Chapter 15 You Will Beg #3
Once she was gone, Rose wandered over to the couch and settled down, her excitement slowly giving way to anticipation. She pulled out her phone and checked the time, wondering how much longer Maverick would be.
She had barely put the phone down when it began ringing.
Rose glanced at the screen but ignored the call.
A moment later, the ringing stopped.
Then her phone began chiming repeatedly.
Notification after notification appeared across the screen.
Rose frowned and picked it up.
“What the hell…?”
She stared at the screen, realizing that the notifications were coming from news outlets.
There were so many that they nearly filled the entire display.
Curiosity got the better of her. She opened the first alert and found an article about Maverick. A video was embedded near the top of the page.
Rose frowned as she tapped it.
The video began playing.
She barely registered the headline before the image on the screen made her freeze.
Her heart stopped.
It was Maverick.
But not the Maverick she knew.
The video showed a little boy, perhaps nine or ten years old, standing in front of a camera.
Rose stared at the screen, unable to look away.
That was Maverick.
Her Maverick.
As a child.
His face was familiar, but everything else about him looked painfully different.
He was frighteningly thin. His cheeks were hollow, and his small limbs looked almost skeletal beneath his oversized clothes. His eyes were sunken, his skin pale, his entire body carrying the signs of a child who had been neglected for far too long.
Rose’s breath caught.
She stared at the screen, unable to process what she was seeing.
The video had been posted from Augustus’s Instagram account.
On the screen, Maverick was sitting on the ground with several dogs crowding around him. A small piece of food rested in his trembling hands, but before he could bring it to his mouth, one of the dogs snatched it away.
Maverick didn't fight it.
He simply reached for another piece.
Again, the dogs took it.
He tried again.
His hands were shaking as he desperately reached for whatever scraps he could find, his movements becoming increasingly frantic as though he hadn't eaten in days.
Rose’s chest tightened.
Then a man’s voice suddenly thundered from behind the camera.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, boy?”
Rose flinched.
A wooden stick came crashing down across the boy’s back.
Maverick cried out and crumpled to the ground, the little food he had been clutching scattering across the floor. A red welt immediately rose across his thin back.
Rose’s hand flew to her mouth.
“No…”
A laugh came from behind the camera.
The footage shook as whoever was holding it moved closer before setting the camera down against a nearby surface.
The angle changed, but Rose could still see everything.
A younger Augustus stepped into the frame, laughing as Albert stood over the terrified boy.
“You disgusting little beast!” Albert shouted.
He raised the stick again.
“How can you behave like this? You’re eating with dogs?! You’re acting like a damn monster!”
The stick came down again.
Maverick curled into himself, throwing his arms over his head as he desperately tried to protect himself.
Another strike.
Then another.
Albert didn't stop.
He kept beating the little boy as though he weren't a child at all. As though there were no human being beneath the stick. As though Maverick didn't feel every blow.
Rose’s vision blurred.
Tears spilled down her cheeks before she even realized she was crying.
Her fingers tightened around the phone, her hand trembling so badly she nearly dropped it.
“No…”
The word came out broken.
She couldn't look away.
Every time the stick came down, something inside her seemed to splinter with it.
That little boy was Maverick.
The man who now towered over everyone around him. The man who never showed weakness, who carried himself with such ruthless confidence that people were afraid to even meet his eyes.
He had once been this small.
This helpless.
This completely alone.
Rose pressed her free hand over her mouth, but the sob that escaped her was impossible to hold back. Her shoulders shook as tears streamed down her face.
She wanted to reach through the screen and tear that boy away from them.
She couldn't watch anymore.
With trembling fingers, she tossed the phone onto the couch and covered her face, desperately trying to stop the tears. It didn't help. They kept spilling down her cheeks while her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
But even after she looked away, the images wouldn't leave her mind.
Maverick as a child.
So thin he looked almost fragile. Sitting on the floor while hungry dogs fought him for scraps of food. Albert striking him again and again with a wooden stick. That cruel voice calling him a monster.
Rose squeezed her eyes shut, but the memories only became clearer.
For the next hour, Rose couldn't settle down.
Eventually, she managed to wipe her face and steady her breathing, but her eyes remained swollen and red. She picked up her phone again and stared at Maverick’s name on the screen, her thumb hovering over it.
She was just about to call him when the front door opened.
The sound of footsteps echoed through the house.