I was sitting on the cracked porch steps of my parents’ house, feeling the roughness of the wood under my fingers. It was a quiet Sunday afternoon in our small, drowsy neighborhood when they called him ‘just a dog’ again.
The neighbors’ kids, oblivious to the weight of their actions, threw stones near the fence where the dog usually lay.
They never thought much of him—just some stray, a nuisance at best.
But that dog had been there the whole time my brother was risking everything.
I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that the neighborhood’s dismissive attitude was only the surface of something deeper.
Something we hadn’t faced yet.
My brother’s secrets were a constant weight on me, heavy like the air hanging thick around us.
We all pretended everything was normal, but it wasn’t.
The police treated my brother like a troublemaker, ignoring the signs, dismissing every question.
Meanwhile, the real power, invisible and pervasive, lurked outside town.
The dog lay at my feet now, an unassuming figure in the quiet.
But I knew—without knowing how—that the worst was still waiting in the wings.
Tomorrow, my brother had a meeting.
A meeting that could change everything.
I dreaded what would come next.
Read more on the next page ⬇️⬇️⬇️
