Page 23 of Butch

Rae pushed her bottom lip out as she looked back at him. She wanted to know how Reaper had done that. It was like a magic trick.

“How did you do that?” she asked. “No one saw that it was behind your back. You didn’t leave the room to grab them while we were here.”

Magic.

Her eyes grew wide. “Magic? You know how to do that?”

Raelynn was leaning so far that Daddy had to wrap his arms around her waist, so she didn’t fall off his lap.

“More magic?” she asked. “Please?”

She had a girlfriend in high school who was obsessed with magic, and Rae loved watching her. It was so interesting to see how they did anything.

Maybe another time. I’m a little rusty since I haven’t had anyone to show the tricks to, but I’ll practice when we’re done, so next time we meet, I can show you.

She beamed up at him and clapped her hands several times, bouncing up and down on Daddy’s lap. She couldn’t wait for the next time she saw Reaper now.

“Thirty minutes?” she asked. “In thirty minutes, can we meet up again so you can show me stuff?”

Reaper threw his head back as he laughed, and she couldn’t help but smile. But it quickly disappeared when she couldn’t hear anything, and reality came crashing back down. She watched him continue to laugh, sadness seeping into her more and more.

Are you okay? Daddy’s phone was in front of her.

She shrugged and looked away, not wanting to see any more. She had been perfectly fine, but reality has a nasty way of crashing the happiest moments in life.

“Pictures?” she changed the subject, not wanting to talk about magic any longer.

She wanted magic to fix her ears. She wanted herself to be all better so she didn’t have to rely on people writing or typing on their phone to communicate with her.

Rae could feel everyone’s eyes on her. She didn’t want to have to look at any of them and see the pity in their eyes.

Reaper finally put the pieces of paper in front of her. Three in total, with at least eight males on each page. But before she could get any good look at them, Butch was pulling her face away from the pictures.

Are you sure you want to do this? I don’t want to trigger you. Was written on his phone.

“I’m sure. He just wants me to look at them and nothing else,” she replied.

If it gets to be too much, you tell me. We can stop at any point.

She nodded and looked back at the paper. Grabbing the first one, she took a deep breath and began looking at each picture.

Palms sweaty, she looked at the next and next picture, seeing people she knew from her hometown, but not Edmund or any of his friends.

“Wait.” She looked up at Reaper. “Are these all people who start with Ed in their first name?”

Raelynn figured Daddy would tell Reaper about her slip-up, but she didn’t expect them to narrow it down already. But with Reaper nodding, her grip on the paper tightened. She was more likely to see Edmund now, and Rae didn’t know whether she was prepared for that or not.

But Raelynn pushed on and made herself look at the paper again, putting it down when she got through all of them and picking up the next one. Daddy had his hand on her back, gently patting it to let her know he was there for her. She quickly went through the second and on to the third, not wanting to take too long on either one. But when her eyes landed on the last picture, she blinked and stared at it for several seconds before putting it down.

Edmund had been the last picture. It was a picture of when he had gotten arrested for drinking and driving one night. She remembered him not coming home at all and the relief she felt, but it all came crashing down the next day when he got out and came home, still slightly drunk from the night before.

A shiver ran through her as she looked over at Reaper, putting on her fakest smile she could muster. “I don’t see anyone on there who was the person who had me.”

Lie.

Oh, such a big lie, and she could already feel the guilt forming in her stomach. She knew it wasn’t good to lie, but it was for their own good. They didn’t want to deal with him, not when he had connections to some very powerful people who could make people disappear randomly.

No.