Esha Napoleon: Thank you! NeroAnne: It's definitely not okay at all. And what makes it worse is that its her strength COMBINED with James's so she can literally hit twice as hard as she used to. Anyone that gets now is going to be lucky to still have a face. EternalxInsanity: Spousal abuse was bad enough. Child abuse though is just taking it beyond the level this needs to go to. She's literally just destroying everything she can and James is completely helpless to stop it.

…

"JULIE!" Connor yelped the moment she came in the door and she screamed. She didn't mean to, but the unconscious six-year-old sitting there cradled in a whimpering Connor's arms made her have a near heart attack.

"Amber? Connor?" she gasped all in one breath, kneeling in front of them in horror not even thinking about moving them she was so frightened. The concussion freaked her out immediately, so she pulled the little girl into her lap and slapped her face several times, but the baby didn't stir. "Oh god, who did this to you? Who hurt you guys?"

"You mean Cooper didn't tell you?" Scarlett asked fro behind her while hugging her twin sister and Oxa, making Julie yelp and stumble backwards at Thorn and Oxa's faces. "Daddy's drunk."

"You" she gasped and pulled the twins close, looking around for Tryg, who appeared moments later with Snoopy, "you kids…" she shook her head with a gasp, not even knowing what to say when there was a loud bang coming from upstairs and she cringed, "Where's the baby?"

"I hid her, Miss Rosenberg" Tryg nodded while reaching for her hand, "I don't want Mommy to be sad and see her"

"Where is your mother?" she frowned, glancing about worriedly when Thorn shook her head.

"Mommy's very sick. Daddy says we can't see her."

"I don't want to know…" Julie decided right there while reaching out to touch Oxa, who suddenly became hand-shy from her and hid behind Thorn, "What happened to you?" She asked the highly intelligent animal gently, "I won't hurt you…" she tried reaching out for the cat again and frowned, "What happened, honey?" Oxa rubbed against Thorn's head (she was taller than Thorn and Scarlett) and didn't move.

"Daddy kicked her and hurt her" Thorn trembled while reaching to pet Oxa, "She was protecting Chelsea."

"What a good girl…" Julie tried to psychologically coo the frightened animal so it wouldn't see her as a threat and come after her, "We'll take good care of you when you come to my house"

"She's not coming…" Thorn shook her head, confusing all her siblings as Tryg kissed Snoopy and put him on his leash while waiting by the door of the basement where Elizabeth still waited, crying her eyes out for her parents to come.

"Why not?" Scarlett frowned and shook her head, Connor trying to stay awake while rubbing his head from pain. "She has to-"

"She has to protect Mommy" Thorn said flatly while petting the Serval's cut face, "Mommy needs her more than me."

"We're coming back for Mommy, remember?" Scarlett reminded her, "Cooper said-"

"I don't want Mommy to be alone, okay?" Thorn snapped while petting Oxa's head and kissing her big black nose, "Oxa wants to stay with Mommy, don't you?" Oxa nuzzled under Thorn and Scarlett's chins before slinking towards the bottom of the stairs and just waiting.

"Sometimes I wish animals could talk…" Julie stood and took Tryg's hand so he could lead her to the basement, but paused and looked to the other kids, "I want you all to go out in the car and wait, alright?"

"Yes Julie" the twins held Amber while Connor wobbled to his feet and then Connor lifted her; Julie simply wanting to die at the waterfall of blonde hair flowing from Amber's limp body as her older brother carried her out.

"Snoopy, stop" Tryg pet the beagle's face at the bottom of the stairs and pointed to Elizabeth crying in her carrier, "Mommy and Daddy won't be happy."

"Mommy and Daddy…" her eyes drifted to the floor above them and she shook her head in disgust, "they have their own issues to work out."

"I want to stay with Mommy" Tryg sniffled when Julie frowned and bent to hug him for a second before standing once more. It wasn't safe for them to be in that house. It wasn't safe for Oxa to be in that house. She had no idea what was going on, but Cooper had better be ready to explain it or she'd have to find out for herself whether she wanted to or not.

"You can't" she told him calmly before going up the stairs with the two remaining kids and out the front door, "Not until its safe"

"Mommy is sick; its not safe for Mommy-"

"Ohhh baby…" she groaned while buckling Elizabeth's carrier-turned-carseat in and double-buckling the twins. Tryg sat by himself while Connor sat up front with Amber draped over him breathing slowly.

…

Watching a doctor place a sling over Chelsea's shoulder to hold it in place, already Cooper was panicking and shaking his head.

"No no no no no no you can't do that" he shook his head and ran a hand through Chelsea's curly blonde hair before making nervous eye contact with the doctor, "She's Autistic she'll wriggle right out of it. She can't sit still she won't let that sit on her."

"She's going to have to be monitored then for the next four-to-six weeks until its fully healed and regains normal function" looking at Cooper he seemed perfectly fit to be her parent, "I would take your daughter to an orthopedic though just to get everything checked out and make sure nothing else was harmed during her fall."

"Alright, I will thank you" Cooper nodded while hugging the spaced-out Chelsea close. She was on all sorts of painkillers already to dull the pain and he would have to break them into her apple juice or she'd spit them right back in his face.

He couldn't tell them that Chelsea wasn't his kid or that would cause huge problems for Mindy and James. They shared a last name and of course her records weren't at that hospital, they were in Los Angeles where she was born. Thankfully he remembered his father's health insurance card since they all were under his name, even Mindy now. Before Mindy and her kids were on Glen's health insurance plan but once he gained custody of them all everything switched to what James had.

"Do you have a primary orthopedic, Mr. Lawson?" the doctor asked Cooper on his way out the door, and thankfully they actually did so he threw the name out at him so he'd leave him alone.

"Dr. Meyers in Los Angeles" he nodded quickly.

"Is that where you're from?"

"Yeah" he lied, "Well, her mother at least." The doctor didn't ask about the mother since Cooper wasn't wearing a wedding band. Only once Cooper walked out the door did the doctor realize why that last name was so familiar…Mindy Stratus had changed her name to Lawson almost a year ago. Chelsea Ray was her daughter. Though knowing what he'd read about Mindy in the tabloids, that man easily could be the baby's father. He followed her everywhere anyway.

…

The moment James had passed out from the amount of alcohol he'd ingested, Mindy kissed him on the lips lovingly before taking a quick shower and trying to ignore the wounds all over her body and inside her as the steaming water hit her skin. She couldn't though; she hugged herself and wept. One hand clamped to her mouth to muffle her, while her mass of hip-length raven hair was tossed behind her against the wall so she could sink to the floor and cry in disbelief at everything that had been recently happening and how it was entirely her fault.

What kind of wife was she to allow such a thing to happen to her husband? Caroline had scared the life out of him and was now festering in his brain and there was nothing she could do about it. How horrible he must have been feeling coursed through her veins and she wanted with everything in her to make it stop, but she couldn't. She wasn't a miracle worker; she was a no one. She'd begun to dig a bit into what was killed by her parents and the kids at school when she was a child, but as a result this happened. He hated her for it too.

He was suffering now because she'd made him that way, and he was making her pay as she should. Without her constant encouragement he wouldn't have gone back there and he wouldn't have tried to stand up against something he was too weak to stop. If she was really thinking about his best interests she never would have made him do it. Mark or Annabelle wouldn't have made him do it, but she did. Who the hell did she think she was to do it? She deserved him to hate her.

He had to want them back now, that's why he was being mean to her kids. He wanted her to go away, he wanted to scare her away and she was the only stupid idiot who didn't want to leave. Amber would have no problem going away, it was only her. And then the question of Elizabeth fell into play; though he probably didn't want her either because she didn't come from Annabelle. She came from his retarded wife that he was forced to marry because she couldn't take no for an answer from him.

All this time she was so stupid not to read between the lines and get her schizophrenic head out of the clouds about him; James didn't love her. He never loved her, he was just trying to be nice and it turned into him being locked with her. If she went away forever and got out of his life maybe he'd go back to normal and be happy. That was all she wanted, for him to be happy, but obviously she wasn't the answer to whatever he was looking for. She didn't want to fucking share him with anyone though; she tried that shit and look how it all worked out for her. Selfish, sure, but two relationships at once; she couldn't deal. Yes, she loved him deeply, but she was monogamous. Marriage means you only want to be with that person, and obviously that wasn't what he wanted.

He still used Mark's knife; that meant he wanted Mark back. He wanted Mark and he wanted her to go away, but she wouldn't so her kids suffered for it. If she were to leave she'd have to take Elizabeth too since he didn't want her, at least, he didn't want her with HER. He told her in the beginning he wanted a girl with his Annabelle and then she died. Never once did he imply that he wanted to follow through with her, she did that all by herself.

She couldn't leave him though; she loved him so much it made her break down crying in the shower resting her head between her knees. What if he hurt himself or somebody didn't like the way he was behaving and hurt him? Sure, it was all her fault but she wanted to make it better so he could be happy. Maybe if she died he'd be happy again, but that meant he was in charge of her children and she couldn't have that since he didn't love them.

She didn't know what to do. She was damned if she left because of the fear of something happening to him, yet if she stayed he would only get worse because he was unhappy. Maybe if Mark came back he would be happy again. He could divorce her and go back to him and be a happy second-fiddle to Michelle forever. Hell, that beat Mindy being up his ass all day. Perhaps she would stay until somebody he actually loved came back, and then she would go away. As long as she saw him happy that was all that mattered, though hell, it killed her a thousand torturous deaths that she wasn't what he wanted. Though, real life had to pour down on her at some point. She was synthetic, she was crazy, and she couldn't hold a candle to the people that really mattered to him. No one looked at her growing up and went, 'beautiful' or 'friendly'…they said 'ugly' and 'freak'. Plastic surgery was supposed to fix everything, but then everyone said she was a living Barbie doll. What the fuck did they want from her? Even as a celebrity people couldn't stand her half the time. She never won.

Come to think of it, the only time no one was cruel to her outside the psychiatrists and nurses were her days at Borehamwood when she was in her early teens. Sure, she lived in constant schizophrenic episodes and tried to kill herself every day until they padded her tongue, but beyond that she bothered no one.

She couldn't live without James, but obviously James would do just fine without her once she set him back with the people he loved. Cooper and Connor could come home, and she'd make the rest of the kids stay with Julie until she came and scooped them up for good. She'd probably bring them to Bearer's since he seemed to want them so badly and then she could finally off herself and let everybody carry on with their lives. It was a good plan, it was an excellent plan, and everybody would be happy in the end she was sure. She just needed to find a way to follow through with it.