A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trus by Reagan Keeter (fiction novels to read txt) 📗

Norma jerked her hands away. “That’s what you want to believe? Because if that’s what you want to believe, you don’t know crap about Ethan. That fool’s about as useful as a one-legged mule.”

Ethan was standing by the kitchen door, dishes stacked in his hands, listening to his parents fight. He felt like a little boy. He wanted to defend himself, but he didn’t know where to begin. He hoped that Byron would tell Norma to close her skinny, shrunken lips.

Byron didn’t. Instead, he stared silently at the ugly, pale bitch while she goaded him toward a fight. “Come on,” she said. “You got somethin’ to say? Are you going to tell me I’m wrong?”

Then, something snapped inside Ethan’s head, and a voice—one that sounded as much like somebody else’s as it did his—growled from the back of his brain: Your father’s a coward. Look at him. What a pathetic waste—both of them. How long are you going to take this? Fight back! Do something. Do something now, or it’s never going to stop!

Ethan threw the dishes to the ground. Tiny bits of ceramic and glass flew everywhere when they shattered. He lunged at his mom, tackling her in her seat. The chair tumbled over, and they fell to the floor. He swore at her repeatedly, cursed her for the years of abuse.

It’s never going to stop!

Ethan punched her until she started spitting blood. “As useless as a one-legged mule, huh? Could a one-legged mule do this?” Then he hit her again.

Byron was too shocked to move at first. Too shocked even to speak. He just stared with his mouth open. Ethan thought he might have hesitated because he knew she deserved the beating.

It’s never going to stop!

Ethan grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked it out of her head. She screamed, and he said, “You like that, Ma?”

Fight back, or it’s never going to stop!

He grabbed a long, broken shard of glass and dragged it down her cheek. He was just about to cut her throat when Byron grabbed him and pulled him off her.

Ethan struggled until he had one arm free and then turned and punched his father across the jaw. “Let me do this!” he shouted as Byron fell to the ground. “She deserves it! After all these years, you know she deserves it! That bitch has made our lives hell. It’s time for payback.”

That’s right. Time for payback.

When Ethan turned around, he saw Norma backing toward the door. One hand was on her cheek, and blood was dripping between her fingers.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Norma grabbed a vase off a small table to her right and swung it at Ethan. He caught it without flinching.

As they stood there, both with a tight grip on the vase, she instinctively grabbed a lamp and cracked it across his skull.

He fell to the floor, hollering in pain. Then he rolled onto his back just as his father was reaching for him again.

All Byron wanted to do was restrain him. If he could keep his son under control for long enough, Ethan might calm down.

But Ethan kicked one foot into his father’s chest and chased his mom out the front door. She was halfway across the yard by the time he caught her.

From the front door, Byron saw Ethan tackle his mom, continue to hit her. She tried to fight back. He sprinted across the yard. “That’s enough, son! You need to stop!”

Ethan grabbed his father’s tie when he was close enough and said, “I’m just doing what you should have done years ago.”

Suddenly, sirens whined from somewhere in the neighborhood. Police sirens.

“Did you call the cops on me?” Ethan said, still holding his father’s tie just below the knot.

Byron shook his head. “No, son. I swear. I would never—”

Ethan slammed his fist into his father’s stomach before he could finish. With Byron doubled over and Norma unconscious—her face so bloody she was almost unrecognizable—he stood up and shouted, “You’re supposed to be my father! You’re supposed to love me!”

The sirens got louder.

“I do love you,” his father wheezed.

“And this is how you show me?” Ethan glanced down the street just in time to see two police cars appear and turn toward the house. Without thinking, he started to run. Unfortunately, the quiet, brick houses were packed tightly together. With only rows of hedges between them, there was nowhere to hide.

He weaved between the sidewalk and the road until the officers caught up with him. One slammed on the brakes in front of him, the other behind, and he made a quick turn into somebody’s backyard.

But even running as fast as he could, he wasn’t running fast enough. An officer grabbed Ethan by the back of the shirt and slammed him to the ground.

NOW

THE FIRST IMPORTANT decision the three had to make came early the second day. Everyone was hungry. No one was talking. Martin could tell Ethan’s patience was running thin by the way his eyelid had started to twitch; it was subtle—so subtle Martin was certain that nobody would notice it unless they knew him well.

They had spent most of the morning descending, slowly and to the southwest. Compared to the day before, it was an easy climb. “Like a walk in the woods,” Cynthia said. There was no crawling or twisting through corkscrews, and the group had moved on a seemingly collective autopilot until the tunnel abruptly forked.

“Which way do you want to go?” Martin asked.

Cynthia used her flashlight to see as far as she could into each tunnel. Then she told Martin to turn around and pulled the compass out of the backpack he was carrying. She pointed it at the tunnel on their left. “That one goes more east.”

“Like that shit’s gotten us anywhere,” Ethan said under his breath.

Cynthia’s eyes narrowed to slits. With the light just so, she reminded Ethan of his mom. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said.

“You know perfectly well what