“Mom, it’s okay,” Meg interrupted the fight she saw flash in her mother’s eyes. “He’s on our side now. Isn’t that right, Gavil?” She looked pointedly at the man who fought her with such venom a year ago. She would never forget those icy blue eyes.
She and Gavil watched each other for a moment. In that span, she reached out to feel his intent. He was hurting so deeply beneath that callous fa?ade. He’d lost someone dear to him because of Williams. Meg nodded knowingly at him as she poured gentle understanding and acceptance directly from her heart into his. He shuddered visibly and blinked before he met her gaze again. The sadness in his heart was still very much there, but she had intentionally left a seed of hope.
He watched her warily trying to figure out what just happened between them. “I’m not here to hurt any of you,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot in the last year. I know what Williams is now. He has to be stopped. He needs to die.”
The room had been holding its breath waiting for his response and now let out a collective sigh.
Margo looked from Meg, to Gavil and back to her. “If Meg trusts you, then you have my trust, too.”
Meg reached out and held her mother’s hand reassuring her before turning to the other interloper. “And you,” she said. “What is your motive?”
“I just want my freedom. Williams thinks of us as property. I’m owned by no one. I can’t get free until he’s dead,” Slider explained shrugging.
While the man spoke, Meg reached out to him and tentatively searched his true intent. She closed her eyes for a moment and reached further. “You do feel as you say, but there’s something else. What aren’t you telling us?”
Slider looked decidedly nervous now, running his fingers through his cropped blonde hair, rubbing his scalp slowly as though pushed deep in thought. His eyes were downcast, his anxious jaw working so muscles flexed in his hardened face.
“I could find it myself easily, but it would speak to your integrity if you confess it yourself.” She watched him squirm and worried he’d choose the wrong path.
“If I tell you, you’ll kill me,” he mumbled, still unable to look her in the eye.
Farrow, who had been watching the exchange silently, stood and walked toward the newcomer. “I thought they should have let me die for all the pain I caused them, but they didn’t. These are good people, Slider. You just have to be honest with them.”
Slider took a deep breath, seeming to take strength in Farrow’s confession.
“It was me. I was given orders to take out anyone I could. I saw the old guy—Dr. St. Paul. I saw him at the airport on the island. I shot him in the back. I killed him.” Slider’s voice was barely above a whisper. “He was just an old guy. A doctor. He was unarmed. Everything about the orders I was supposed to follow that day felt wrong—messed up and wrong—but I followed them anyway.”
Slider’s eyes stared at his feet. He didn’t move, as though bracing himself for the punishment he knew would be swift and deadly.
The room was silent for a moment.
“Thank you for telling us.” Meg’s face was wet with tears as she remembered the horror of the moment the meta was describing. “We all miss our dear Paulie so much.”
Margo looked at her daughter. “This is what Kenneth Williams does. He takes the innocence away from children by forcing them into trauma.”
Margo turned back to Slider and spoke directly to him. “You were given orders and you followed them, soldier. The evil doesn’t live in you. It lives in him. He feeds off the violence. He’s a demon.
“I’m so thankful you’ve chosen to turn away from him, Slider. We miss Paulie dearly, but we don’t blame you for his death.” She reached out to touch his shoulder and though he flinched at first, after a moment, he stilled and raised his eyes to look up at Dr. Margo Winter.
Meg was the only one not surprised to see tears in the stoic soldier’s brownish-gold eyes. She already knew what the boy was feeling because as Margo spoke, she was trying to pour peace into his heart. He was so traumatized, so close to completely broken.
He couldn’t speak, overwhelmed with awe at the reaction he would have never expected from this human woman. All he could do was sniff and nod before his eyes darted back to his feet and stayed there. Meg continued to focus her energies on the jaded soldier so full of self-loathing and lost in a sea of darkness.