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

“You won’t.”

“Are you sure?”

Isaac smiled, and for a moment, she liked it. “I promise.”

“This is fucking crazy,” Stripe sighed.

“You’re telling me…”

She stuck the knife in his chest, between his pectoral muscles. Isaac grunted when the squelch of the blade penetrated his skin. Blood began to seep from the crevice. Her heart revved up in pace and she thought the worst. Isaac breathed in and out, his eyes darkening into hers. “Pull it out. Watch for yourself.”

Stripe did so, the last remaining droplets of blood stained the floor. She kept watch when she saw something, a crack in the natural order of things. The blood stopped bleeding from the wound. The skin that had been cut began to shift. It was as if invisible threads were pulling the strands of flesh back together, weaving the skin into one like a quilt. Within a couple of minutes, the wound had completely healed. There wasn’t a sign he’d been sliced at all.

“Can you see why I couldn’t tell the police?” Isaac asked. “My parents didn’t believe me either. I stabbed myself in the hand with a knife to prove it. The blade went all the way through to the other side and I showed them the tape. They started taking me seriously afterwards.” There was a beat of silence. “I wasn’t meant to be this way, they engineered me into the-”

“The perfect weapon,” Stripe uttered. “It all makes sense now. Your strength, your tolerance to pain, the way you move.” She felt sick. “The perfect soldier.”

“If the police knew about this, they’d lock me up in another lab and dissect my body for studies and more experimentation.”

Stripe stepped back, shining the light in his face. “Who else knows?”

“You and my parents. Nobody else.”

Stripe shined the light on the wall where the camera had probably been positioned. “But how could this happen in the first place? How would they get the authority?”

“I don’t know. Power is destructive and dangerous, Stripe.”

She saw a desk behind Isaac and she edged nearer to examine it. She saw something which made her heart freeze. It’s been years but it still hurts. Propped on the desk was a wooden photo frame of a woman and a young girl. Stripe recognised the figures all too well. Her mother's auburn locks and her beautiful hazel eyes. She saw the child she once was, young and innocent, fascinated with the fictional creatures of the night. She remembered when this photo had been taken. It was before Christmas; they’d gone to the mall for present buying and her dad had promised a visit to Santa’s Grotto. He lied. She never got to see the big jelly man in his red suit with his sponge white beard or his little elf helpers. She remembered being sad in the car during the drive home. That was a long time ago.

Chapter Eighteen

“You didn’t think I was telling the truth did you,” Isaac said quietly.

Stripe observed the photograph in her hands.

“Even after the tape?” Isaac continued.

Stripe shook her head; her mouth began to tremble. “I-I admired my dad. I strived to be accepted by him. He loved science like I love journalism. There were times when he wasn’t there. He’d leave our holidays early, vanish out of the house at three in the morning in his pyjamas. I’d go to school and he still wasn’t there. My mom says now and then that I remind her of him sometimes, same eye colour, apparently our personalities matched. Now, I don’t know what to think anymore…”

“I’m sorry, Stripe.” Isaac knew what it was like to strive for somebody’s affection and acceptance. He knew the bitter taste of resignation when the opposing person was never going to reciprocate or appreciate him for who he was. “I’m sorry this is hurting you.”

The sight of her getting upset was breaking his heart. The pink colour in her cheeks had drained, pain sunk, biting into her voice. She knows the truth now. She’d seen her old man for who he really was.

Even in his stature, he wasn't quick enough to catch her fleeing. Isaac saw the knife clatter to the ground with frantic feet hurrying. He took off after her, shouting her name, pleading for her to come back but he couldn’t hear anything as if the slow shock had infected his hearing.

He tracked her footpath as she disappeared from the dreadful cocoon of his shattered childhood. He saw the swishing of the flashlight. the double doors crashing open. Her figure melted into the light outside. Isaac shouted again, there was still no sound, just fire throbbing in his throat. He launched into a run with his hands bound behind his back. It was difficult but he followed, trailing her scent.

Isaac honed in on her footing. He saw the outline of her sneakers; she was moving back towards his car. Her heartbeat pulsed in his ears. It was as if she was sending tremors and vibrations transmitting her disgust and despair. But she had to know. She had to. She couldn’t live the rest of her life in a lie.

He followed the pulses until he identified another presence. Its heartbeat was deep and unshaken. He traced the intention it yearned for and he heard it, a pure and raw scream.

Isaac bolted, Stripe had made it down the gulley, her back was up against a tree and in front of her growling was a shabby grey tatty wolf. It was an omega hunting on its own, cut off, kicked out from its pack. Isaac knew from its scarred face that he was hunting to get approval. It was an outcast, just like he’d been.

The wolf clocked his presence, baring its sharp teeth. Isaac ran forwards. The wolf charged knocking the wind out of Isaac, pressing and pushing on his chest, sinking its claws into his skin. Isaac moved his hips trying to barge the wolf out of the way. It snapped