Major T/W for graphic depiction of abuse and homophobia
Chapter twelve
Six days.
It had been six days since Emma had been outside of the Chase house and it was finally getting to her. She found herself twitching whenever she heard a door open and close and she only left the study when it was absolutely necessary.
Victoria and Nathan had finally stopped trying to spend time with her against their parents will and she had to wonder what they could have said to her. Did they tell them what gay meant? The children surely wouldn't understand, which would mean that they would start to agree with their parents without even understanding what it was they were so vehemently against.
The blonde took in a shaky breath at the thought that she may have been helping to create two homophobes by not reporting what was happening, but she put that thought aside every time she saw the worsening condition of her nose whenever she built up the courage to look into the mirror when the pain was at its worst. August would be back in exactly eight days and then she would be able to call him and end this living hell. The risk that Nathan and Victoria would start to believe whatever their parents had told them was far outweighed by the risk of the pair of them getting placed into an equally as abusive home, but August would be able to fix everything, he wouldn't allow two children to get lost in the system and she knew that there was no one that she trusted more to protect them.
However, the thoughts of protecting them were currently not at the forefront of her mind as her stomach grumbled. She had been ordered to not leave this room because Mr and Mrs Chase were holding a get-together with their neighbours. From all of the cheering, she guessed that there was some kind of game on. This wouldn't be a problem if she hadn't gotten the chance to eat the day before either. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that she could take whatever she wanted out of the cupboards so long as she didn't do so when there was anyone else around to witness it and that she didn't take too much (which meant that stocking up for the weekend hadn't really been an option). Since this whole arrangement of her sleeping in the study had started, she had noticed that she had began to significantly lose weight, but at least she had enough to keep herself alive. In that moment though, she didn't feel as though she was going to last long enough to call August when he finally got back to New York.
Emma took another shaky breath as she placed her hand over her stomach which seemed to instantly rumble at the contact. She was fairly certain that she was beginning to understand what people meant when they said that people who believed they were starving after a few hours without food were being hyperbolic. She had certainly been hungry before, but this was seriously starting to become painful, especially when she could tell from the odours drifting through the air that there was probably some kind of buffet set out for the Chase's guests.
The teen swallowed hard and allowed her eyes to drift over to the door as she considered whether this would be a good idea. After a moment, she decided that there was no way that this would ever be anything but completely moronic, but that she had to at least try. If they were in fact watching a football game, then they would probably be close enough to the end of the game by now that no one would be willing to peel themselves away from the action.
She could easily make it to the kitchen and just grab something to eat and some water without anyone in the living room seeing her. She was fairly certain that the Chases must have told their friends that she was out somewhere with friends or something since there must have been at least some suspicion as to why no one had seen her in the last week. She was used to saying 'hello' to the neighbours as she walked towards school so there was no doubt that her foster parents would have got one or two enquiries as to her wellbeing. Since it had only been a week, it was probably believable enough to just say that she had the flu or something, but seeing her would break any illusions of that being true.
After another moment of consideration, she decided that she didn't really have a choice at this point. She needed food and this would be the best time since she would make too much noise if she tried to sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night (and she had a bruise on her stomach to prove as much).
Slowly, as if she was waiting for something to stop her, she made her way over to the door which she slowly pushed open to confirm her suspicions that they were indeed nearing the end of the game, judging by the booming cheering that she could hear coming from the living room.
The blonde looked both ways in the corridor, before she cautiously made her way down the hallway, though she found herself cringing as she walked.
Even though she hadn't actually done anything to garner attention from Mr Chase since that night a few days ago when he had caught her in the kitchen, she found that the man had taken to just randomly coming into the study just to vent some anger. It appeared as though she was now officially his punching bag who he could wail on whenever he had a bad day or the fact that he was allowing someone so 'disgusting' to live in in his home became too much for him to handle.
Emma stopped halfway down the hallway and closed her eyes when she felt a sudden wave of dizziness. She fell against the wall as she took a moment to get herself together. When she finally opened her eyes, she swallowed hard and pulled up her shirt. Her entire body was now littered in bruises, but she was fairly certain that at one or two of her ribs had snapped when the heavy duty boot had collided with them.
Nothing on her body seemed to be healing and she was genuinely afraid that some of the wounds might never heal if she didn't get to a hospital soon. However, she decided that right now, food and water had to be her number one priority and she started making her way towards the kitchen with a distinct limp as she went and a lot of nausea. As she walked, she started to think how it was complete bullshit when people said that your body wouldn't allow you to feel too much pain, she felt like every inch of her body was in agony. Like it couldn't decide which part hurt the most.
She held her hand against the wall as she made her way further down the hallway and she paused just outside of the open living room door. The sound that she had heard from the study was now almost deafening and it comprised of a lot shouting of 'come on'.
Emma took a couple of deep breaths; she knew that there was no way that Mr Chase would look too kindly upon his friends seeing his foster daughter hobbling across the doorway. For a brief second, the teen's stomach dropped when she realised that there was a chance that the Chase's friends thought exactly the same way as they did. What if they just started joining in? However, the blonde just put this thought aside when she realised that not everybody was like them, in fact, statistically it was very unlikely that people so willing to hurt another person would live next to each other. Though, the past couple of weeks had almost made her forget that there weren't people who would feel sick at the thought of laying their hands on another person.
Another shout of excitement brought her out of her moment of indecision and she finally walked as quickly as she could across the opening. When she made it to the other side, she doubled over and clutched her side as she took ragged breaths. She hadn't moved that quickly in a long time and she was beginning to wonder whether food could be worth this amount of pain, but she quickly decided that it would at least help to ease the cramps even if it would do nothing for the rest of the agony coursing through her veins at almost every hour of the day.
Half a minute later, she hobbled into the kitchen and she couldn't stop herself from licking her lips at the sight of what must have been prepared for the neighbours. As slowly and carefully as she possibly could, she walked over to the counter and simply marvelled at the sight before her.
There was a platter full of sandwiches and a bowl of potato chips. Emma knew for a fact that these had to be left-overs since she had witnessed the sheer amount of food that Mrs Chase had made for Nathan's birthday two months ago. Of course, back then she didn't have to sneak into the kitchen for some of the left-overs since she had been allowed to attend the party and eat as much as any other guest.
She reached forward and picked up a sandwich. She knew that she should have been grabbing what she wanted and then rushing to make her way back towards the study so that she wouldn't be caught red-handed, but she couldn't stop herself from simply staring at the ham enclosed between bread for a moment. There was a louder shout than usual from the living room and Emma instantly cringed when she heard the distinct sound of Mr Chase saying that he would go and get some paper towels. Obviously, someone must have spilt something over themselves.
The blonde looked around herself a few times for a way to escape, but she knew that even if there was some other way out of the kitchen, there was no way that she would be able to move fast enough to get away in time. Sure enough, the sound of Mr Chase's signature boots began to get louder and her injured body simply froze in place. In that moment, she was pretty sure that she didn't particularly look like a genius, more like a deer caught in headlights.
As she expected, the heavy sound of the boots that now made her flinch slightly with each step stopped abruptly as the man stalled at the threshold to the kitchen and narrowed his eyes at the blonde.
"I told you to stay in your room," he said lowly.
Emma swallowed hard and looked down to the sandwich still clutched tightly in her hand and she knew that there was no lie that would get her out of what was about to happen.
"I…I'm hungry," she replied.
"You're lucky that we've allowed you to eat any of our food. Do you really think that disobeying us is the best way to get what you want?" the man asked as his jaw clenched.
Emma bit the inside of her cheek. She knew that look on his face meant that there was nothing that was going to stop him from hurting her. The anger probably meant that he had completely forgotten that it wasn't just his family in the house at the moment. That meant that there would be nothing stopping him from reacting on his first instinct.
As much as it would have made logical sense for him to simply send her back to the study and then come and punish her later for her insubordination, Emma had come to realise that wasn't how his mind worked. If the man was logical in any way, then he would have realised that he could have just refused to foster anymore rather than having a girl in the house who he so clearly despised.
He launched forward and grabbed her by the arm, which he promptly twist around so that her back was to his front. The blonde let out a small squeal of pain when the limb bent into a position that she was certain it wasn't supposed to be in.
"Please," she whimpered as a tear escaped down her cheek, "don't…"
"You know that rules and yet you continue to break them," he growled close to her ear, "I honestly don't know how else I can make my message clearer."
Emma swallowed hard against the sudden thought that she could just say that he could just let her leave. She was pretty sure that her need to constantly speak out against things that didn't make sense was part of the reason that she had far more bruises than she would have had if she had just kept her mouth shut at all times.
When he was sure that the teen wasn't going to say anything else, he brought his hand up to her elbow and snapped back quickly.
Emma couldn't help that sharp cry of pain that ripped out of her throat as Mr Chase allowed her to fall down to the ground. She swallowed hard as her vision began to blur and she looked at her arm. She couldn't help praying that the violent bend at the joint was just her imagination. However, she felt the now familiar boot smash down on her forearm and she let out a hiss when she was fairly sure that she heard a snap. Without even giving her a chance to register the fact that he had most likely broken yet another bone in her arm, Mr Chase brought his foot up again and stamped down on her stomach.
Emma closed her eyes and actually allowed herself to scream. It was just too much pain and she couldn't do it anymore, "help me," she screamed in such a high pitch that she wasn't completely sure herself whether what she had said could be considered words.
A split second later, she heard the rushing of feet coming from the living room, accompanied by Mrs Chase hurriedly saying, "I'm sure that Victoria just had a nightmare."
The feet stopped and Emma allowed herself to open her eyes as her head lolled to its side. As she expected, the Chases had invited their neighbours to watch the game. Two men stood stock still at the sight before them as if they couldn't quite believe that they were seeing was true. Emma turned her head to look up at Mr Chase as he was opening and closing his mouth with desperation written across his face. He was clearly trying to think of a plausible explanation for what his friends were seeing, but he couldn't exactly say that the girl with a million bruises, a broken nose and now a broken arm had just fallen.
"Fucking dyke," he growled as he raised his foot to stamp down again, however, before he could make contact, he found himself pinned against the counter behind him. One of his friends was holding him by his collar whilst the other was kneeling next to Emma with a concern playing across his face.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Mr Chase remained silent for a moment as he looked over to his wife for help; however, the woman remained completely still. She may not have joined in on the abuse, but it wasn't as if she had done anything to stop it either. But, she hadn't actually seen what her husband had done to the blonde who they had treated as a part of the family not one month ago. Seeing the pathetic girl struggle to keep her eyes open almost made her feel guilty that she had turned a blind eye.
When it became clear that his wife wasn't going to do anything, Mr Chase tried to lunge forward out of his friend's grip so that he could get one more hit in, but a knee promptly connected with his stomach. He doubled over before a fist smashed into his face a moment later and he fell down to the ground like a ton of bricks.
Emma watched the man who had made her life a living hell fall to the ground. Despite everything, a small grin pulled at the corner of her lips.
The last thing that she heard was one of the men saying 'call 911' before she closed her eyes and gave into unconsciousness.