Saving Heroes

Story Info
They finally have him back.
7.7k words
4.57
65.8k
108
Share this Story

Font Size

Default Font Size

Font Spacing

Default Font Spacing

Font Face

Default Font Face

Reading Theme

Default Theme (White)
You need to Log In or Sign Up to have your customization saved in your Literotica profile.
PUBLIC BETA

Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.

You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.

Click here
shaide87
shaide87
572 Followers

It's amazing what you can get used to. I mean, if you grow up around something, see all the time, then it becomes normal to you. I've seen all kinds of things: blood, broken ribs, tears, bruises. I've seen it all, and that was at 6 years old. My father was a supreme asshole. He would beat on my mother for any and every little thing. He didn't need much of an excuse to lash out. And I'll admit it. For a while, I blamed her, I was sure it was her fault. Daddy always said so.

Then, my mother got pregnant with my little brother, and Daddy needed a new punching bag. Naturally, he picked me. Unfortunately for him, unlike my mother, I had things to do. Mom didn't work. She stayed at home, cleaned, looked after the children. I wasn't available around the clock. So I learned to walk softly, very softly. I would do all my homework in my room, I would skip dinner as often as I was allowed to, skip bathes, and sneak out my window to go to school. That's right, I actually had to sneak out to school. But I'd do anything to keep from crossing Daddy's path. And I only got the belt.

Would you believe that my father was a church going man? A deacon? Yep, every Sunday we would spend all day in church. Sunday school, 11 o' clock service, evening service. All day. And Pastor Edwards would come over for dinner each Sunday night. When he left, Dad would beat on Mom because something was wrong, something was always wrong. The greens weren't seasoned, the cornbread was cold, or the chicken was dry. There was always a reason. And while she was pregnant he'd beat me. Why didn't I answer the pastor, why didn't I help mom with the dinner, why wasn't I paying attention in Sunday school?

I felt horrible when my mom had Mark. Daddy was finally done with me. He went back to beating on mom, and I was relieved. What kind of daughter did that make me? What kind of person? Instead of thinking about that, I tried to focus on my baby brother. He was so cute, he had little fingers and little toes, and he would laugh and giggle. But he was a baby, and he would cry. We only had about 3 minutes to make him stop before Daddy went off.

Thankfully, Mark was a good baby. He rarely cried, and when he did, you just had to stuff him with a bottle, or his pacifier, or play peek-a-boo. I loved my pretty little brother. He learned to say "Mama" and "Daddy" and I was elated when he said "Hayhay". My name's Hailey, but you take what you can get from baby talk.

Mark learned the same way I did. We grew up around abuse, the sound of flesh, the smell of blood. Mark learned to treat cuts and bruises, help Mom around the house, and stay out of Dad's way. And we knew not to say anything to anyone.

When he was 8, Mark came into my room one night, "Is Mommy bad?"

I looked down from my book to see him standing at the edge of my bed. He had finished taking his bath, but his brown hair was still damp, and his breath was minty fresh. I picked him up and sat him down on my bed. "What do you mean, Bonito?" I always called him that. No, we weren't Spanish, but he was my little pretty boy. Still, I didn't want to embarrass him in front of his friends, so... Spanish.

"Cause Mommy always needs spankings."

"No, Bonito, Mommy isn't bad."

"Then why does Daddy spank her?"

Do you know how hard it is for a 15 year old to explain domestic abuse to an 8 year old? Hard. "Because Daddy is bad. Daddy is a bad man, Bonito."

"But Hayhay, Daddy is daddy." He never grew out of calling me that. I didn't mind it, though.

"I know, Bonito, but even daddies can be bad men."

"But Hayhay, Daddy is a deacon." He was on the edge of tears now. I felt sorry for him, he was so confused.

"Do you think I'm a bad girl?"

"No."

"Daddy used to spank me all the time."

"W-why?"

"Because Daddy is a bad man, Bonito."

Have you ever told a child that Santa Clause isn't real? That's what this was like. I literally had to watch as the innocence died in his eyes. And I knew that I had killed it. I felt horrible. My brother would never be young again. He cried then, quietly. We were always quiet in my father's house. He fell asleep in my arms, crying the whole time.

My little Bonito was a different boy when he woke up the next morning. The world of fairies and dragons and Santa was closed to him, forever. His eyes were open now and I didn't know how I felt about that. He didn't do anything differently. He was still quiet, respectful, and helpful. But he watched now. He watched and he grew. For 3 years, he watched and he grew.

No matter what I may forget, I will always remember that night. It's been engraved in my soul and etched in my mind. I couldn't take it anymore. I had finally had enough. Dad had gone after Mom again. He was slapping her because she wasn't being respectful. He was a man of God, how dare she treat him that way. I ran and grabbed his hand. I slapped him and told him what I really thought of him. And he hit me. I was old enough, big enough now. He needed to put God into my life. He hit me again. My mother lay on the floor, 5 feet from me, while my father began to beat me. Warming to his subject. I was screaming and crying and he just kept hitting me.

And then it stopped. I dared to look up and his face... Shock, pain, disbelief. Fear. Those are the emotions I remember seeing in him. And then a small hand flashed out from behind him and into his side. It flashed in and out of my vision. I saw my father crash down on his knees, my little brother standing behind him. His hands wet with suds from the dishes. Suds turned red, blood red. His hand came up and around my father's neck. He was holding a steak knife. I will always remember the look on his face as well. Calm. Absolutely calm. And it was with that unnatural calm that he slit my father's throat.

He looked up at me, smiled, and walked out of the room. I looked over at my mother, she was crying for him, my father. How could she?! How could she cry for that monster?! After all the years of torture and abuse, she had the nerve to cry for him?! She ran to the phone and called the police. I went outside where my brother was.

He was sitting on the edge of the porch, his legs stretched out on the lawn. The smell of fresh-cut summer grass and the cool night wind wrapping around him as he stared up at the star-filled sky. The knife laid next to him.

I went over and wrapped my arms around him, pulling him into me. We didn't say anything, we just sat there together. We sat there as the sounds of sirens moved closer and closer. As the front door opened up to the flashing lights. As the police came into our home for the first time ever.

They came out back, stood him up, and handcuffed him. He had that look of absolute calm the entire time. He didn't cry or resist. He just smiled at me as they took him away.

Numbers are amazing if you really think about it. Amazingly stupid little things. Like the number 27. That's how many times they said Mark stabbed him. 158. That's how many days the trial lasted. 4. That's how many hours it took the jury. 7. That's how many years they decided to steal my little Bonito away from me. They wanted to keep him locked up until he was 18. Another amazingly stupid number.

They took my little Bonito away from me for seven years. They locked him up in a mental institute, and they refused to let us see him. We tried, but either he would refuse to see us or they would be punishing him for not cooperating with his therapy. Twice they tried to move him to juvenile detention. The first time, he beat one of the boys in juve for attacking a younger kid. He beat him halfway to death. So they decided he was still mentally unsound. The second time Mom blocked it. She hired a lawyer to keep him where he was.

It took a while, almost 2 years, but my mother really blossomed after my father's death. She got a job, began writing, and started a support group for battered wives. The support group turned into a foundation. The foundation went nationwide. Mom wasn't a household name, but the people who needed to know about her, knew about her. She warned women that the person abused isn't the only victim. She told my brother's story to the world. How he saved us from my monstrosity of a father. And, to her credit, she didn't get rich off it. She poured most of her money back into the foundation or into me.

I admit. I was mad at Mom for a long time, but with counseling and time and lots of crying, we worked our way past it. I started getting into fashion and design. I went to school, kept my grades up, got a job at one of the many middle of the lane companies where my boss thought he was a genius, and I hated it. My mother told me that I needed to get my own ideas out there to the people. She started wearing clothes I designed for her anytime she was giving some speech or address. She even gave me the money to begin my own line. I started with women's clothing, then added a men's line, then a children's line. I preferred to mix modern with medieval and it did well. I wasn't a household name quite yet, but I was definitely on the up and coming list. By my junior year in college, I owned two stores.

We kept the old house, but we did move. Everything that belonged to that house though, we left behind. Clothes, furniture, pictures. Everything. We wanted a fresh start. We bought a new house, in a new neighborhood, in a new town. We couldn't stand all the people looking at us like we had done something wrong. Mom was the mother of the murderous son. I was the sister of a psycho killer. But no one talked about the years of abuse we went through. No one wanted to "speak badly of the dead." Hypocritical sons of bitches. So we left.

But Mom kept the house. She would take groups of women there, telling them different stories from our life, letting them relive her experiences. She would always end it with Mark's story though. Driving home what her failure to act cost her son. Sometimes, I think she was punishing herself doing those tours.

Still, while we didn't have Mark, we had each other. It's the main reason why I never moved out. We closed ourselves off to the world for a long time, but in our home there was music and television and the smell of food. We didn't have a quiet home anymore, we didn't tiptoe around the house. We screamed at each other from across rooms, we played music too loud, we drank wine and watched movies Dad would have never allowed us to. Mark had sacrificed himself for us, and we celebrated our lives every day because of it.

And just because he wouldn't see us, didn't mean that we forgot about him. We went to the institute every two weeks, but he refused to see us. Ever. Still, we never gave up.

I came home from work one day to find my mother sitting down on the couch crying.

"Mom! What's wrong?"

She looked up at me, and even as the tears ran down her face, she smiled. She smiled, and handed me a letter. I read through it, and broke out crying myself. Mom wrapped me in her arms and we cried. In 2 short weeks, my brother was turning, and the state wouldn't be holding him any longer.

The next day, we went crazy. We cleaned and scrubbed his new room, we bought him a car, then remembered that he had never learned to drive, so we paid for a driving instructor. I wanted to get him some clothes, but I had no idea what size he was. We planned a huge dinner: chicken, turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, and salad. We didn't know what he liked anymore, so we made everything. Then we decided to go out to eat. Then we decided to cook some more. Like I said, we went crazy.

We spent those entire 2 weeks freaking out. On the drive down we were nervous wrecks. And when they brought him out to us, I was shocked. Shell shocked. He was so tall, so big. His brown hair was long and shaggy, his hazel eyes were dark and withdrawn. But when he looked up and saw us, he smiled. "Hey Hayhay. Hey Mom."

My little Bonito. Although he wasn't so little anymore. He was taller than me and Mom. And built. My God he was built. His chest looked solid, his arms were huge, and his thighs were thick. He wasn't a body builder or anything, but everything about him screamed that this was not a man to trifle with.

Man. Yes, my little bonito was definitely a man now. And that man had a brilliant, warming smile. And he was smiling that smile at me. I ran and jumped into his arms, crying. Mom wrapped both of us into hers, also crying. And he just held us and smiled.

You have no idea how much paperwork is required to set someone free from a mental institution. We were there for another two hours as Mark and Mom signed this form and that form. And after a hundred different pieces of paperwork and signatures and initials, we were finally in the car, driving away from the place where the police had held my kidnapped little brother.

We were silent during the 2 hour drive, but it wasn't an awkward silence. We were just basking in our own private little happy world. Mom drove, constantly wiping at her eyes, while we sat in the back seat. I wrapped myself around Mark while he had one of those huge arms around my shoulders.

"Wow," he said as we pulled up to the house.

Mom turned around and smiled. "We've done pretty well without your father around. Come on honey. Let's get our hero settled in."

I, reluctantly, let go of him, while we got out of the car, only for both Mom and I to grasp onto him as we walked into the house. He was back with us, but it was so new, and we were so afraid that we could wake up tomorrow and find out it was all some cruel trick. He didn't have any clothes so there were no bags to carry. We walked into the house and walked him back to his room.

"Feel free to add whatever you need to make it your own, honey," Mom told him.

"It's been so long since I had my own room, I don't even know what to add to it."

"I'll help you pick some things out tomorrow. Besides, we've got to get you some clothes," I said. "Some big clothes. How did you get so big?"

"Boredom. There wasn't much to do besides work out and talk about your feelings. And since I wasn't doing much talking..."

"I didn't think they'd have a weight room," I said.

"They don't. We just did lots of push-up and sit ups. And you learn to use stuff around you."

"Did you not like your therapist," Mom asked as we walked to the dining room.

"No."

"Well, Hailey and I both saw one, I can make an appointment for you if you like."

"No thanks, Mom. I've had enough of them to last me a lifetime." She heard the hardness in his voice, so she dropped the subject. "So what have you two been up to," he asked.

We stayed up late that night. Talking and hugging and holding each other. We tried to cram 7 years of our lives into his head, not very successfully, but we tried anyway. Still, he never had anything to say about the institution, and we didn't press him. It was well after midnight before we all finally went to bed.

A noise woke me up around 4 in the morning. I walked out of my room to find Mark roaming the house with a huge smile on his face.

"Bonito, is something wrong?"

"No, Hayhay," he said, smiling at me, "You just have no idea how it feels to be able to walk outside my room without needing anyone's permission."

I pulled him down and kissed him on the cheek. "You're home, Bonito. You can walk around anytime you want. Now, I'm going back to sleep. Night night."

"Night, Hayhay."

When I woke up again it was 10 o' clock. And I was excited. I was taking my brother shopping today. I washed up and dressed and went down to the kitchen to find Mom and Mark eating pancakes. I got myself a stack and sat down.

"Ready for a long day," I asked him.

"Sure."

The first stop was for something he could wear so we could go shopping. The only clothes he had were medical scrubs. So we bought him jeans and t-shirts and underwear and all the other things. We got him fitted for suits, bought shoes and socks, and, the entire time, every girl we came across starred at him. And I didn't blame them.

Mark was a fine piece of sculpted man-meat. He walked with confidence, head high, shoulders back, his steps were sure-footed. And when he smiled... When he smiled, it was like the world got brighter. And best of all, he had no idea. So he gave that smile out to any and every one.

Girls at the different shops flirted shamelessly with him, but he didn't respond to any of it. He just smiled as I pulled and pushed him from shop to shop, into this suit and that outfit. He didn't pay any of those girls any attention. I laughed to myself as I watched them gnaw at their livers at how oblivious he was to them.

"Why do I need all these suits," he asked me as I bullied him into another one. It was fun bullying him. He was so big and here was this little woman making him get dressed.

"Because Mom is kind of important now, so we get invited to all these dinners and functions. Plus, you look good in a suit."

"I agree," said one of the shop girls as she walked by. She had walked by already about 10 times.

"But it feels so weird," he complained.

"It feels like freedom," I smiled at him. He laughed as I pushed him back into the changing room.

While I waited for him to change into my next selection for him, the girl came back around. 11.

"Hey, you two aren't dating are you?"

"No," I said.

"Is he seeing anyone?" Wow, direct isn't she. I looked her over. She was cute. Long brown hair pulled back into a pony tail, nice breasts, and slim waist. Yeah, I could see Bonito with her.

"No, he isn't."

"Cool, thanks," she said and walked off.

I saw a few things I wanted to take a look at, not for Mark, just for my own interest. While I was gone, Mark stepped out of the changing room and the girl walked up to him. It was a short conversation. Mark turned bright red as she handed him a slip of paper, and then he retreated back into the changing room.

I realized immediately that, as cute as it was, it was also sad. Mark had been locked up with all boys for half of his childhood. The half where he was supposed to be learning about how to interact with girls. He was shy and lost and had no idea how to talk to a girl that was interested in him.

It was well after 6 when we left, and I'm glad to say, a number of his choices were from my line. My little Bonito had wonderful taste in clothes. Plus, I think I may have gotten my foot into the door for men's formal wear.

"So are you going to call her," I asked as I drove us home.

"Call who?"

"The girl from the shop. The one that gave you her phone number."

I glanced over and saw him blush again. "I don't think so."

"Why not, is she not your type?"

"Hailey, I've spent the last few years in a nut house. I don't have a type. Hell, the only women I know are you and Mom."

The rest of the ride was quiet. I didn't know what to say to him, how to help him. Maybe I should buy him some porn, I thought.

When we got home and got all his things put up, along with getting his black sheets on the bed, apparently he didn't like sleeping on white sheets anymore, I told Mom about what happened.

"I didn't even think about that. Of course he doesn't have any interpersonal skills." She looked over at me, "Don't worry, honey. I'll figure something out."

It may be the pride of youth, but I didn't want to run to my mother with all of my problems. I wanted to help Mark on my own. He was my little Bonito. So, where does any 25 year old woman take her problems? To her girlfriends.

A week later they all came over for dinner. And all those hussies wanted was to be naked in my brother's bedroom. They all flirted shamelessly and Mark ended up retreating back to his room. I was pissed. Those stupid bitches couldn't control themselves for 1 night. 1 night! Thirsty bitches.

Well, when girlfriends don't work out, and they didn't, where was a 25 year old woman to turn? The internet. Lovely, lovely internet. You'll never lie to me!

shaide87
shaide87
572 Followers
12