Hey everyone, this is my first fic and my first time posting on . I'd really appreciate you letting me know what you think of this, like I say it's my first one so be gentle please lol. Not really sure what else to write apart from, I hope you enjoy it.

Part One.

Battered. Bruised. Terrified.

They were just three of the many words that could have been used to describe the woman laid against expensive laminate flooring. The floor was cold and unforgiving against her skin, she wanted to move but was so scared that if she did he would do something else, she stayed where she was. Her knees were pulled impossibly close against her chest, her position against the floor was foetal like, almost as though she was trying to curl herself up so tightly and become so small that she would disappear altogether into another world where this wasn't her reality. Raven locks fell over her face, a face that was wet with silent tears that she had cried tears that were leaving trails down her cheeks as they fell. As he moved closer, she shuffled away a little, as much as she could in the position that she was in and it seemed to work. He stopped. She swallowed hard and tried to stop herself from violently shaking, though found it impossible.

"you made me do it..."

Those words made her head spin, how could he say that? Was it her fault? Maybe it was. It wasn't like she hadn't done anything before it had happened, quite the opposite in fact, well, at least confessed to as much. Maybe that was her punishment for what she had done. The questions, the maybe's and the what if's seemed never-ending in her mind, there were so many things going around in her head she thought it was going to explode, she could feel and hear her heartbeat ringing in her ears and just as she was about to spiral off into her mind, a noise pulled her back into the room. A door slam. Scrambling up onto her knees as quick as was possible, she reached the door and put both the lock and the chain on as to prevent him getting back into the house that night.

Her husband. She was locking her own husband out of the house while she tried to get herself together enough to decide what she should do after his actions. The attack. Rape. The thought of that word alone made her feel nauseous and she had to take a deep breath to prevent herself from being sick then and there. Shuffling back a little she moved so that her back was against the wall which was the only thing at that moment in time keeping her upright as she reached out for her bag. Carla Connor. Ruined? She shook her head a little and concentrated one something else to prevent her thoughts from taking over. The brunette pulled the bag closer and lifted her phone out of it with one hand, while pulling her skirt over her legs as far as it would go without causing the material to rip, with the other. Carla scrolled down in her phone for someone to call, and as much as she hated asking people for help and allowing them to think that she couldn't cope, in the situation it was the last thing that she was thinking about.

Michelle. She was the one person that had been by her side throughout the majority of things that had happened in her life, though they weren't officially family anymore, it didn't change the way they thought or acted around each other. As she scrolled down to her sister-in-law's name, something that was made increasingly hard due to how much she was shaking, Carla let out a sob when she remembered she was on holiday. It was almost as though the thoughts had taken a moment to process in her mind, waited until she had hoped that the person she wanted to help her just might be able to, only for them to be dashed once again.

There was only one more person and Carla wasn't sure if her name came up on their phone whether they would even answer it or not. She had no choice but to try. After pressing the call button on her phone, Carla raised it to her ear as it rang and hoped that the person at the other end would answer her, and just as she was about to hang up she heard a familiar voice, albeit from someone who she'd not always got on with.

"Hello?"
"M...Maria.. It's me... C...Carla..." she stammered, her voice shaky to say the least.
"Oh, what do you want? Why are you calling me at this time anyway, it's half eleven, you could have woke Liam."
"Could you come round.. Please?"
Maria frowned, she had thought about questioning her again but the tone in Carla's voice told her that something wasn't right and she knew her well enough to know that unless she really needed to she wouldn't have called her. "I'll be right over." and with that she hung up the phone before going in to let her brother know that he needed to wait up for her to get back in case her young son woke up.

Carla placed her phone on the floor beside her when Maria hung up and was grateful that she had agreed to come and help her although she didn't know what it was that was wrong. As she waited Carla wrapped both arms around her knees and sat quietly in the large house, a house that she wanted or even needed to get out of as soon as she could. Each voice, car horn, and noise made her heart race and her breath come in short, sharp gasps. What if he was coming back? What if he came back and found out that she'd called someone? Carla moved her hand to the back of her neck and usually she would have tried to ration with herself that she had locked the door and that he couldn't get in, but her mind was all over the place and it just wasn't something she was capable of doing to help herself. She wasn't sure she could do anything to help herself after this.

"Mama?"

Carla's head lifted sharply as she heard the whisper, raising her head to find him standing in his Lightening McQueen pyjama's, his blonde curls an untidy mess and his favourite Teddy in his right hand. As the little boy made his way closer his feet made a padding sound against the floor and as he reached Carla he spoke again.

"Monsters..."

Carla sighed, he was going through a phase of being convinced there were monsters in his room and was having difficulty spending the whole night in there as a result, and where Carla could reassure him that there was no such thing in his room, the rest of the house she knew telling him such a thing would be a lie. "No baby..." she whispered, moving him into her lap as she cradled him, hoping that he would go back over before Maria arrived. It wasn't long before he did just that, running her hand over his back gently in a soothing manner seemed to have done the trick and once she was sure that he was sound enough she could move him without him waking, Carla stood on legs that felt like jelly and moved over to lay him on the sofa, covering him with a blanket as she went to find his dummy.