The Fall and Rise of Kade Hart: A Hart Brothers Novel
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Authors: A.M. Hargrove
Published By AM Hargrove, LLC
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2015 A. M. Hargrove
This book is protected under the copyright
laws of the United States of America.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to
peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names,
places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination,
or, if real, used fictitiously.
First off, I’d like to thank my readers.
Without your support, I would not be doing this thing called
writing. You can’t know how much I appreciate each and every one of
you.
To my beta team—you are my Super Heroes!
Terri, Kat, Candace, Andrea, Megan, Kristie, and Heather. I
couldn’t function without you. Not only do you beta for me, you are
also my friends and that means much more than anything else. You
are the best and I mean that from the bottom of my thankful heart.
Your valuable insight never ceases to amaze me.
I’d also like to thank the awesome bloggers
who have supported me and continue to do so. You all are so special
and amazing. I’m not sure what I’d do without you all: Terri, Kat,
Andrea, Kristie, Laurie, Nina, Ellie, Courtney, Hetty, Simone,
Mandy, Alana, Heather, and I know I’m missing some so please
forgive my pea brain. EEK!
Another shout out goes to my super cool
street team because at times, I basically suck. I hide in the cave
for days and they never poke me or complain and for that I could
hug and smooch each one of them. (I think they know how bad my ADD
is.)
And finally, thank you Hargrove Family! You
rock! It’s a good thing you love peanut butter.
Juliette Emilie
My car was loaded with all my belongings. It
was sad to leave my friends but wasn’t that a part of graduating
from college? Commencement had taken place two weeks before and
we’d all decided to hang around for an extra week. That expanded
into two. My parents finally put their feet firmly down and said it
was time to head home and start job hunting. Then we made a pact.
We swore we’d text or call each other every single day and post the
worst pictures possible of ourselves on Facebook. After our laughs
turned into tears, we cried. I mean ugly cried. If that hadn’t been
bad enough, I was teary-eyed all the way home, too.
As part of my graduation gift, my parents
promised to take the family on a vacation. We were supposed to
leave the following week for a trip to the Caribbean. We’d been
once before when I was a kid, but my little sister didn’t remember.
She and I were both excited because it had been ages since we’d
hung out together. We were three years apart and I adored her, so
this would be a special trip for us.
When I pulled in the driveway, I honked the
horn. They knew when to expect me because I texted them when I left
my apartment. I thought it was weird that no one came to the door.
Some kind of homecoming, after all that begging to get me back
here. Instead of lugging my stuff inside, I decided to enlist their
help.
Barging in the front door, all smiles, I
came to a screeching halt. Furiously, I blinked to clear my vision.
The scene that greeted me could in no way be real. It wasn’t
possible to process what I was seeing. Was this some kind of a
cruel joke? Was this a staged scene to make me regret staying so
long at school?
I squeezed my eyes shut, praying when I
opened them again it would all be gone, because I knew none of the
above could be actual … concrete. It had to be fictional. It was
the scent of blood that clued me in … that brought me out of my
frozen state. I never knew what a distinct and pungent odor blood
had. And why would I? I had never been around such an enormous
quantity of it before. There were rivers and ponds of it, forming
into pools as it still trickled from the bodies of my mom, dad, and
sister.
“Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God.” I swallowed and
then tried to scream, but only a weird squeak emerged from my
mouth. It was only when I tasted my own blood that I realized my
hand was clamped over my face so hard, my teeth had gouged into my
lips. My baby sister, Sylvie, was stripped naked and lay slumped on
her side, one arm bent across her stomach, the other stretched out,
palm open. My mom, my beloved mother, was facing my sister, both
arms reaching out to her as if she tried to get to Sylvie before
she died. And next to my mom was my dad, flat on his back, vacant
eyes staring at the ceiling.
“Noooo!” I finally screeched. There was so
much blood everywhere. I wanted to hug all of them, hold them in my
arms, but all I could do was stare at the gruesome scene in front
of me. The thought never occurred to me that whoever did this could
still be in the house. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I
should call 911, but the shock of seeing it all took every bit of
rationality away from me. My head involuntarily jerked between the
three of them, eventually settling on my dad. My shaky legs carried
me as far as the sofa until my hip slumped against it, and my butt
slid to the floor.
I sat and stared at their faces for I don’t
know how long. They say right before you die, your life flashes
through your mind. I don’t know if that’s true, but as I sat there
staring at my murdered family, memories zoomed through
my
head—almost like a slide show on fast-forward of photos from family
events. It began when I was a young girl and ended at my college
graduation just a couple of weeks ago. My whole being vibrated with
agony, knowing those were the final memories I would have of
them.
My entire family lay dead. Not just dead,
but slaughtered, each one dying their own heinous death. My dad’s
neck was ripped apart, jagged pieces of his flesh lying open. One
arm was extended toward my mother, and the index and middle fingers
of that hand were missing. My mom’s neck was sliced wide open from
one side to the other, not jagged like my dad’s, but cleanly slit,
almost to the point of decapitation. Both of them had their legs
split open from their groins to their knees. The blood was still
seeping through their clothing, the mangled threads edged with
their bloody tissue. But Sylvie was the one that got to me the
most. Her neck was bruised and slashed, just like Mom’s. Only there
were puncture wounds all over her body. Some were about an inch
wide where others were cylindrical shaped. Blood seeped from each
of them, running into lines creating zigzags of red all over her
pale skin. I couldn’t even allow myself to imagine what had made
them. Worse yet, there was no sight of her clothing anywhere. What
kind of cruel people would have done such a terrible thing to them?
Was this a mob killing? Or some kind of gangland initiation?
Even though they were the victims, I felt
like my guts had been sawed out right along with their souls. My
belly heaved and I forced the bile back down. The piercing pain
that slashed my heart to shreds radiated through me ceaselessly. I
hugged myself in a stupid attempt to ease the pain, but I should
have known better. That would’ve been like putting a Band-Aid on an
amputation. And that’s exactly how I felt. Like someone had cut off
my arms and legs. For some reason I was unable to wrest my eyes
away from the horror movie I was seeing. It was hideous. Too final.
Who could’ve done such a thing, I kept asking myself. And why? My
mind raced. Suddenly, my heart gave a massive lurch and a surge of
adrenaline coursed through me. Body tingling, a jolt of panic
instantly flooded my veins and I found it impossible to expand my
lungs. I crashed sideways to the floor and it was then I saw it.
Next to my dad’s hand, scrawled in his blood, he’d written two
words.
JE hide
JE. Those were my initials. Juliette Emilie.
Why would he write my initials in his blood and the word “hide”
right after them? The “e” on the end of hide was barely formed, as
if it took all of his effort to complete it. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. He
must’ve known something. He was telling me to hide. Hide from what?
What did he know? Did he know who did this to them? And if so, were
they looking for me now? Oh, shit. If so, I needed to get out of
here. But where would I go?
Sometimes a sense of intuition seeps into
you and you have no idea where it came from. At that very moment,
something settled over me and I crawled toward my dad, reached for
his arm, and using his sleeve, I dragged it through the blood to
smear the words he’d written. Scrambling to my feet, making sure I
avoided any of the congealing blood, and nearly crashing back to
the floor several times, I staggered out the door to my car. My
hands shook so violently I couldn’t put the key in the ignition. It
took several stabs until I was successful, but I roared out of the
driveway, tires squealing. It was a battle to stay conscious as I
fought hyperventilation, but I did. My brain was scrambled eggs. I
didn’t know what to do or where to go. Shit! My family had been
mutilated and my dad left me a message in his own blood that told
me to hide! That meant I couldn’t call my friends. That meant I was
alone. I slammed my hands against the steering wheel. What the fuck
was I going to do?
