Chapter 2 - The Blood On Their Hands
The sound of the boys’ gasping breaths cut through the quiet neighborhood like a siren.
"Ethan! Noah! Liam!" Emily cried out, dropping to her knees upon the coarse asphalt without a second thought.
The bright yellow cleaning gloves tore against the rough stone, but she felt no physical pain.
The triplets slammed into her chest simultaneously with the force of small meteors.
Their tiny, trembling arms wrapped tightly around her neck, anchoring themselves to her navy tunic.
Ethan buried his tear-stained face into the hollow of her throat, sobbing so violently that his whole body convulsed.
Noah clung to her waist, his fingernails digging through the fabric of her uniform.
And Liam, tiny Liam who had not spoken aloud in public for nearly a year, buried his bleeding hands into her hair.
"We’re here, Miss Emily, we’re here, don't let the shadows take us," Ethan wailed into her skin.
Emily immediately inspected their arms, her heart seizing with absolute horror.
The blood was wet, hot, and smeared across their wrists and forearms.
Long, jagged lacerations cut through their soft skin, accompanied by dark, purplish finger-shaped bruises ringing their wrists.
These were not injuries caused by an accidental tumble on the driveway gravel.
These were defensive wounds born from a violent struggle.
Richard Hawthorne reached them seconds later, collapsing onto one knee while gasping for air.
"Boys! Step away from her right now!" Richard commanded, his voice trembling between authority and sheer terror.
He reached out with a trembling hand to pull Ethan away by the shoulder.
At his touch, Ethan screamed as if he had been burned by an open flame.
"Don't touch us, Daddy! Don't let her touch us!" Ethan shrieked, pressing himself deeper into Emily’s chest.
Richard froze, his hand hovering in mid-air as if struck by lightning.
His own flesh and blood were looking at him with unadulterated fear.
"What happened to them, Richard?" Emily demanded, her voice dropping all deference and ringing with fierce maternal wrath.
"I... I was in my study reviewing the quarterly filings," Richard stammered, his polished corporate facade completely disintegrating.
"I heard glass shattering in the private sunroom upstairs."
"When I ran out, they had kicked open the heavy French door and were sprinting down the halls."
"They broke through the tempered safety glass to get out," Richard whispered, his eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at the blood.
Noah suddenly lifted his head, his hazel eyes burning with raw, childlike fury.
"We had to break it, Miss Emily!" Noah yelled, pointing a trembling, bloodied finger straight at the grand mansion behind them.
"The bad lady locked us in the dark closet with the spiders!"
"She told us that if we didn't stay quiet while she took Daddy's watch, she would make us disappear forever!"
Richard felt the ground beneath his feet tilt violently.
"Noah... what did you just say?" Richard asked, his voice barely a rasp.
"Aunt Victoria!" Noah shouted, tears spilling over his bruised cheeks.
"We were playing hide-and-seek under the guest room dresser before lunch."
"We saw Aunt Victoria take the big shiny clock from your drawer and slide it into Miss Emily's canvas bag."
"Ethan tried to tell her that stealing was bad, so she grabbed him by the throat!"
Noah held up his wrist, revealing the exact spacing of an adult woman's manicured fingernail indentations crushed into his tender skin.
"She pushed Ethan into the antique mirror, and the glass fell down on us!"
"Then she dragged all three of us into the utility closet and turned the deadbolt from the outside!"
"She said you would never believe us because you love her more than you love our dead mommy!"
Every single sentence hit Richard Hawthorne like a sledgehammer to the skull.
The air in his lungs turned to ice.
The Rolex.
The tearful confession Victoria had staged in the foyer.
The absolute certainty with which she had claimed Emily was a deceitful, thieving criminal.
And then, the quietest sound shattered whatever remained of Richard's sanity.
Liam, who had remained silent through months of expensive speech therapy, pulled his face away from Emily's shoulder.
He looked directly into his father's stunned eyes.
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"Daddy is blind," the little boy whispered in a trembling, hoarse voice.
"Aunt Victoria hates us, and Daddy threw our real mommy away."
