Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63626 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63626 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
She’d been waterskiing, crisscrossing the boat’s wake, doing turns and enjoying a beautiful summer day when the force from the explosion had thrown her off her skis, knocking her unconscious. If my father hadn’t been such an overprotective dad and a stickler for safety, and she’d not been wearing a life jacket, Kit would have drowned. As it was, she’d been found floating among the debris and been pulled unconscious from the water. She didn’t wake up for five days and when she did, and learned our parents were gone, she blamed herself. I remember holding her, rocking her as she sobbed, stating if only she’d not begged to go around the lake ‘one last time,’ then our mother and dad would still be with us.
Investigators explained there had been a gas leak in the inboard motor, perhaps caused by an eroded seal or loose connection. Fumes had built inside the casing, unnoticed by my dad who was driving the boat or by Mom who had been standing beside him, watching her daughter. Though declared an accident, we knew differently.
My brothers and I knew the real cause.
We knew who to blame.
We knew who was already bragging and claiming he had finally ended the reign of the mighty Barrett dynasty by taking out the patriarch—our father—the almighty Finnley Barrett.
Cook Blackstone.
My brothers and I found solace in the fact my parents never knew what hit them. Something sparked and caused the fatal blast, the sound echoing over the water, flames shooting into the air. Despite my brothers and me, as well as others, reassuring her she was in no way responsible for the freak accident, that if she’d been in the boat on the way back to the slip, she’d have also died in the explosion, Kit carried a burden of guilt that changed her very existence. Though we were prepared to be patient, to work with her through her depression, my sister had surprised us all.
When she woke the day after learning of the accident, she was a different person. Gone was the look of sadness, her shoulders no longer slumped in defeat. Instead, her eyes shone brightly, her smile coming easily. Grateful though leery of the change, my brothers and I consulted a number of specialists. All had assured us Kit didn’t suffer from any physical ailments. A number of doctors had said the trauma had been too much for her. Her mind had shut down, rewired itself in a way that allowed her to cope. She now lived in a self-created world with no hate, no fear, no sadness, and no harsh reality. Kit laughed, she played, and she lived life as if she were still a child. She hadn’t been able to take advantage of any of the scholarships offered her by various colleges. My brothers and I moved her out of our family cabin and into a safe, secret location no one knew of, determined to make our sister’s life as easy for her as possible until we could finalize our end goal. Facing the world as an adult was too much for her now, so we had no choice but to face it for her.
Kit looked up from the velvet poster she liked to spend hours coloring with her markers as she heard us all walk in. She was so much smaller than any of us. Her body seemed dwarfed by the huge oak table she sat at.
“Hi, Brothers!”
I sat down in the old wooden chair across from her. I couldn’t help but smile at her angelic appearance. Dressed in a pale-blue dress, a cardigan with embroidered flowers running down the front, her blonde hair resting on her shoulders, she seemed so soft. As much as her mental condition frustrated me at times, I almost envied her pure joy in the simple things. She was lost to reality and needed constant direction. But in all actuality, I was the one who truly needed Kit. Without her, I would have fallen into that pit I’d barely avoided. I’d had so much darkness in my life that I needed her light. I’d be lost without her kindness and her unconditional love. We all would.
“What are you doing home so early?” Kit asked as she focused her attention back on her coloring.
When learning Kit had ducked into a tea shop one day when an unexpected rainstorm caught her unaware, I’d been glad my sister hadn’t gotten soaked to the skin. But after she continued to talk about the place for days, making it sound like some sort of mixture of Oz and Narnia, I’d decided to do a bit of investigation. And after watching Goldie spin a bunch of crap about the healing power of some special tea to an unsuspecting elderly woman, I’d known she was a fraud. “We went to that witch’s den you spoke of.”