His Greatest Redemption [REUPLOADED]

56

"Oh my gosh." I sat up in my seat, my eyes flaring with excitement. Kade turned the music down and glanced over at me, frowning.

"What?" He asked.

"Can you stop right here?" I pointed at the movie theater ahead, my movements almost urgent.

He glanced ahead, his dark eyebrows pinching together. His jaw clenched and then unclenched, but he didn't say no. Instead, he quickly pulled into the half empty parking lot and parked the car.

Once we got out of the car, he finally spoke. "Why are we here?"

I glanced over my shoulder at him, and his gaze was locked on me. "I just wanted to see something. Come." I intertwined our fingers and tugged him along with me, rounding the corner and leading him towards the ticket booth. I remember being here as if it was yesterday.

"Um, two please." I smiled at the cashier, and when I went to fish a few dollars from my pocket, Spade handed the cashier his card instead.

"Nothing good is playing," The lady told us as she swiped the card, chewing loudly on a wad of gum.

"That's fine, nothing good is ever really playing here." I told her, taking his card back for the two tickets.

She chuckled. "You got that right. Have a nice time."

"Thank you." I smiled.

Walking inside, we bypassed the concession stand, the smell of buttery popcorn nearly making my mouth water. "It was seven dollars," I murmured with an amused smile. "I could've paid for it." I looked up at Kade, who only stared at me blankly.

"Could've..." He shrugged. "But I wouldn't have let you."

I shook my head as we headed towards the next set of double doors, and then quietly I pushed it open, leading Kade by arm into the dark theater. "She wasn't lying when she said nothing good was playing." He grumbled from behind me.

I laughed lightly. It was true. This theater was old, really, really old and most of the time whenever I snuck in here as a child, they were always playing classic movies or sweet romances during their midnight showings. I didn't mind. I only ever came to get away from home. Any place was better than there.

We walked up five rows, finding multiple empty seats near the top. No one really ever sat on the top row. Well, besides me, which was pretty odd given the fact that I needed glasses in order to see anything properly.

I sat down, dragging Kade with me, which he did with a small smirk on his face. I slipped my phone out of my back pocket and sat it in the empty cup holder in between him and I. "What's so special about this theater?" If I didn't realize it before, I definitely did now. He was so tense, and his eyes were darker than usual, as if something was bothering him.

"I just haven't been here in a while. And not just this theater, but this part of the city. So many bad things happened here, but this cinema is one good thing I had to myself." I told him, glancing back at the screen. A couple was sitting a few rows below us, snuggled closely together. Teenagers by the looks of it. I almost wanted to laugh. I never got that first date experience.

And for the first time in my life, I didn't make me feel like I had missed out on something.

Kade slid his big hand between my thighs, and I realized it was because I had stopped talking. He was trying to comfort me. I exhaled a sigh of relief. I didn't think I'd be able to step foot in here if he weren't with me. He encouraged me to be stronger, with or without him, and made me understand that my trauma didn't define who I was as a person. It didn't control me. It simply built me into the woman I was today.

"I used to sneak out of my house at night and walk here when I was a kid." I told him, brushing my fingertips along the veins in his hand, tracing the demonic looking skull tattoo there. "The first time I came here, I was scared shitless. I snuck out of my window that night just to see if I could really do it, to see if I could get away with it, and I went from helplessly standing in my backyard to..."

"Wandering the streets?"

"Yeah. I didn't disobey my father often. I was too afraid, and I didn't like the drama. But that day...something inside me snapped. I was tired. My dad slept peacefully every night while I stayed up for countless nights because my body was in too much pain and I was afraid of my own dreams. So I found something for myself to do. I found this place." I admitted quietly.

No one ever came here at night, and the cashier who worked the booth when I was a kid was always so nice to me, it was always easy to sneak inside a movie theater and hide there for hours until it was time for me to go home. I was tired and sad there. Alone.

"You stopped coming here. Why?"

I swallowed thickly. "I got too far ahead of myself." Sneaking out was a risk I was willing to take every night, but only me. I should've never convinced my sister to come with me. She did it out of guilt, out of the responsibility she felt for me. I was too young to realize it.

Spade narrowed his eyes at me for a long time before tilting his head back towards the ceiling. "Damn." He whispered lowly, a tight edge to his voice as he shook his head and licked his lips slowly. I watched him carefully.

I tensed up, my hand above his freezing. "What's wrong?"

"I've seen you before, Sam." He said lowly, his dark eyebrows pinched together.

"What do you mean you've seen me before...? Before what?" My voice was skating on the edge of wariness.

"Before any of this shit happened. Us." He gestured between him and I, and I stared at him as if he'd grown an extra eye. "You don't fucking remember, and I didn't either until now." There was a pause. "Have I ever told you the reason I went to prison?" He asked, confusing the literal hell out of me.

"No, you haven't." I said slowly.

"I killed a man and shoved his dick down his throat for trying to touch Eli. My dad had set the whole thing up, knowing I wouldn't give a fuck about the consequences. He wanted me locked up and far away from him. The fucker wasn't ready to step down as capo because he knew that the moment he did, I'd kill him. So he had someone call the cops on me, gave them my location, and left me to deal with it on my own." His jaw clenched visibly tight, and so did his hand on my thigh. "In his eyes, whatever the fuck happened, happened."

But I didn't flinch. I didn't have to. He recognized it before I could really react and loosened his grip. "I ran. For a long fucking time before I got to the theater. I knew they wouldn't look here, and I paid the cashier hush money until I figured out a plan." He licked his teeth, rubbing his fingers across my skin.

I swallowed hard.

•

•

•