Author's Note:
Thank you all so much for your kind words and your support. I was getting all misty-eyed while I was reading your reviews. (I got a lot of funny looks from people in class, but it was totally worth it.) :)
Enjoy, and please keep reviewing!
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Callie:
By the time the movie is over my eyes are drooping and I can barely keep my head up. My head is starting to pound again. I press the morphine button, but even as the warmth starts spreading through me, I'm already falling asleep.
The morphine mixes with the cartoons from the movie, and all of a sudden I'm caught in an endless kaleidoscope of spinning colors. They're too loud, too bright, like a carnival gone wrong. I'm wishing for darkness, that they'd go away so I could sleep, but then I remember what lives in the darkness, and the colors change until they have faces, monstrous faces surrounding me as I lie on a floor in the dark.
Something hard hits me in the face and I wake up. It's my cast. I was holding it up in my sleep, to protect myself from the monsters. I must have hit myself with it.
I barely feel like I slept at all, but the lights are out now, and no more sunlight is coming through the window. I turn my head to look for Jude, but he isn't here. I'm scared until I hear Stef's voice.
"Hey, are you all right?" She takes my arm, which I'm still holding up in front of my face, and eases it back down to the bed.
"Nightmares?"
I shrug my left shoulder.
"Hmm. Well, we could watch a movie. Play cards. Throw a football around."
I raise an eyebrow at her and she grins.
"Just had to see if your sense of humor was still intact. It appears to be functioning beautifully."
She lifts my head slightly and fluffs up my pillow. I realize she's not wearing her uniform anymore.
"Did Jude go home?" I ask her.
"Kicking and screaming all the way," she jokes.
"That's good. He's too young to live at a hospital."
Now it's Stef's turn to raise an eyebrow.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm young too," I finish for her. The corner of her mouth twitches.
"The doctor came in last night. He says he's going to have you up and moving around tomorrow."
"Him and what army?" I ask her, gesturing as best as I can to the various pieces of plaster weighing me down.
She laughs.
I love this about Stef. She can jump headfirst into the most awful situations and just make you feel like everything is going to be okay.
"Stef?"
"Yes, love?"
"Has anybody tried to talk to you—I mean, they haven't asked me—no one's asked what happened."
She smiles at me, but it's a different smile now. Forced.
"We've been holding them off for a couple days until you felt better. I imagine they'll probably come tomorrow. Do you think you're ready?"
I don't know what to say. Of course I'm not ready. Am I? Does it even matter?
"I don't have a choice, right?" I ask her.
Her lips gets smaller, as though she's angry.
"Not much of one, no. I'm sorry."
I twitch my mouth to the side, and we both sort of accept that. At least she's honest.
"Will you be here?"
Stef gets a faraway look on her face, and I'm instantly worried.
"What? What is it?"
"Don't worry about it. You just tell the officers the truth. I might not be able to sit in for it, but if I'm not here, Lena will be."
"Why can't you be?" I try to keep from sounding too whiny, but I'm starting to panic. I love Lena, but Stef's been here through all the hardest stuff so far. When I woke up; when the doctor had to check my stitches. She makes me feel safe.
"Callie, I was the one who found you."
I try to let that sink in. I try to figure out what I'm feeling, what I'm thinking. But I don't know what to feel or think. Or say. A thousand things run through my mind all at the same time.
"What—where was I?"
"You were in the basement of a house."
"Whose house?"
It's a stupid question, but I still need to hear the answer.
"It belongs to the Olmsteads."
The name twists my stomach, but I will not throw up. I will not cry. There has been far too much of that already.
"Oh," I say. Because I have to say something. A thought occurs to me, and it's so terrible and so humiliating that I wince. I know I was unconscious when she found me because I don't remember her coming in. But I don't know where Liam was or what he was doing.
"What was he—was he—did you see…anything?" I don't know how to ask the question, but I think she knows what I'm trying to ask.
"He was already gone when I came in the house. You were alone. You had a blanket over you." Her smile is still forced, and I know there's something she's not telling me. I can't imagine what I looked like, but I know what I felt. The blood, the vomit. The pain. My twisted arm. I imagine opening the door and seeing another member of my family like that. It's not something anyone should have to see.
"I'm sorry," I tell her.
"It's my job, Callie. As a cop and a mother."
She can't understand it, but every time she and Lena say something like that, I just feel worse. I broke their trust. I don't deserve the kindness they're showing me right now.
I remember Brandon looking through the hospital door at me today. I've been hiding from him, for as long as I can. From the others too, but mostly from Brandon. I don't know what to say to him. What if he's angry at me? Or worse, what if he feels guilty and I have to comfort him and tell him it's not his fault? I'm not sure how much comfort I have left in me for someone else. Jude. Stef. Maybe Lena. But Brandon? I'm not sure I could do it. And if I agree to see everyone but him, Stef and Lena would get suspicious. If I don't want to get kicked out, I have to see him eventually. And I don't know if I'll ever be able to look at him again without thinking of everything that's happened.
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Jude:
Callie's lying in the hospital bed, blood oozing out of the cuts on her forehead. New bruises keep forming on her face, like someone invisible is hitting her. I try to go help her but the faster I run to her the farther the bed slips away, so I turn around to get help but there's a face in the window of the door. It's Liam, and he's laughing at me as he presses a remote control, making Callie scream. Then his face changes and it's Brandon, Brandon is holding the remote, and Callie's screaming gets louder…
"Jude?"
I sit up in bed, sweat pouring down my face. Jesus is sitting at his desk, staring at me.
"Hey, are you okay?"
"Yeah," I lie. Jesus gives me a weird look, like he doesn't believe me.
"Want me to get Lena?"
"No. I'm fine." I lie back down, hoping he'll ignore me, and after a minute he puts on his head phones and turns back to his computer.
I quietly fold back the covers and tiptoe down the stairs. I'm so thirsty I feel like someone stuck me in the desert for a week. I go into the kitchen to get a glass of water, but stop short in the doorway. Brandon is sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a biscuit he's holding in his hand. I try to back out before he sees me, but he looks up.
"Oh. Hi," he says, putting the biscuit down.
My dream flashes back in front of my eyes, my sister screaming while Brandon tortured her with the remote in his hands. Her real scream in the hospital when she saw his face at her door.
"Stay away from her."
Brandon looks surprised, but he doesn't say anything. He just stares down at the biscuit on his plate.
I know I should leave, but I stand still, wanting to say so much more to him. This stupid boy ruined everything for us. Callie will never be okay again. She's going to be scared for the rest of her life.
"You leave her alone," I tell him, my voice sharp, "she's scared of you." He still doesn't say anything, and his silence makes me so mad I feel myself going red.
"I'll kill you if you try to kiss her again!" I burst out. The words are out of my mouth before I know what I'm saying, but I don't want to take them back.
I grab an empty glass and leave the kitchen, ignoring the hurt look on Brandon's face. I go upstairs and fill it at the bathroom sink, but instead of drinking it I turn the water on in the bathtub and sit down and cry.
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Liam:
I don't think there's anything I hate more than doing laundry. I still make my mother do it when I'm home, and now I have to spend hours washing sweaty jumpsuits for a couple thousand prisoners. When it's nearly time for lights out, the guards lead us back to the main population. I sit down on a metal bench, irritated at the fabric scratching my legs. The orange jumpsuit chafes. I pull out the elastic waistband, letting the air cool the itchy red mark the cloth has left against my skin.
A strong hand grabs my shoulder and I turn around. There's an enormous black guy towering over me. I'm 6'2 and no slouch, but he must be 6'8 and he looks like he does nothing but lift weights all day.
"So this is the perv," he says in a thunderous voice. My back begins to sweat.
"You've got the wrong guy," I tell him.
"That's not what we heard. We heard you raped a little girl. How old was she? Twelve? Thirteen?"
"I didn't rape anybody. I had sex with my sixteen-year-old girlfriend and her parents sent me to jail. They're old-school."
My underarms are sweating now. I try to look as young and honest as I can. I don't think this guy will be impressed by toughness. I glance around for the guards, but they're intentionally looking away. Someone must have spread this information around.
The guy grabs my other shoulder and jerks me off the bench. Two of his friends lunge forward and grab my arms, and the black guy punches me straight in the nose. I feel lightning in my cartilage as my nose breaks, sending two rivers of blood over my mouth. The guy keeps going, hitting me in the stomach, forcing me to my knees, until the guards come over and pull him off. My eyes are tearing from my broken nose, but I can still see the guards' faces. They look bored.
Two of them help me up and guide me to the infirmary. I flinch as a doctor begins to pack my nose, but when I catch sight of myself in a window I start laughing in my head. I wish I could send those guys a "Thank You" card.
My bail hearing is tomorrow.
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