46. Burn It All Down #2
Sometimes I knew my siblings, and I took for granted the incredible people that raised us. The two adults we depended on who showed us right from wrong. I knew not everyone had that. Some people were like Todd or Aspen. They had absent shit parents who did their best, but it wasn’t enough.
But then I looked at people like Aspen once more. I thought about how much of an amazing person she was, not just for my brother, but for Ivy and our family. I saw her, and the leeway my conscience tried to give Todd vanished.
A shitty childhood wasn’t an excuse to be a shitty adult and drag others down with you. So as Theo stepped up to the front door and picked the lock, the front door swinging open, I didn’t feel a shred of guilt.
The steps brought you into the middle of the house. We stood in the living room, the door shutting behind us. A kitchen to our right along with a small hallway that I assumed led to a bathroom and one bedroom, while another bedroom sat at our right.
Everything was done in mismatched shades of browns and gray. The couch was brown leather. The chair was gray leather. A television sat in one corner, a VCR and miscellaneous tapes sitting on top of it.
“Okay, let’s be quick,” I muttered. “Rowan and Wyatt, you two take the first bedroom. Theo you start in the kitchen, and I’ll start in the second bedroom.”
“The kitchen?” Theo questioned.
I shrugged. “You never know. Just do a quick glance through the drawers and shit.”
They all nodded, and we went about our search.
“Oh yay, Toad’s dad’s room,” Rowan mumbled as they strolled inside.
Theo dug through the few drawers and cabinets as I made my way back to the second bedroom. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know this was Todd’s room. If you could call it that.
It was a mattress on the floor with a comforter thrown across it. A dresser sat in the other corner, and half empty bottles of liquor, beer, and a dirty bong sat atop it.
“Fuck’s sake.” I started in the dresser drawers, sending a small prayer to the universe that the damn flash drive would be tucked away somewhere and not on his damn person.
Six dresser drawers were easy enough to go through. Clothes shuffled through. Porn magazines shoved aside. Who the fuck had porn magazines in their dresser? Toad. That’s who.
Next up were the pillowcases and comforter, which I attempted to messily drop back down the way he had it. There was no closet in the room. No nightstand table. Nothing.
“Check under the mattress, too,” Theo said from the door. “Oh, and pull the mattress out. See if he slit a hole in the other side. It would be somewhere he could easily get to. Somewhere he could reach in the middle of the night and ensure it was still there.”
I arched a brow at him, and he shrugged.
“It’s his leverage over her, dude. He wouldn’t leave it lying around like it was any old thing.”
Nodding, I pulled the mattress up, revealing nothing beneath. In one more final effort, I pulled the mattress away from the wall and slid my hand along the edge of it, careful not to actually kneel on the thing.
“Well, would you look at that,” I said with a smile. Halfway down the mattress there was a tear in the side, my hand slipping in easily enough, and out came a single red flash drive. But that wasn’t all.
“What is that?” Theo asked as I pulled out a pile of photographs.
“No idea.” I tucked the flash drive in my pocket and started flipping through the photos.
“Is that…” Theo’s question trailed off as I flipped faster and faster through the photos.
They were each a Polaroid photo. Dated a different date over the last three and a half years or so, and every single one of them was Ivy passed out and naked. Some of them she had what looked like cum on her stomach, others…I could feel the rage inside of me burning hot once more.
That rage I worked so damn hard to keep tapered down and controlled.
“Oliver…” Theo’s voice brought me back to the here and now, and I tried to let out a slow breath. “There’s a good chance if she didn’t know she was being taped, she sure as fuck didn’t know about those,” he whispered as if this were a secret kept between the two of us.
As far as we were concerned, it was.
“Burn it all down, Theo.” I looked into his blue eyes, the blue eyes that matched mine perfectly. “Burn it all down and leave not a damn trace for him to come home to.”
Theo nodded. “Absolutely.”
I walked out into the kitchen, finding a pair of scissors, suddenly grateful Wyatt had thought for all of us to wear gloves when here.
Quickly, I sliced the bottom of each Polaroid off, nothing but the dates in hand, and slid them into my pocket with the flash drive.
Turning towards my youngest brother, I handed him the photos.
“Make sure those are used as kindling.”
He turned and looked over at Wyatt and Rowan. “Y’all ready to get out of here?”
They both nodded and eyed him suspiciously as he set a dish towel right near a burner, filled a pot with cooking oil from under the sink, and turned the burner on high.
“Got to love a gas stove,” he said with a smirk.
He spread the photos face-down around the burner like a bleak collage.
“Ready?” he asked. “This won’t take long, so I suggest we get on out of here.”
No one said a word as we strolled out, but Theo did grab the fire alarm above the front door. Ripped it right off the wall and shoved it in his pocket as we strolled out. He relocked the door, a smile on his face as we shoved gloves into our pockets and jogged back to the gym.
I was ready to get a workout in before going home to my girl.