Monster Slayer's MC Book 6

MSMC Bk 6 - Chapter 21

Chapter 21-Mindy is recovering

Kevin's POV

I had been in the kitchen helping Claire and telling her what Rooster and I had talked about. I was so excited, I could barely stand still.

"Good for you, Kevin. You should make friends with Hacker too. He's a whiz at computers too but his interests go in a different direction. What is it about computers that interest you so much?" She asked me.

"I love being able to create things and see them work right. We were learning how to create databases to make websites work when people fill in information. I thought it was so cool that you can go online, pick something you want to buy, fill in your name, address and credit card information and then print a receipt, a shipping order and label and people would be able to ship it out. Our teacher was explaining how we could make the database work on all different levels to run a company on and I was fascinated by it all. After astronomy, it was my favorite class." I told her.

"Wow, you must have been taking advanced classes because we didn't have classes like that in the school I went to. Your parents must have been so proud of you." She said.

"Yeah, well you would think so." I said and felt my happiness bubble develop a leak just thinking about how my dad felt about me being a computer nerd. He hated it! Said computers were toys for rich kids and that I needed to get my head out of the clouds and focus on learning how to run a ranch.

"Computers are a phase. A waste of time. People are always going to have to have food and you need to learn how to keep a herd alive, how to get them to market." He yelled at me as he brought that big leather belt down on my back time after time until my shirt was torn to ribbons and I had bloody welts on my back.

That hadn't been the first time he had beaten me like that but after that I waited until he had gone to bed then I'd snuck out my bedroom window, grabbed my horse and took off. I was hurt worse than I realized and I'd passed out in the saddle sometime just before sunrise.

Hunter had been training some of the other prospects in how to track and they found me, still holding on to my horse's rein but laying on the ground. They had picked me up and carried me back here. As soon as they had freed my horse's reins from my fist, she took off running. I was sorry to have lost her and I hoped she would make it home okay by herself.

Sheriff MacIntosh came around asking questions about me a week later, saying that my horse had turned up at home and my father had finally turned in a missing person's report on me. After a whole week! When Sheriff MacIntosh saw my back and he questioned me about what had happened and what I wanted to happen, he told me not to worry. I'd told him I didn't want to go back because my father would be super pissed and would beat me again, probably worse, for "dragging his name through the mud".

The sheriff said he was going to be telling my father that unless he wanted to go to jail for child abuse, he would be thankful for having gotten my horse back and to let me go.

"You will be 18 in a year and then you would be free to go anyway but you don't have to put up with that abuse anymore and that's what I'm going to make clear to him." The sheriff told me for which I will always be eternally grateful for that.

Anyway, as soon as Claire had finished everything, I helped her carry it all out to the buffet table and then made up two plates, one for Mindy and one for me. I didn't feel like it was right to make her eat alone just because she couldn't see.

As soon as I got to her room, I had both hands full so I used the tip of my boot to "knock" on the door and heard her call out "Who is it?"

"Mindy, it's me, Kevin. Can you open the door please? I've got my hands full." I called back.