Her Guardians Lost(22)

“I don’t, either. Justin, because you have a daughter yourself now, you must sense the immense pain and anguish Molly’s family was under when she disappeared all those years ago.”

“It was a necessity.”

I frowned and shook my head. How could taking a child away from her family be a necessity?

I looked up at the guard and saw that he was just as eager to find out why as I was. It would seem that, no matter how stern he wanted to look as a guard, he was still a human being underneath. He wanted to know answers to unsolved questions.

“You took Molly away from her loving family because it was a necessity?”

I could see the veins in his neck pulsating, and his leg was now bouncing up and down as the nerves kicked in. For a fleeting moment, I saw a little boy in so much pain. It was a strange sensation. I normally only see things through touch but, for some reason, his pain was reflecting back at me.

“What happened to you?” I whispered. It was all I wanted to know right now.

His eyes snapped to mine. They say that the eyes are the windows into someone’s soul and, right now, his were staring back at me. All I saw was pain, anger, frustration, and a dying need to protect. But how can he want to protect when he snatched a girl from her family? Who could he possibly want to protect her from?

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Shit, I was losing him. Just as we were getting somewhere, I was about to lose it all. “I’m sorry, Justin. I really am. I told you I wanted to help, and that is why I’m here. I can see you’re in pain. I just want to understand why.”

“You shouldn’t be in here helping me. It’s my Molly and Caroline you should be helping, not me. I don’t deserve your help.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a world of contradictions?”

The room fell silent for a second, then I heard laughter. Justin’s mood changes were instantaneous. “That’s one way of describing me. I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

I saw his amused smile and took this as an opportunity to ponder my next question. He was becoming rather unpredictable.

“I can see your need to protect Molly and Caroline. I can see you love them dearly and had your reasons for doing what you did but, at the end of the day, you took a child, Mr. Merryfield.”

“Oh, I’m back to being called Mr. Merryfield now?”

I ignored his little dig. “You must understand it, Justin.”

“Understand what?”

“The frustration of not understanding why, when all you did was love and protect someone, they could be taken away from you so suddenly.”

Justin clenched his fists together in anguish. “It aches. I feel physical pain.”

“You’ve been apart for a couple of weeks, Justin. Molly was away from her family for over nineteen years. They didn’t know if she were alive or dead. Please understand why, after all these years, they would want to know why you took her. Why on earth would you want to take their own flesh and blood away from them?”

“Because I was protecting her!”

“Protecting her from what?”

Justin hurled himself out of his seat and started pacing the floor. The guard made an attempt to come between us, but I held my hand. “I’m fine. Thank you, um…?”

“Jack,” the guard said.

“Jack.” I nodded and smiled.

“You’re my responsibility while you’re in here, ma’am. I can’t let anything happen to you.”

Justin stopped his pacing and glared at the guard. “You think I’m going to hurt her? I would never hurt her. I would never hurt anyone. I’ve never hurt anyone in my life.”

Getting up, I walked towards Justin, frowning. I grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it. “Look at me, Justin. Please.”

I heard him sniffle a little as his head slowly raised, his eyes meeting mine. The pain was still there. It made my stomach twist.

“Can’t you see how much you’re hurting Molly’s family? Can’t you see the pain you must have caused them all these years? You must realise you have hurt someone, Justin. You’ve hurt a mother, a father, a brother, and all the rest of Molly’s family and friends.”

I watched as the tears fell down his face. “I’m sorry,” he murmured as his head fell onto my shoulder as he sobbed. A crying shriek left his lips. It was the most gut-wrenching sound I had ever heard in my life. “I’m so sorry,” he kept saying over and over again as he wailed. It was so heartbreaking, even Jack was turning his head away.

“I thought what I did was the right thing to do. I was trying to keep her safe.”