Silence: Part Two of Echoes & Silence by A.M Hudson Read Free Book Online

balance and manoeuvred around it to his side. “David. He—”
    “Ara!” David demanded, marching toward us from the tree line, his cheeks and hands black with soot. “Get away from him!”
    My eyes enlarged as the odds of a very brutal fight tipped in positive favour. “He knows,” I whispered to Arthur.
    Arthur just nodded, gently shutting his door, and turned to face David as he came up on the driveway about ten feet away, pebbles crunching under heavy, angry footsteps.
    “David, please.” I ran between him and his target, but he grabbed both my arms and gently laid me aside.
    “Do not defend him, Ara.”
    “Amara,” Arthur said softly. “Go inside. This is between David and I.”
    “I’m not going anywhere.” I weaved my arm between them again and placed my body as Arthur’s shield.
    “Go!” they both yelled at the same time.
    The dangerous predator in David’s eyes forced me into a timid step backward then, but I refused to leave. I watched on as David’s human-paced march brought him across the gravel to his uncle quickly, and without warning, without calculation, he swung his arm back and brought his fist down hard across Arthur’s nose. A mighty crack blasted a shot of blood over the gravel, staining David’s knuckles and his neck. But his murderous eyes didn’t flinch. He steadied Arthur by the scruff of his shirt and hit him again.
    I could only watch, covering my mouth as Arthur landed in a heap on the ground. He didn’t get up. Didn’t block. Didn’t defend himself at all. Not even when David bent and grabbed his shoulders, slamming his head into the ground.
    “How could you?” David asked in a steady voice, but as he asked again and again, slamming his fist into Arthur’s head each time, his voice broke and crumbled away to sobs, his face red with heat and blood. “She was my wife! You sick.” He hit him again. “Twisted.” Again. “Fuck!”
    “David.” I ran forward and grabbed his raised arm. “Stop. Please.”
    Arthur looked up at me with one swollen eye, and shook his head, trying to say something.
    “Don’t you speak to her.” David shoved me off and crouched over Arthur, fisting his shirt tight enough that it nearly ripped clean off Arthur’s chest. “I trusted you. I asked you to watch over her and you promised me.” He planted his head firmly against Arthur’s and cried for a moment. “You promised. Always.”
    “Ara.” Falcon grabbed my arms suddenly from behind and pulled me back. “Get away from them.”
    I stumbled by force toward the fountain, and watched from the safe circle of Falcon’s arms as David continued his assault.
    “You just have to let him get it all out,” Falcon whispered into my hair. “Arthur can defend himself.”
    “Then why isn’t he?”
    “Because he knows this is justified.”
    I hid my face in his chest as the sound of breaking glass startled me. I couldn’t bear to look any more.
    “Falcon,” David demanded, sounding strained and out of breath. “Get her inside.”
    He bowed his head against the top of mine and then took my arm. “Come on, Ara.”
    “Do you even care?!” David screamed, raw emotion making his voice unrecognisable. I stopped, refusing to move. “Do you even know that you’re the reason? The entire reason she slept with Jason? She did it so she wouldn’t have to fuck you!”
    I didn’t hear what Arthur said, but he must have admitted it, because another wet crack made my stomach turn.
    “How could you keep this from me? How could you sit there and dine in my company, speak as my counsel, care for my wife as her doctor, when all along you… you’d…?”
    “I do not defend my actions,” Arthur mumbled, as if he had custard in his mouth. “You are right to be angry.”
    David’s spine very slowly straightened, as if each vertebra had to connect with the other first, and then he just stood there, horrified by his own blood-covered hands.
    “Son.” The half-dead man on the ground reached up