Chapter Forty

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Kevin's Dodge Charger invaded his driveway. It sat there, forcing itself upon the ground Elisha called his home. Darkness loomed throughout the house. A few blinds were left disheveled. There was a struggle, he thought. Sabrina may have tried to get away from him. She may have tried to put herself between Madeline and his gun. Or, Edward may have taken a bullet. Maybe they were-- Elisha couldn't think like that. He had to get his family no matter the situation.  

He stood beside his SUV, watching his own home from afar. The wrinkle in his eyebrows and tight lips darkened his steel blues. He gripped the gun tight in his hand. Regardless of what happened to him, Elisha was going to see to it that his real family survived this shit. He had no other choice now. 

"Be with me, Lord," Elisha muttered to himself. He walked toward his house, panning the area as he trekked. 

For once, he was thankful that his neighbors weren't peeping through their windows and had their heads hanging out the front door to see what he was up to. The dark clouds and rain did him a favor. It kept them at bay for the moment. 

Elisha walked up to the door and peered into the darkness. A small area of light highlighted a spot in the foyer. Stepping further inside, a beep alerted his ears. He hadn't changed the battery in his smoke detector since they left the house... since he decided to run from what he needed to face all along. 

Elisha took a deep breath and crept inside his own house. Daisy would have been running up to him had he not asked the neighbor down the street to watch her for a few days. The faint sounds of whimpers caught his attention as he walked. He closed his eyes. His frown deepened. Opening them, he held his gun close to his body, waiting for Kevin to show his face. But that was too easy. Kevin wasn't that gullible. He was just crazy as fuck.

A shadow of a small figure pooled onto the floor from behind the couch as he walked inside the family room. He squinted, noticing eight cabinet doors inside the kitchen were open. Two of them were closed. Those two Kevin couldn't get open since they needed fingerprint access. Thanks to his choice of careers and living with a money-hungry bastard for a father most of his life, Elisha learned that some things had to be kept hidden, especially from those who pried their way into shit that wasn't theirs. 

Hearing something bump against the wall, Elisha stepped back into the family room. He glared at the recliner next to the wall and crept toward it. Moving the chair slowly, Madeline screamed, then scurried from him. 

"Little one," Elisha whispered. He holstered his gun and held his arms out to her, beckoning her to come to him. "It's Daddy."

She scurried to him and wrapped her little arms around his neck. Her body trembled as she buried her head into his shoulder and whimpered. 

A tear rolled down his cheek as he held her tighter in his embrace. Elisha ran his hand over her hair and carried her out of the house. "Shhh. It's okay, Little one. I've got you."

"Mommy and Uncle Edward are still in there with the bad man," Madeline said through sobs and sniffles. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. "He took them into the room where you told me to never go inside."

"How did you get away?"

"Mommy pushed me out the room before the bad man closed the door." She paused. Tears flowed from her eyes. She covered her eyes. "I heard Mommy scream."

Elisha frowned. "Was your Uncle Edward okay when you all got to the house?"

The child pouted, then shook her head. "No. He was bleeding."

"Did the bad man hurt him, Madie?"

Madeline nodded. "He was the one that hit the car while we were driving. The car slammed onto Uncle Edward's side of the car. His head was bleeding."

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