Shaun’s POV
Returning to Lucy’s room, the first thing that stood out to me was how thick the tension in the air was. It was thick enough to choke on. The scent of her lingered in the air still, as though it was mocking us of the time we were wasting by not immediately going after her.
But no matter what we did, it wasn’t enough to ease the frustration growing in my chest. My brothers, Seth and Scott, were already going through her things, their movements sharp and frantic. Anyone looking at us from the outside would think that something was burning and we were trying to pack all our things and escape. They wouldn’t be able to see what was happening on the inside of each of us: the fear that something was going to happen to a woman who was connected to us in more ways that we could have ever imagined.
Tessa also moved around the room, under the bed, and other places where she felt that she could find something belonging to Lucy that we could use to track her down.
Something caught my eye under her sheets. It would have been missed, but it just seemed odd and out of place. After I searched under it, I realised that there was a stack of about three or four folded papers tucked neatly under the spot where her pillow was. I unfolded them one after the other, thinking about so many things all at once. Who were they from? Why were they sending it to her? And why did she have to hide them?
The last required no answer because I knew that not everyone wanted people right in their business. Like I had been doing right then, so I took great care as I opened the letters just in case there was a very special reason she had been hiding them.
After reading the first one, my heart sank in my chest. They were threat letters, but they weren’t meant for Lucy.
They were meant for us.
Seth saw what I was doing and came over to meet me. “What’s that?” He took one of the letters from my hand and read it for himself. “What? What do these letters mean?”
I shrugged. “I don’t even know what to think right now. Was she in on the attacks? Or was she simply just a recipient of the letters regardless of what she wanted?
“Shaun, you can’t seriously be thinking that she’s responsible for the attacks right? She basically risked her life for you.”
I shot up from the bed, fuelled by a rage that I couldn’t understand its origin. “Do you think I don’t know that? Shit.” I flung the rest of the paper away, too infuriated to even look at them. “I have been searching everywhere for clues to what could have happened to her and what do I find? Letters gloating about how they killed my father and how she should be happy to have the opportunity to take us out too. What do you really expect me to think, Seth?”
“I’m expecting you to have a little faith. From these letters it’s obvious why she didn’t even show us in the first place. I’m willing to bet that if she had, you would have gone and said these same things right to her face, accusing her of something that she probably isn’t guilty of.
“I know you’ve had it more difficult than Scott and I, but this . . . bitterness and hate that you’ve been holding against the world is blinding you from seeing everything else that is good. There comes a time where you have to let go, because if you don’t, it’ll keep eating you up inside until there’s nothing left.”
I sighed, shoulders sagging. “It’s just difficult, okay? I can’t think the way you do. And I know it’s wrong but . . . I don’t know what else to do. I feel broken most of the time . . . and I’m afraid.”
He held my shoulder. “That’s why we’re here. We’re brothers. You can always share your burden with us.”
Scott joined him, and nodded at me with a smile. “I agree.”
Once again, I had found reasons to see the brighter side of things. “You’re right though, she probably didn’t bring this to us because we weren’t on speaking terms in the first place. She probably had no one to trust with this information. We’ve done a really bad job of taking care of her-even if dad was a sick bastard by making her his wife that young.”
“He wasn’t the best person, but he was at least right about that in the slightest bit.”
“I believe that just leaves us with the question on what to do next,” I said, picking up the letters from the floor. Such boldness-to be willing to testify of your own crimes in writing with no fear or remorse.
“Ahmad should know what to do,” Seth suggested, picking up Tessa, who had fallen asleep curled up in a little corner by Lucy’s dresser. He placed the girl into the bed and covered her up. The poor thing must have been exhausted from all that crying for her to have fallen asleep while we were still talking.
“I hope he does. It would be a shame for him to be out of ideas at this point.” I lifted one of the letters, probably the one that had struck me the most despite being the only one that didn’t talk about us.
‘You do not belong with them’, it read, ‘they killed your family and destroyed your home, and then kept you all as slaves. You owe these people nothing.’
It was right. She owed us nothing, and she was justified in her anger and rage. How she had even lived here with our father without snapping remained a mystery to me. I was a man of little patience, and the slightest thing would have sent me on a rampage; it wasn’t something that I liked to boast about, because anger was an incredibly limiting feeling, but I just had to tell myself the truth.
“After what happened that night, it’s obvious that she’s family now, Shaun.” Seth appeared by my side, reading the letter as well. “We can’t fix what we’ve done, but we can choose to do the right thing from now on.”