Free Voices (Whisper Trilogy Book 3) by Michael Bray Page B

over the walls, of bone fragments hitting the floor, ruining the pristine garage. He started to think about his father, how he would respond when he saw what awaited him, and immediately decided it didn’t matter. There was no way he was going to change his mind now. It was settled. He wanted to be free from those awful manipulative things in his head. Squeezing his eyes closed, his last thought was of Emma, and how he hoped she would understand what he had done and why. The alien thing tried to speak, but before it could, Alex pulled the trigger, extinguishing his existence before he was forced to hear the vile things it had to say.

CHAPTER 11

     
    Melody Samson couldn’t have imagined the cruelty life would throw at her after the fateful tidal wave of events at Hope House. Its horrors, and those which came after, had not only damaged her mentally, but had taken a physical toll. She had lost weight, and the laughter lines of her youth had deepened into their worry-driven cousins. Crow’s feet reached out from the corners of her eyes, which were dull, only showing the faintest glimmer of their former exuberance. Her hair, once thick and black, had thinned and started to gray. Worse than the physical and mental toll was the absolute loneliness she felt. When she lost Steve, she had clung to her son, thinking he would be enough to save her. Yet, like her, Isaac suffered with demons of his own. Plagued by nightmares of his ordeal at the hands of Henry Marshall and the sheer horror at seeing his father die in front of him, she supposed it was almost inevitable the nightmares would eventually morph into something worse.
    Although she had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder just like Isaac, she wasn’t entirely convinced they were listening to the whole story. She’d had enough of the countless and mostly frustrating therapy sessions with the psychologists and doctors trying their best to tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about, especially when it came to the horrors she had endured at Hope House. She had tried to be patient, and explain as thoroughly and slowly as she could exactly what had happened; however, the therapists seemed less interested in what she had to say, and more in trying to tell her that she needed to start facing up to the reality of the situation and not hide behind the supernatural. They had prescribed her medication, and although she assured them she was taking it, the bottle remained unopened in the kitchen drawer. She knew that everything she’d experienced was real, and no matter who tried to tell her otherwise, she believed it completely. The weeks since she’d been ordered to seek help had been an endless void of misery. Her nights were sleepless, her days spent walking around her empty and silent apartment like some forgotten ghoul with nobody to haunt. It was only during her therapy sessions that she put on a mask of relative normality. She smiled and tried to be as casual and ordinary as possible, all with the goal of getting her son back in her care.
    Melody sat once again in Styles’ office, knowing that his decision would have an overwhelming impact on the rest of her life. She tried to read him, to second-guess what was going to happen, but it seemed Styles was more than used to dealing with such cases, and his poker face held true.
    “Would you like a glass of water, Mrs. Samson?”
    She looked at him. Blinked. The reply stuck in the back of her throat. “No, I’m fine, thank you.”
    Styles nodded curtly, and addressed the file in front of him. “I see you’ve been attending the sessions. I’m glad to see it. How are you finding them?”
    “They’re fine. Very helpful.”
    He watched her, dark eyes probing. She imagined him sniffing the air, sensing her lie. “That’s good,” he said, turning back to the file. “Very good,” he added.
    “Mr. Styles, please, can I see my son? I don’t even know how he’s been doing.”
    “Isaac is doing fine,