Third person POV
Jason gave a hesitant nod and he pulled the shoulder of her shirt down and stuck the needle into her upper arm. She almost immediately went limp in their arms, both Clay and Jason looked at Trent asking for permission to let go, he nodded and they loosened their grip and climbed off the bed. Trent stood up and readjusted her on the bed, to everybody's surprise Ray walked over and sat down setting her head in his lap. He looked like he did when he was taking care of Jameelah, it was clear he felt the same Jason did when he was around her, like they needed to protect her. Trent gave her the glucose shot and lifted up the hem of her shirt. He carefully unwrapped the bandages round her ribs and pressed down, he nodded to himself and wrote something down in his notebook. Then, with the help of Ray, he picked her up and re-wrapped her ribs. He took a deep breath and looked at Jason for confirmation on what he was about to do, they had a theory but they didn't want it to be true, he gave a hesitant nod and Trent went to work. He rolled up her sleeves and their worst fear was confirmed. She had bandages on her forearms, there was fresh blood peeking through. Trent sighed and took it off the bandages revealing new and old cuts, Clay spoke up,
"How long..?"
"The oldest look as far back as about 2 years, the newest no earlier than yesterday."
Sonny spoke, "So since she was put into the system."
"Yeah, about then I guess, it's probable with everything she went through she used it as a coping mechanism that helped her deal with her depression, PTSD, anxiety, and all of her negative emotions. With moving around so much I doubt anyone noticed what she was going through." Trent sighed and looked at them, "can someone grab a shirt, this ones sleeves are covered in blood."
Ray spoke, "There's a shirt hanging up in my cage, it's clean."
Sonny nodded and walked off to get it. Trent sighed and pulled his hand down his face. Brock who had been silent the whole time finally spoke up,
"What do we do now? We can't pretend like we know nothing and do nothing, but if we talk to her she's more likely to block us out because we broke her trust."
"We don't have a choice but to talk to her, quite frankly we need her on the team and we can help her through this by building trust and letting her talk to us when she needs to without passing judgement."
Everybody nodded in agreement. Trent and Ray worked together to get her shirt changed and the others got comfortable waiting for the sedation to wear off.
Clay's POV
I know a thing or two about difficult childhoods, I was abandoned by my father at the age of 2. I was put through the foster system for longer than her but still understand what she went through.
Flashback
I walked through the front door of the orphanage and was met with an overwhelming smell of disinfectant and cleaning products, like they were trying to bleach away something terrible that had happened, I sighed to myself, who am I kidding that was exactly what they were trying to do. I knew because I was the reason it smelt like this. I was late home yesterday and I paid the price.
The home had always been abusive, there was no way around that. But some kids had it alot worse than others. Like me for instance, I would go days on end without food because I was 'not worth it'. I was abused in every sense of the word, from verbal assaults to being physically injured, and there was no way to stop it.
I tried to sneak up the stairs to my 'room' but I was quickly yanked down by my hood, I gulped as i looked up at matron, she had clearly been drinking. Her beatings were always worse when she was drunk. She slammed her foot into my ribs and I cried out in pain, she stopped and a sickly smile covered her face. I knew I had done it right then, her one rule was that we took her beastings without complaint. Before I had time to react she grabbed my hoodie and pulled me up dragging me to her office. She roughly yanked off my hoodie and t-shirt and chained my wrists to the closet ceiling. She took off her belt and started to harshly hit my back over and over until I bled. Then she closed the door and I just hung limp, I couldn't move, my arms were starting to burn and my feet didn't touch the floor, I knew I was in for a long night.
Flashback over
I looked down at her, chest slowly rising and falling, Ray was running his fingers through her auburn hair and Trent was taking her vitals every 5 minutes looking for an indicator of when she would wake up, clearly tired of the silence Jason spoke,
"How long till she wakes up."
"I dont know." Trent replied.
"You dont know?!" He exclaimed shocked.
"No Jason I don't know, it could be anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours, paediatric medicine is a whole different ballgame that I'm not very experienced in. But even though I hate what she's going through and I would trade anything for it to stop and disappear, I'm glad it's happening here, so I can see how all these meds affect her body in a controlled environment and I'll know what to give her in the field if anything like this happens."
Ray spoke up quietly, "Hey guys I think she's waking up."
All of our attention turned to the figure on Jason's bunk.
CJ's POV
I woke up and my head was laying on something soft, I felt somebody's fingers running through my hair and I relaxed. Then all the memories came back hitting me like a freight train. I had freaked out in front of my new team, I felt my brathing quicken and I shot up. Everybody was looking at me and I looked down. I was wearing a different shirt and my bandages were exposed. Did they know? I gulped and looked down at the floor before somebody took my face in their hands and turned it too look at them. I kept my eyes trained on the floor because I couldn't face them right now,
"Sweetheart, look at me."
I took a shaky breath and looked up, it was Trent. His face was that of a concerned father and that made me nauseous.
"Why?"
I couldn't do this I shoved him back and he lost his balance, I jumped up and made a run for the door but I felt a pair of strong arms wrap around my waist and lift me up into the air. I started squirming in their grip,
"CJ," I gulped they used my full name, "we need too talk about this, but first we need you to calm down."
I nodded and he loosened his grip.