Mercy (The Night Man Chronicles Book 3), Brett Battles [best books to read in your 20s TXT] 📗

care of the Chuckie problem. We will. Without question. What I mean is, the damage Evan’s father has already inflicted will always be there in some way. The most I can promise is that things will get better. But I’m not sure he would actually hear that right now, so Jar and I wait out his silence, giving him the time he needs to work through the obstacles in his head.

After several seconds, he pulls down on the zipper of his jacket. It’s warm enough in the house that he doesn’t need it anymore. Underneath he’s wearing a black cable sweater. When he pulls that off, too, I realize he hasn’t removed the layers because he’s hot.

Under the sweater he’s wearing a gray T-shirt. Its short sleeves aren’t long enough to cover the bruises on both of his biceps. Five on each. Each an oval, spaced apart in the distinct pattern of fingers wrapped around the muscles. They’re dark. The person who caused them would’ve had to clamp down hard to leave marks like these.

Jar jumps up from the table and hurries into the back of the house, returning seconds later with two towels from the bathroom. In the kitchen, she pulls out the tray from the refrigerator’s ice maker and pours some of the contents onto each towel. She wraps the towels around the ice and brings them over to the table.

“It’s okay,” Evan said. “I don’t need anything. They’re not that bad.”

“It is not okay,” Jar says.

She scans both arms, determines the left is worse, and wraps one of the towels around it.

“Hold this in place,” she tells him. “I’ll be right back.”

After another visit to the rear of the house, she returns with two ACE bandages from our med kit. She wraps one around the towel and hooks the clasps into the bandage to hold it in place. She then applies the second towel of ice to his right arm and wraps it in the same way.

“How does that feel?” she asks.

“Fine. Cold, I mean, but fine.”

She checks her work again, making sure it is neither too tight nor too loose.

When she finishes, Evan says, “Thank you.”

“Are you hurt anywhere else?”

For a moment, he looks like a kid who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and I know he’s been hoping he wouldn’t be asked this. He hesitates, and then tries to grab the bottom of his shirt, but the ice is making it difficult.

“May I?” Jar asks.

He grimaces and nods.

She lifts the shirt upward until we can see another bruise on his side, under his left arm. While it is larger than the ones on his biceps, it’s not nearly as bad.

“I-I-I ran into a, um, bookcase,” he says.

I raise an eyebrow. “Ran into? Or was pushed into?”

A downward glance is all the answer I need.

“That and the ones on your arms—from your father, right?”

A breath, then an ever-so-slight nod.

“What about Sawyer?” Jar asks. “Is he injured, too?”

“No. I, um…he…. It was my fault. That’s all. I should have…”

I give it a beat before saying, “You should have what?”

Another breath. “It doesn’t matter.”

I know now is not the time to think about myself, but I can’t keep from sending out a silent thank you to my parents for being decent people.

I lean forward, resting my elbows on the table. “Listen to me very carefully. Those bruises are not your fault. No one should ever do that to you. Especially one of your parents. You know that, right?”

Another nod, also slight.

“I mean it.”

His head moves again, same as before.

I’m sure that intellectually he knows I’m right, but it’s clear he’s having a hard time applying my words to himself.

“What if it happened to one of your friends?” I ask. “Would you think it was their fault?”

He says nothing.

“What about the girl you were sitting with on the pier at the barbecue? What if her father was hurting her? Would she have deserved it?”

For a second, he looks surprised, but he can’t be too shocked to find out I saw the two of them there. He already knows I was at the barbecue, after all.

“Of course she wouldn’t deserve it,” he says.

“Then neither do you.”

“Maybe.”

“Tell us what happened,” Jar says.

“Why? There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“That is not true.”

His eyes widen and he says in a rush, “You can’t call the police!” More plea than demand.

“Why not?” I ask.

“They’ll just let him go, and then he’ll—” He stops himself and looks as if he wishes he could take back the last few words.

It’s not hard to figure out what he was going to say.

“Why would they let him go?” I ask.

“Because Uncle Richard would tell them to.”

“Who is Uncle Richard?” Jar asks.

“He-he’s the chief of police.”

“And he’s your uncle?” I say.

“Not my real uncle. My dad’s best friend from high school. They played football together.”

No wonder Chuckie got out of his DUI. I doubt Uncle Richard would be able to cover up accusations of child abuse, though.

“We’re not going to call the police,” I tell him. “Not right now.”

“Not ever,” he says. “You can’t.”

“We’ll see.”

“Please. You can’t do that. You have to promise me.”

“Here’s what I will promise you. We will only call the police if we know for certain that there is no way your father can ever hurt you again. Can you live with that?”

He grimaces but says, “I…I guess.”

“There is one condition to this promise, though.”

His eyes narrow. “What condition?”

“That you tell us exactly what happened and answer any questions we might have. Can you do that?”

A beat. “I can do that.”

“Good. So?”

He gives himself a second to gather his thoughts, then begins. “It happened after dinner. I don’t know the exact time, but before eight thirty. I was in my room, doing homework, when I heard yelling downstairs.”

“Your father?”

“At first, but then Sawyer screamed. He, um, does that sometimes, when someone tries to make him do something he doesn’t want to do.” He flicks a glance at Jar, then as