AN: Won't be posting again for a week or so so tonight you're getting 3 chapters as an apology. Real lift shit has me down at the moment and I don't have the inspiration to write.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Warning: Contains reference to physical abuse

Donna is looking at me, waiting for me to speak again and I realise that I've been quiet for almost 5 minutes. Shaking my head I take a deep breath.

"He came around to the apartment 3 weeks later and told me he was sorry he'd reacted like that. That he loved me and only wanted me to not work so that I'd be there when he went to work, and there when he got home. I forgave him, far too easily I know, but I thought I loved him. We tried longer periods at the others apartment, but he didn't like that I lived with Cam in an apartment that she owned, and I still didn't like his place full stop. He'd only last 3 nights at my place, and I'd only barely manage 2 at his."

"He agreed to start looking for a new apartment, somewhere in the mid-field between his work and mine that we would both move to but for 4 months he would take me to look at these tiny little shit hole apartments, or ones that were far too far away for it to be practical for me to keep my job. I realised that he was doing it on purpose so I started looking to. In 2 months I found 4 apartments that were right in the middle ground, about 45 minutes for each of us travelling, but he found something wrong with all of them...we didn't need 2 bedrooms. We couldn't afford it. He didn't like the balcony space. That was the second time I broke up with him, and it should have been the last."

I sigh; this was where it got really messy. "He came back and made some grand apology and I accepted it. I don't know why, I'm sure that Al and Cam were both ready to lock me up and throw away the key. I was sure that he would change. The last 3 months of our relationship were awful, he would show up at my work at all hours, demand that I leave with him that second, that he had something life or death to show me, it would end up being his friends being idiots. He started proposing every single weekend even though I had told him right from the beginning that I was never getting married. He lost his job because of all the time he spent following me and hanging around my work. He acted normal for about a month and I thought we might be getting somewhere; he invited me to go to Maine for a week to relax and reconnect. I don't know to this day why I agreed, so we left my apartment on the 15th of July intending to be back on the 23rd so I could go back to work on the 25th, we had a massive dinner party booked for the 26th and we were all going to be frantically busy."

I finish my coffee, stand up and pour about 2/3s of a cup of vodka into the coffee cup. Carrying it to back to the I sit back across from Donna and hold out my arm, both so I can grasp her hand, and also so if she wants to she can see what I'm about to tell her about. "We got to Maine and I found out the place he said he'd booked us at was a lie. We ended up in some dump that looked like it should have been a garage. The first night he got me so drunk that I passed out." I stop talking for a second; I can feel the tears welling in my eyes. "When I woke up he was standing over me just staring at my arms, comparing the tattooed one to the bare one. He eventually noticed I was awake and started grinning. He told me that he obviously couldn't cut the ink from my skin; I would bleed to death, so he was going to write his name on my other arm. I wasn't worried, well I was. I had tried to move and couldn't. He'd tied me feet and ankles to the bedposts."

This part is the hardest for me, Craig was locked up briefly afterwards, but somehow 7 months after the events he'd been back in New York and ringing me constantly, despite the restraining order. That was when I came home. I take a few big mouthfuls of vodka, pass the cup to Donna and start talking again. "He passed me the shitty rum he'd brought, he never listened that I didn't like it and it made me sick, he told me it would be better if I drank some. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about, he looked at me, with this vacant look and said 'well if you're sure' and put the rum down. Then he started to 'write' his name. But he wasn't using a pen. He used a paring knife. One of mine we later found out. He wrote his name in block capital letters and peeled the skin off from the centre of the letters."

Donna looks down at my arm, running from my shoulder to my wrist in uneven lettering is CRAIG Donna looks like she's about to be sick but manages to hold it in. She knocks back the vodka and looks at me; I guess she knows me well enough to know I'm not quiet done.

"I was tied to the bed there for a month. He would come every day from whatever he was doing in the shit hole we were stuck in, he would pick off any scabs that had formed and pour salt water and lemon juice over them. He insisted they would 'look better' that way."

"I thought I was going to die, I really did. At one stage I gave up completely and just begged him to kill me. I guess that was when he thought he'd broken me. He let me up one day not long after that; I couldn't walk at all so I wasn't going anywhere. I realised that no one knew where I was, I never told Al or Cam where I was going, and I was sure that Craig hadn't told anyone either. I guess it took me another 2 weeks before he believed I wasn't going to leave and he untied me completely. I still had to wait though; I couldn't walk more than 20 steps without feeling faint. Finally, a full 2 months after we left New York I was strong enough to leave the shed he had me in. I found out that he'd been going and working on the fishing boats, but that the work was coming to an end and he'd decided we would have to go somewhere else."

"I waited an hour after he left before I moved a muscle. When I was sure he was gone I got up, and left. I walked for hours, well it felt like hours, but was really only about 5 minutes before I found a house, but I wasn't sure if Craig knew these people, so I kept going. I'd been walking through the outskirts of a town but I was terrified that Craig would know the people there so I kept going, after about another 20 minutes which felt like hours I saw the sign for York, well actually I saw the sign for York Hospital"

"According to the hospital notes I stumbled in the door at 1140am on September the 29th. I managed to get out my name and that I had been held captive before I collapsed. The doctors thought I was drunk or high, but checked me over anyway. They had me hooked up to IV's to rehydrate me within 25 minutes and I was conscious again within an hour. I told them as much as I could, I do remember asking them to call Al and Cam, but I couldn't remember the phone number. It turns out I didn't have to. They had filed a missing persons report on me 2 days after we left when they couldn't get any answer on my phone and the police found Craig's car burnt out in the middle of Vermont."

"They flew up in a helicopter that afternoon. They were both by my bedside by 4pm. I was treated as best they could there, but ended up back in New York. Craig was arrested and charged with kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, assault and a whole lot of other things. He was put in jail and I thought I could try and restart my life. I spent a month in hospital, 5 months in therapy, including daily sessions while I was in the hospital. Al designed the other sleeve and put in on me in 2 sessions, both over 8 hours, they were almost as helpful to me as the therapy was. Things were starting to look okay again, I had a job, granted I was working in a coffee shop and couldn't do any shifts where I was there when it was dark, Then they released him on bail, 7 months, 1 week and 5 days after I got to the hospital. With the restraining order I had in place he wasn't meant to come within 500 yards of me or contact me in any way. He rang twice on the first day he was out. 4 days after he got released after about the 100th call to the local police I left, he left a headless cat on my doorstep."

Doj has been pattering around, at a bit of a loose end while the kids have been sleeping, but the back door is open so he's been entertaining himself chasing bird around, he never catches them, but it's funny to watch, he's finally walked inside and curled on the floor beside me, his back pressed against the chair leg and his head resting on my foot.

"Cam found it. Then Al found the head, it had been nailed to her door. I left that afternoon."

I guess I've been so absorbed by talking to Donna that I haven't realised just how upset I've become. There are tears streaming down my face and my breathing is a little ragged. Doj stands up and heads down the hall just a few minutes before we hear one of the twins squawk that they are awake.

Donna stands up to check on the kids, but a few seconds later the chair creaks beside me and I'm overcome with the smell of leather, smoke and oil, and the distinct spicy smell of Jax.

He wraps an arm round my shoulder and pulls me to him, burying my head in his chest I finally let the emotions go that have been threatening to drown me since my re-arrival in Charming.