DISCLAIMER: You know the drill. Don't own the characters, etc. The plot is all mine. (Special thanks to Cathryn and the other folks at TWoP for the idea, actually.)

Part One

Ruthie saw the bruises.

She was pretending to be asleep, as she usually did when Lucy came upstairs after her dates with Kevin. Lucy never checked to see if Ruthie was actually sleeping or not. So Ruthie had heard her sister crying after the date last week, and again after the date a few days ago. She knew that things were not going well for Lucy and Kevin, and it made her very happy.

On this night, Lucy's eyes were red, but she wasn't crying. Her mouth looked odd – her lips were kid of puffy, as if she'd been kissed really hard. Usually, kissing would make Lucy smiley and giggly, but it hadn't been that way with Kevin. Not for a while now.

As Ruthie watched from her bed, Lucy sat in front of the mirror and slowly unbuttoned her shirt. It was when she pulled it off that Ruthie saw them – four perfect fingerprint marks on the backs of  Lucy's upper arms. Bruises. Ruthie glanced into the mirror and saw the purple thumbprints standing out clearly on the front of her sister's arms. It was like someone had grabbed her and held her tightly by the arms, preventing her from getting away.

Lucy stared at the reflection of the bruises in the mirror. Gingerly she lifted her right hand and touched the marks on her left arm. She winced. A tear spilled out of one eye and ran down her cheek. Sighing heavily, she got up, went to the closet, and rummaged through a storage box in the back until she pulled out her flannel winter pajamas – the ones with long sleeves.

Ruthie turned away as her sister climbed into the bed next to her own. She wouldn't be able to relax now. As she waited for Lucy to cry herself to sleep, she thought about Kevin, the handsome police officer who had come into her older sister's life just as she was despairing of ever finding someone to love her. He seemed perfect, and their parents adored him – so much that they had let him move into the garage apartment so he could be "close to Lucy," as he put it.

Ruthie hated him. And she was determined to get rid of him for good.