CHAPTER 45 #3
Jaxon texts me his address and we stay on the phone with him the whole time. Daisy does an amazing job of keeping him calm, giving him as much reassurance as he needs while not giving him the same everything’s going to be okay speech.
Because let’s face it, everything is not going to be okay. This poor kid has spent the majority of his life just trying to survive. He’s grown up fending for himself and has spent the last couple of months working his ass off to keep food on the table for himself and his little sister.
He should be off in college, throwing parties and getting drunk with his friends, earning a degree and securing his future.
He should be meeting girls, having fun and living his life like a fucking teenage boy should.
But instead, he’s raising a child he didn’t sire, paying bills he can’t afford and taking on responsibilities he shouldn’t have.
And now… fuck, I don’t even know. I don’t know what he’s seen. I don’t know what to expect when we get to his house. Whatever it is, it’s not good. It’s the type of shit that sticks and has the power to mess a person up for life.
How does a mother do that to her children?
It makes me fucking sick.
I pull onto Jaxon’s street and am immediately greeted with blue lights. They light up the sky and the surrounding neighbourhood. People stand on their porches, watching with curious eyes and hushed whispers as emergency service personnel trek in and out of the run-down house.
I grip Daisy’s hand as my truck comes to a stop behind a police vehicle. “I don’t know what we’re about to walk into here, Dais.”
She swallows, her eyes wide and so incredibly fucking sad as she looks between me and the scene unfolding ahead. “I know.”
“You don’t have to come in,” I assure her, but she shakes her head.
“There are two children in that house. I’m coming in.” Without further ado, she opens her door and climbs out. I take a short second to compose myself before following.
She takes my hand as I round the truck, and we approach the house together. A police officer with greying hair and hard eyes meets us at the bottom of the steps, stopping us from going any farther.
“Are you Killian?” he asks me and I nod.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’re the boys boss?”
“Jaxon’s boss, yes,” I correct him, slightly irritated that he doesn’t even have the decency to use his name.
“Hmm,” he hums with a nod. “Were you aware of the dire conditions your employee has been living in?”
Is he fucking serious? What kind of fucking question is that?
I haven’t even stepped foot inside yet, for fuck’s sake.
My jaw clenches. “No.”
He pulls a notepad from his breast pocket and flicks through the pages. “From the information I’ve gathered from him, he has been taking care of a minor for the past three years. CPS are on their way. They’ll be taking both of them into their custody.”
I open my mouth to respond but another officer steps onto the porch, clapping a hand on his colleague’s shoulder. “Thank you, Henry. I’ll take it from here.”
The new guy dismisses the asshole with a flick of his chin and waits for him to leave before turning to me and offering me his hand to shake. “I’m Deputy Clark. Killian, right?”
I nod, returning his handshake. “And this is my wife, Daisy.”
“Nice to meet you both. I’m sorry it’s under such unfortunate circumstance.”
Daisy and I return his greeting with solemn expressions. “Can we go in there?”
Deputy Clark casts a glance over his shoulder.
“I wanted to speak to you before you go in,” he says to me.
“We were called a little over an hour ago with reports of a possible overdose. When we arrived, we found Jaxon performing CPR on his mother in the living room under the instruction of a 911 operator. Unfortunately, his attempts were unsuccessful, as were the attempts of paramedics. Mr…”
“Ashby,” I answer.
He smiles warmly. “Mr Ashby, are you aware that Jaxon is only sixteen?”
My head rears back, my heart sinking into my stomach.
He’s sixteen?
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
How did I not know that he was fucking sixteen?
“I’m going to go by the look on your face that you didn’t.”
“No, sir.” I clear my throat. “I had no idea he was that young.”
“It’s important that you check on these things before hiring someone, Mr Ashby. But that’s not what I’m here to discuss. Obviously, it is our duty to contact child services in cases like this, and honestly, I’m not sure how they haven’t been contacted sooner.”
“They have,” Daisy says, speaking up for the first time and surprising the shit out of me. She looks at me apologetically as she steps forward.
“I called them a little over a week ago.”
What. The. Fuck.
“You did?” I ask, completely fucking blindsided by this information.
Daisy nods. “The day you dropped Juliet off at Savannah’s. I’m sorry, Killian. I couldn’t live with myself if I let those kids come back here and didn’t at least try to help.”
I wrap an arm around her and pull her into me, placing a kiss on her forehead. “You don’t need to be sorry, angel. You did the right thing.”
“I agree. You did the right thing, Mrs Ashby.”
“Do you think social services will let us take them to our place for the night?” I ask the deputy.
His lips thin. “I can’t answer that, but I will speak to them once they arrive. I’ll take you through to the children.” He pauses. “I have to warn you guys. It’s not pretty in there. We have already covered the body, so you won’t see anything but just… prepare yourselves.”
I flick a worried glance at Daisy as she takes a few deep breaths, composing herself. Taking her hand in mine, I follow Deputy Clark into the house.
Any preconceived expectations I had before walking in here fly straight out the window the second we step over the threshold.
The stench of liquor is overpowering yet familiar.
It almost feels like stepping into the home of my childhood.
But that’s about as far as the familiarity goes.
Because the deeper we walk into the house, the worse it gets, and the worse it gets, the more the environment that Jaxon and Juliet have been raised makes my own childhood look like child’s play.
I thought I had it bad. I didn’t think it could get much worse than I experienced.
I was so fucking wrong.
My eyes begin to sting as I take stock of my surroundings.
The splintered, wooden floor that is in no way safe for anyone, let alone a child, to walk on bare foot.
The holes littering the walls from the force of someone’s fist. The cigarette burns in the furniture.
The feel of our shoes sticking to the ground with every step.
The buzz of flies as they swarm the rotten trash bags.
The fucking bottles. They’re everywhere.
My God, it’s so much worse than I ever imagined.
Daisy squeezes my hand, pulling my attention away from our surroundings and back to her. Her face is stoic, emotionless but her eyes tell me she’s anything but okay right now.
“Be strong,” she mouths.
“I’m trying,” I mouth back as we continue to follow the deputy through the maze of shit.
We come to a closed door in the hall and the deputy stops, tapping his knuckles against the frame quietly. “Jaxon. It’s Deputy Clark. Killian is here.”
There’s quiet shuffling from the other side before the door cracks open and a very broken version of the boy I’ve come to know stands before me.
When his eyes land on mine, his shoulders deflate, his chin trembles and he falls into my chest. I catch him just as he crumbles, loud sobs tearing from his throat in a pained wail.
It’s fucking brutal.
It wrecks something inside of me.
I palm the back of his head, holding him like a child as he lets out years’ worth of pain right there in the hallway.