Forsaken (Protectors #4)

Mav

“Do you think I should watch it?” Eli asked quietly, his voice rough. We’d been lying on the bed for more than an hour with me leaning against the headboard and Eli resting his head on my chest. Jace and Caleb had moved to the room next door to give Eli some space to process what had happened to him, but Jace had left his laptop on the nightstand for me so I wouldn’t have to search out mine.

Eli had let everything out in that bathroom and I’d been completely helpless to do anything but hold him. When he’d finally calmed down, I’d helped him to his feet and we’d gotten into bed fully dressed and with just the small light next to the bed turned on. My hope had been that Eli would fall asleep so that I could watch the videos on my own using the ear buds I had stashed in my bag, but I suspected the stress was keeping him too wound up to get the rest he so badly needed.

“I honestly don’t know,” I admitted. The idea of Eli having to witness what had been done to him was unbearable to me, but I was also worried that a part of him would never truly believe what Jace had told him. His stepfather’s doctored video had had a profound impact on him and his brain might not be able to rid itself of those images without proof that they were all lies. I let my fingers trail down Eli’s spine as I tried to deal with everything that had happened in the past 48 hours. A few hours ago, I’d been contemplating if I could really have the life I’d been too afraid to hope for in the years since I’d left my life on the reservation behind me.