Forgive Me by Kateri Stanley (reading strategies book TXT) 📕

by the catch of a new story. She was sensing the wall of strength inside her was crumbling. It’s because you thought he was sexy. Stripe looked around the room feeling sick to her stomach. Cameron, are you here? Has he got you tied up somewhere?

She heard something from outside and the door was opened. Stripe pulled her legs under herself ignoring the throb around her ankle and yanked the white duvet over her lap. Isaac wheeled in an old television; it was a dated model probably made in the late seventies or early eighties. From the back of the set, he brought out an old black VHS tape, it was dusty probably from age and use. Stripe felt the blood in her veins momentarily freeze.

“Isaac, what is this?” she asked, trying her best not to cry.

He tapped the cassette against his hip. “You're good at telling stories. But...do you know your own tale?”

She shook her head as she watched him plug up the television. “I don’t understand.”

Isaac placed the VHS into the tape player. “You’ve been lied to your entire life, Stripe.” He sighed; his gaze lingering. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to do this to you but... there’s something you need to see. It’ll answer your questions.”

The television screen burst to life in a grainy picture. The scene on the tape showed a room with dark walls. In the centre, was a boy, it was the boy, the one with grey skin and blood red hands. Stripe stared at the creature who had haunted her nightmares ever since she spotted him when she was out playing by the cabin. The boy was tied up and his face morphed into a painful wince as he was fighting to get free. Stripe found it a little odd. In her memory, in that situation, the boy held the power card, on the video, someone else had it.

“Enough!” a voice shouted off screen.

I know that voice.

She saw a figure move into shot. It was dressed in a white lab coat, tall like a tree, with blonde oily hair and glasses falling half way down his nose. No, that can’t be him.

The boy shouted and she watched the man in the lab coat slap the child viciously across the face with the back of his hand.

“You were very well behaved yesterday, Isaac. But if you keep acting this way, I’ll make these trials worse for you. Do you understand?”

Stripe gasped and stared at her kidnapper who looked calm and almost ready for something. “Keep watching,” Isaac instructed.

Stripe went back to the tape and heard the boy reply. “Yes, Sir.”

“Do you know what we’re trying to achieve by these trials?” the man asked, there was a shard of ice outlining his vocal expression.

“To make me strong,” the boy uttered.

“Exactly. But not just to make you strong, to make you perfect. To make you indestructible.” He sat by the child and watched him. Stripe wasn’t liking the atmosphere between them at all. “Isn’t this what you want?”

Sadness and despair was written all over the boy. “I… want to be free.”

Isaac turned, watching Stripe, with ever increasing caution. “You can talk now...”

“That is not my dad.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it's not. I knew him, you didn’t. He wouldn’t hurt anybody! He was harmless!”

“He was a liar. A very cruel and sadistic human being.”

Stripe tensed her fingers around the chain. “It’s a good thing you did tie me up, cause if I wasn’t. I’d be beating the shit out of you.”

“I’m not surprised. Like father, like daughter.” Isaac smiled. “You've beaten me up before. Only slightly, I must say.”

“You’re fucking crazy.”

The smile on his face died and he knelt by the bed, Stripe edged back as he grew closer. “You haven't figured it out yet, have you?” Isaac stared into her eyes. “You were so close before…”

She shook her head, silence filling the room.

“You know you’re gonna kill me. Remember?” Isaac asked, biting his down on his lower lip. “I said that when you rode me under the bleachers back in high school.” A brief smile gleamed with tears clouding his luminous gaze. “Do you know who I am now?”

Chapter Thirteen

Winter 1987

His heart was beating rapidly when they lowered him into the water. His body was haggard from the previous workout, press ups, sit ups, star jumps, circuits of cardio, he was cracking under the relentless pace of exertion. The cold water felt like a hundred daggers piercing his skin, he couldn’t hold his breath for very long. The beep of the heart monitor whirled in his ear, but the more frightened he became, the faster and louder the machine got. He didn’t understand this part of his trial. They said it was a test to make him stronger.

Make me stronger for what? the boy thought.

He heard their instructions through the device they’d clipped to his ears. They were telling him to calm down or the next step would be worse. They said his name, Peter said it the most. Not all of them used it. Sometimes, Sheila, Victoria and Paul called him by a number or something else. Gerald kept his distance; he wouldn’t address him by anything as if he was nothing.

The water was seeping into his lungs when they pulled him out of the pool. The boy bit at Paul’s arms and kicked Victoria in the knees. She lashed him across the face with her hand, the diamond wedding ring cutting his cheek.

They dragged him into the dark padded room gasping and spluttering for air. He hated being in there because he knew what was coming. They began the countdown. Each digit thundering in his ear.

The boy wobbled to his feet, adrenaline filling his veins as the final number was called out. He smelt the warm salty blood staining the cut on his cheek. They ordered, shouted and muttered threats but the pain was too much. They constantly reassured him that their animosity was for the best, they were treating him