Other Worlds - The Wilds

Chapter 38

  "Toni, if it's too soon you don't have to look through these papers now. They're not going anywhere."

  "I want to do it before Shelby comes back. I don't want any of this hanging over my head when I see her. She will need me, the best most stable version of me."

  "Didn't you say that-"

  "Yeah, I know what I said," Toni snapped, losing her temper accidentally. "Fuck, sorry, I just... hate thinking about the fact that we won't be able to see each other properly for a while. But I'm sure we'll be able to talk in secret though. We did keep it under wraps for a while before. We just have to be more careful."

  Martha didn't look convinced but at least she didn't look hurt that Toni just bit her head off. She hated her temper these days. It had been nearly 2 months and she was still struggling to keep her irritability in check.

  "Okay then. Let's do this." Martha announced, taking Melanie's massive pile of documents from Toni's drawer and placing them on her bed.

  Toni had kind of wanted to do it alone but when she brought that up to Martha she immediately refused the plan. Citing moral support.

  They did reach a compromise, however, Martha went off to read on her own bed and if Toni needed her, she would say. That was good enough for her, she was actually grateful in the end.

  She took a shuddering breath and dived in.

  The first noteworthy article she found was from 1989, Carol would have been 14 at the time, or somewhere around that age.

Mother of Two Found Murdered in Home, An American Family Scandal

  Toni thought it was a bit of an insensitive title.

  A deeper dive into the article mentioned that the suspected killer was the husband. Even though Toni knew this wasn't true she found herself getting a little wrapped up in the conspiracy of it all.

  It has a brief description of her injuries which were a little more significant than just a head wound like she expected. Either her mother had suffered all of the injuries from the husband prior or Carol really lost it.

  It was an early article so it wasn't that helpful to her. She set it aside an picked up a police report. Or document? She wasn't really sure what it was but it looked official.

  It contained similar information. Just description of the victim and the injuries again.

  Toni wasn't really sure what she was supposed to get out of this. All it meant was that Carol was telling the truth.

  Another official document described a young girl, 16 years old, that had run away from a foster home. She was found with a series of injuries a few hours after the call was made that she had run away.

She scanned over it, stopping abruptly when she noticed something familiar.

Head wound

  Broken rib
 
  Fractured wrist

  Punctured lung

  Toni read it again not sure if her brain was making her see things that weren't there.

  And again.

  She read over the discarded articles again.

  Her heart was in her throat. "What the fuck?"

  "What is it?" Martha rushed over, taking a seat next to Toni on her bed.

  "They're all the same," she muttered, flipping through more pages. The same injuries on nearly every single one of them, old foster kids and details about Carol's mother.