-rising from the sofa.

“You’re very kind. But please, I’m okay.”

She sat down again, shaking her head. “I don’t think so, but if you insist.”

“I do. And if I may, I’d like to continue. This is the most difficult part to tell and I’d like to get it over and done.”

With that, he sat forward once more to tell the balance of his story.

TWENTY-ONE

 

Georgia – One Year Earlier

 

Dr. Libman sat back in the uncomfortable office chair, legs crossed, and fiddled with his pen with one hand, tapping the armrest with the other. Mr. Bell faced the doctor from behind his cluttered desk, phone pressed to his ear.

“They need to do something about their staffing,” muttered Bell. “This has to be the hundredth time I’ve been put on hold today.”

Tinny notes of the on-hold music were making their way past the man’s ear and out into the office; the doctor shook his head, understanding Bell’s frustration.

“Ah! Yes! Josiah Bell, here... oh, you were to-... okay. Well, we have an unusual situation. One of our foster kids, uh, what’s that? Oh! They told you already? That’s good – saves me some time having to explain it all... you will... wonderful. I’ll let Dr. Libman know. He’s – right.” He hung up, shaking his head. “They keep you on hold forever like you have nothing better to do, then rush you off like you’d been keeping them waiting. Anyway, it’s all set. They’ll sign him in as a resident until they think he’s well enough to matriculate back into society.”

“They” were Libman’s employers, the Marcus Institute in Atlanta, a part of Georgia’s Mental Health Services. The Institute dealt with difficult situations like Cian MacDara’s, and Libman had recommended in-patient status, knowing the chance that the boy would recover enough to live a normal life seemed slim at this point. Even so, he’d sensed a strength there, a determination he believed the doctors could work with.

“I really hope they can help. God knows I did as much I could.” The doctor returned his pen to his front jacket pocket. “I’m inclined to think, though, that the damage may be too extensive. And that tape! My God, for that alone the woman should fry!” After listening to it several days after his first meeting with Cian, Libman had an even deeper respect for the boy’s resiliency.

“Agent Markwood almost lost her lunch after only a minute or so listening to it.” Josiah leaned back, his eyes stormy. “I can’t even imagine what it took not to move for that long or not even nod off.”

Libman gave him a crooked smile. “I could give you the psychology behind it, but you’d probably fall asleep. Even so – ” the smile faded – “I can’t picture myself surviving such a thing. Ten minutes. That’s it.”

“Know what you mean. I mean, that first time was bad enough, but having to listen to it at least once almost every day for two whole years along with similar ones his foster-siblings made? And they tied him up like that with the sulfuric acid every time.”

The doctor shared an unhappy silence with Bell for a few moments before getting up. “Well, I have to get back to the office. Let me know if I can do anything else for the boy, okay?

When he reached the door, Josiah said, “Hey, think they’ll be able to help him lose the stutter?”

“Maybe. It’s severe, though – one of the worst cases I’ve seen. I don’t know.”

“Yeah. Thanks, doc.”

When Libman got back to his office, he went to the window and stared out at the bustle of Peachtree Street. Sometimes traffic sounds soothed him, and he needed to ease back on the anger he was feeling toward the monsters who had damaged Cian MacDara so badly. One of the most interesting and challenging cases he’d encountered, he had gone as far as he could with the young man.

A month of daily sessions with Cian had brought out more horrible information about his life over the past six years than had solved the problems he’d developed as a consequence. How could anyone get over losing one’s parents, then finding the bodies of that kind-hearted foster couple after they’d been viciously kicked and stabbed to death, finally ending up in the home of the evil witch who had ordered it – not to mention being beaten with an electrical wire, sometimes a heavy broom handle, smacked, punched, hit with chairs, used for a boxing target, and on top of all that, being the family’s slave, the whole time having to sleep on an old mattress in a filthy basement, inadequately fed... and why? Because he was unusually attractive?

What disturbed Libman every bit as much as the physical abuse, was that these bastards had convinced this beautiful, intelligent boy that he was monstrous to look at, stupid, and useless as a human being. What a horrendous existence! If only there were some way to erase all the memories for the boy, to bring him back from where his experiences had taken him so he could finally be the person he was meant to be: someone normal, secure and happy.

“Where’s the mind meld when you need it?” How helpful it would be if he could touch his patients’ temples and whisper, “Forget” to take away all the things that had destroyed him! Well, that was fantasy, and this was reality.

What had convinced the doctor that Cian needed more help than he alone could render was when, after being given a small dose of Sodium Pentothal to help him relax enough to open up about things, Cian had started talking about life on a medieval farm. He had claimed his father was a weaver and a warrior who had taught him how to shear the sheep and wield a sword. As odd as that was, he had also spoken of somehow being brought forward through time to find some girl