Alicia held onto Dani as the young girl recounted event after horrible event of abuse and pure disgusting acts. The doctor that had her first, would keep her in the hospital where he worked in Chicago, in a cage covered with blankets. Or how her clients would pump drugs into her to make her compliant and silent, and some wouldn't, finding pleasure in her pain.
All the pain she was pouring out like a dam breaking, the memories were destroying her slowly and no one knew, not even Alicia. Not until now.
Alicia felt herself shake with anger at the thought of someone hurting Dani. Her Dani, that she cared for as her family.
Never will this happen again. Never ever.
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Dani had fallen asleep after revealing her deepest, darkest secrets and felt….lifted. Like everything plaguing her wasn't so bad now that she had someone to help her.
But she felt horrible that she just passed that weight to Alicia, her protector, her best friend.
Her parent.
She woke up at that thought. "Alicia?" She knew the woman was awake, she seemed stiff, like when Dani had told her about all the bad that happened to her. "Are you okay?"
"No, someone hurt you, and that's not okay." She hugged the young girl tighter to her in the morning light.
The older woman hadn't slept at all the previous night, horrified that someone could do such things to a child.
And it started when she was five.
She bit back tears as the girl slept peacefully on her chest, how could she live with those horrors? Breathe with the thoughts, memories, constantly in her head?
"Alicia, I love you, as a mom. My real mom died and I never knew her well, but I bet mom's are like you." It made Alicia started crying as she hugged this tiny, broken child to her.
"I'm so glad, because now I have a family, for the first time in a long time, I have a little one to call my own. If you are okay with that?" She pulled back and looked at Dani, tears streaking down her cheeks as the older woman wiped them away.
"Yeah, I want to be a part of your family, please." Sniffling they started laughing.
"Well, aren't we a pair." She laughed, both women were scarred horribly in one way or another. And they spoke about these, though they would never understand the true horror, they were there for one another and that meant the world to them.
They rose from the bed and dressed, it was Alicia's days off, but she was going to see Nathaniel and Elizabeth.
Walking Dani to the Shannon house for her tutoring, she collected Elizabeth who was also on her day off, and subsequently Jim came along.
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"OUT," Alicia ordered the moment she stepped through and as the men shuffled out, Nathaniel was fuming at her.
"Wash what-"
"NO." She demanded, "I need you to listen." She locked the door when the Shannon's came in and told them about Dani and her past.
Elizabeth covered her mouth with her hands as tears streaked down her cheeks, the men stone cold silent and pale.
"I need to know how to care for her, and how to help fix her." She looked to Elizabeth who was taking deep breaths, before she turned and buried her face in her husband's chest.
"It was him all along." She cried and Alicia's just stared at them in confusion. "I always walked into his office and he said it was his sick dog." She outright sobbed.
"You were around her then?" Everyone in the room was disgusted by the low's of humans.
"Wash, I want you to keep her close, you two are good for each other." Nathaniel stood up and pulled her to him, hugging tightly as she silently cried into him.
"How could people do those…horrible acts to an innocent girl. Who begged them not to…How?" She swallowed hard. "I want the papers."
"You'll have to be more specific."
"I want the adoption papers."
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Dani sat next to Maddy and Zoe as they went over English lessons. "And this is the difference between an adjective and a verb."
She nodded and looked over the new homework before a knock tore Maddy away.
"Dani, someone's here for you." She was followed by an older man.
Dani was pressed against the wall trying to get away from him. "D-D-Daddy, no." He grabbed her arm and he fist connected with her eye.
She heard the girls scream as a kick connected with his daughter's ribs. It hurt so bad.
"I sold you to Bartin, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GO TO HIM!" She tried to crawl away as he stalked up on her. "I've sacrificed for you. I have done everything for you."
"All you did was hurt me. Please just leave me alone." She begged before he slammed her around a little more.
"You are my daughter, MINE! You little bitch," He brought his fist down on her again and again as she tried to hold on to consciousness.
"DADDY! NO!"
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Alicia was on her way back to talk to Dani, with the Shannons in tow when they heard screaming form the house.
Running in, Alicia found a man punching her hopefully future daughter, as she screamed 'Daddy no.' Dragging him off, she threw him to the floor and let Jim cuff him, while she and Elizabeth attended Dani.
The girl took Alicia's hand and smiled, her words slurred and soft. "I knew you'd come. I knew you'd save me."
The little olive toned girl sighed and went limp in her arms, passed out…or dead. Alicia called desperately for Dani to wake up, so scared that she lost her forever.
Please review. Almost thirty dollars.:D
