Hacking The Heart [Immortal Hearts #1] (#Wattys2016)

[22] - <swallow>the</pain>

The cops had been called, the story spread, and soon it went nationwide. It became the story of the month, Landon had become something of a special case in the eyes of the law and people. While what Landon had done was murder, had it really been murder? The man, after the police looked into his background, was an abusive single father who beat his child, paid for sex daily, and was a heavy alcoholic. He was a piece of crap in the eyes of the people who had heard the story.

However, with emotional sentiments put aside, it was still murder, and Landon was the culprit. He was the one who committed the crime. Darrell Hoff, the man Lana had brought home, had been let inside willingly, and she had sex willingly. The only crimes that had been committed were assault and battery. No matter how bad of a person he was, Darrell Hoff was innocent.

Was it murder, or was it self-defense? The citizens and the law believed it was the latter. With the condition of counseling, Landon was let go with a slap on the wrist and nothing more. The country soon moved on and the story was soon forgotten. However, just because the country itself had forgotten didn't mean that the people near him forgot.

Landon, once again, had been ousted from his group of friends. His friends themselves hadn't done it by their own will, but instead, by their parents. Even if it had been out of self-defense, parents didn't want their children around a murderer. They had chosen the worst case scenario; assuming Landon was some kind of monster who would become a serial killer.

One by one, all of his friends disappeared from his life. All of them had given Landon the same answer, which was always something in the vein of "my parents said." Landon, while he couldn't exactly understand it, had to accept and respect their choices, as well as their parents.

Even as all of his friends avoided him, one person stayed with Landon, one girl. No matter what other kids or parents said, she stayed with him. It wasn't pity, nor was it anything of the like. She believed that it wasn't right to desert friends, especially when told to do so by others. She knew that everyone else had no idea how he felt, or what he had been through.

This young girl was his only friend left, this was the girl who would leave home with him years later, this girl would be his one and only girlfriend, this was the girl he would later marry.

This girl's name was Kaylee.

With his life seemingly crumbling around him, everything seemed to just be getting worse. Lana continued to bring men home, each one more abusive and violent than the next. Drugs, alcohol, and paid sex took priority in her life as she unknowingly thrusted Landon into the backseat. What she had originally started doing to support her son and herself had become her life. Nothing else, not even her own son, had mattered in her life.

As the years passed, Landon grew to know all of these things. Either from television or other people, he learned that she was getting high, getting drunk, and getting fucked. He knew that was nearly her only source of income, being a streetwalker was her life, the only way to pay the bills. He knew that she got drunk and high to escape from the pain of the world. He had lost his faith in his mother, she wasn't the same hard-working woman he had grown up with.

However, he did still love her. Even if she spent her days having sex with random men for money, even if she got wasted every day, even if she got high every day; she was still his mother, the same woman who had given him life. Somewhere, deep inside, Landon had hope that she would come to her senses, and in turn, come back to him.

Landon was forced to grow up at a young age. He accelerated rapidly as he did everything himself, from going to school to cooking to putting his mom to bed after she would pass out on the couch. You could say that his childhood was taken away from him, but Landon had done it for his own reasons. He had to put his faith in the very person he had lost faith in, and he would do anything to bring her back.