Retired Army Colonel Brenda Hollins Races To Save Her Bruised Daughter From Abuse and Supernatural Captivity, Only To Uncover A $5 Million Blood Covenant That Reverses Everything She Believed
The rain lashed against the windows, a relentless rhythm against the oppressive silence of the house. The phone continued its insistent ringing from the kitchen counter, its sound an alarm in the damp twilight. I knew the moment I heard it that the fragile peace, the two weeks of tense, watchful quiet, had shattered.
I pushed myself up from the porch swing, the wood creaking under my weight. My joints ached, a deep, bone-weary fatigue settling into my muscles. My eyes were heavy, etched with the sleepless nights of an unending vigil.
I walked to the kitchen, the chill in the air seeming to follow me. The caller ID glowed, illuminating Maya’s name. My heart sank, a familiar dread coiling in my gut.
I picked up the receiver, pressing it to my ear.
“Mom…?” Maya’s voice was a choked, trembling whisper, exactly as it had been that first night in St. Jude Hospital. Frail. Desperate.
“Maya,” I said, my voice flat, devoid of emotion. I was too tired for anger, too resigned for surprise.
“Mom, I… I’m at the hospital,” she sobbed, the words tumbling out, laced with panic. “St. Jude again. He found me! They’re saying… they’re saying I’m not stable. They won’t let me leave.”
My grip tightened on the phone. *He found me.* The same old lie. The same old performance. She was back in the emergency ward, playing the victim, trapped in the legal and supernatural quagmire she herself had created. The subtle, wispy tendril of the entity must have finished its work, tightening its hold, pushing her to escalate once more.
The Lowcountry spirit was still active, still feeding, still manipulating. Maya, despite her initial cunning, was now as much a prisoner of its influence as any Boudreaux heir. And I, the tireless caretaker, the protector, was caught in her orbit.
I closed my eyes, the familiar scent of rain and damp earth filling my senses. The cycle was complete, yet utterly unresolved. I had come full circle, right back to the beginning. The midnight call, the terrified daughter, the hospital walls.
I, Colonel Brenda Hollins, spent thirty years protecting the nation, only to return home to an ungrateful family and a fight I could never truly win. I would always be running to her side, always trying to pick up the pieces, forever caught in the endless, exhausting loop of caretaking.
The phone pressed against my ear, Maya’s sobs echoing in the silence of my home. My life, my purpose, my fate, it seemed, was to always answer the call, no matter the cost.
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