Free Never Ending by Kailin Gow Page A

mine. Already I feel like an interloper – stepping in and
running things. The last thing I want to do is make the guys think I'm taking
over. I like them, Neve, really I do, even if I am a bit jealous of them...and
vice versa.”
              My heart swelled
with pride and love. I wanted to kiss him – I would have kissed him, had I not
known that Luc and Kyle could see us behind the glass terrace door. Instead, I
subtly squeezed his hand.
              “Thank you,” I
whispered.
              But as I walked
back in, I saw that Kyle had gone white – white as a sheet, I thought – like
he'd just seen a ghost. Could one hand-squeeze have bothered him that much ?
I wondered. No, whatever had happened, it was more serious than that, much more
serious. Kyle's eyes were red-rimmed, tears dribbling down the end of his nose.
He was shaking – shaking like a scared little boy that had just woken up from a
nightmare.
              “What is it,
Kyle?” I asked him. “Are you okay?”
              He was rocking
back and forth, now, his arms around his knees. He couldn't answer me.
              It was Luc who
stood up, who led me and Danny into a corner, away from Kyle.
              “He checked his
voicemail,” he said. “It's from his aunt.” Luc looked like he was about to cry,
too. “His dad – they just let him out of jail. He's on parole. And this
morning, his aunt came home to find an unsigned postcard in her mailbox. From
Missouri.”
              “Missouri.”
              “Where his dad's
jail is.” Luc waited for us to understand. “He knows where Kyle and his aunt
live. Which means he knows where you live, Neve. He's already killed
Kyle's mom – and Kyle thinks...”
              “That he's not
done killing?” Danny's voice was hollow.
              I looked over at
Kyle, who was still rocking back and forth. How could I even imagine what
horrible images were going through his head?
              Maybe the
nightmare was just beginning.

 
     
    Chapter 9
     
     
              I t took until morning until we could get Kyle
to speak. He spent the night rocking back and forth, his arms crossed in front
of his knees, mewing softly in quiet, kittenish wails. I had never seen him
like this – not since the first day I saw him in my mother's kitchen, that
scared little boy who had seen so much, suffered so deeply, the likes of which
I never would understand. The handsome, jocular athlete with his male-model
good looks and easy air had vanished, leaving in his place a haunted,
frightened child.
              I knew that
Kyle's father was no ordinary killer. I'd eavesdropped on my mother and father
often enough to know the whole story, the story my parents didn't want a young
girl like me to hear. Kyle's father had tortured and killed his mother – shot
her point-blank in the head right in front of him. Was that what Kyle was
seeing now, I wondered, feeling my heart break for him? Were those images going
through his head over and over? My imaginings were horrible enough; I couldn't
even begin to conceive of what Kyle himself was going through.
              And now Kyle's
dad was out of jail. On parole. I shuddered to think at how he'd managed that.
From what I knew, Kyle's dad could be wildly charming – when he wanted to be.
It's how he'd gotten away with abusing his wife and child for so long. Every
time his mother called the police; every time a stranger in the mall had called
Child Services with a worry about the mysterious bruises on Kyle's face or arms
or legs, it had been Kyle's father who answered the door with a cheery
“Morning, officers” and the offer of a cold beer or two. “Kids,” he'd say to
them - “always getting into scrapes.” And, sometimes, when he was especially
drunk, and especially charming, and he thought the good old boys on the police
force would be sympathetic to his