*Warning*
*Warning*
*Warning*
This is a two parted story, so I must re-warn you guys. This chapter contains graphic descriptions of child abuse. It contains some heavy, heavy H/C so if this content is too heavy for you, just skep it. It will not be central to the story line and I'll be posting again next week.
…
When the morning came Nina left her research, she'd look thru academic articles, psychology magazines and anything related. She was tired; she needed coffee, fast. She remembered bitterly the hotel she stayed in Los Angeles; it was five minutes walking from a great coffee shop. Her house, in a condom in the middle of nowhere, was about ten minutes from anything and twenty minutes of the nearest coffee shop, even that had the worst coffee she'd ever tasted.
She looked the fridge; it was almost untouched, she wandered what James had to eat when she was away. Didn't matter now they were going to have a decent breakfast and she'd stop neglecting meals for her own sake.
She looked for a bag of brad she left in the back of the fridge it wasn't there. She'd prepared the waffle batter and fry bacon then; it would do for now. She took the bacon and the fresh waffles out and decided to snick down the hall and see if James was still asleep. His door was slightly open she looked inside to find a tided bed and an empty room didn't look like nobody had ever been there.
Predictable she didn't hear him leave; she didn't think she would even if she stood by the door all night. She slowly closed the door; she'd just go own with her life then 'he won't come back' she sat at the kitchen table deciding to ignore the food once more. 'Go back to your life Nina.' she told herself, she had work to do and her life would be easier without hiding a fugitive. Her trout didn't care though, it clenched anyway. her life would have been fine with him there; she had been thru worst, her work was easier with him there. He made her life better for been there she never had the chance to tell him.
The door unlooked before she dived too deep. "You're up already? I ate all your bread when you were away, so... what is it?" The wild look and fast heart pace didn't scape him, she looked like she was looking at a ghost; she tried to hid picking plates at the cabinet opposite to him.
"Did you sleep here at all last night?" she said splitting the food.
"Not really. I tried but I woke up and just need to walk."
"I went in your bedroom the bad was made didn't think anyone slept there." She set across the table. He seemed confused by the comment as if trying to retrace his own steps.
"I made it; thought I was supposed to. Don't people do that?"
"Yeah, they do it, actually, they do... Wait did you walked all night?" Nina said noticing the dark circles under his eyes.
"What are we doing today?" he said changing subject. "You think we could go see the kid's... Chace's house or his school?"
"Sure, we can stop by his house. I'll try to talk to him alone." It was better to just drop the late-night-walks conversation for now.
"Sure, we can wait for him outside, he has to leave the house some time and you can talk to the 'State basketball champion'." He said in a high-pitched voice mimicking hers from the night before.
"Give me some bread and finish your breakfast. We can leave when we are done here." She said smiling and putting the slice of bread James give her in her plate. She was done with breakfast and back in her room in a minute; she picked fresh clothes before shower. James went after; she made him wear some of the clothes she picked for him in LA, nothing fancy, just same basics from a department store. New paints shirts and a new hoody; maybe he'd give hers back.
The drive to Chace's house was quiet. Nina tried to get him to talk but the tiredness from walking all night caught up to him as soon as he walked in the car. He woke up the night before in cold sweets feeling like he was strapped to the bad by metal restrains. He was cold like it used to be in captivity and he could hear voices at distance talking in a number of different languages he didn't understand. It took him sometime to understand he wasn't beck there. When he did, he was already walking off; he walked for a long time before he missed his motorcycle; it was too far to get now but he would go back for that sometime. When the sun was out, he found some money in his pocket and thought of Nina. The girl seemed to run on coffee alone, he didn't think he ever saw her eat before last night; maybe there was something he could do about that while he was around.
It was a Saturday 9:45 in the morning when they parked by the big house, it was in the nicer part of the town with a nice garden with pink flower to the front; for about two hours they didn't take the eyes of the house, when Nina stared dozing off he smacked her arm lightly and pointed at the house's front door.
"Son of a bitch." Nina said watching both Chace and Saskia, their missing girl, ride small bicycles out of the house like nothing was happening; Chace in a black bike and Saskia in a pink one just her size. "Let's wait for them to come back I want to talk to her."
…
The kids came back sometime later and Nina waited for them a couple of houses before Chace's; she stopped the kids before they got home.
"Hey! Hi, I'm sorry. Are you Chace Munford?" the two stopped and looked at the woman. "I'm here at the request of May and Chio Pang can I-"
"Saskia run!" The boy screamed and before Nina could finish. The little girl dropped her bike and ran the other direction, making as much distance from Nina her little legs could master but she got stopped by the arms of a man twice her size before making it to the end of the block.
Nina waited beside the boy while the girl kicked and screamed in Chinese against James body but he held her as gentle as possible. The tantrum turned into a soft cry when he said in Chinese "I'm not going to hurt you, we are not going to take you back if you don't want to, I promise".
"I don't want to go back, please, please don't make me go back there." the girl sobbed in Chinese. James crouched down to her size. The girl's little arms had old bruises and the girl looked sickly; probably as the result of been under feed, he aced. But the worst of all were the large bruise around her neck that looked about three days old. James looked away feeling disgust that quickly turned to anger, but all that died in sourness and heart break when the girl spoke again.
"They hurt me there, all the time, if you send me back they will do it again. I don't want to do it again, please." James's stomach dropped and he held his own tears hugging the little girl one more time before getting up caring the little one.
"You're not going back there, you'll be ok."
Chace's parents came out of the house to see the end of Saskia and James's conversation but Nina was fast enough to stop them before they got too close to James, so they wouldn't see his face.
"Mr. and Mrs. Munford, I'm Nina Fraser; I'm here on the request of her parents. Did you know she was reported as missing a few days ago?" Nina bluffed knowing her parents couldn't report the missing of the girl.
"Please, let's go inside." The woman said looking shaken by the little girl's state.
"Please, before someone suspects there're anything wrong here." The man said pointing to the house.
"Go on I'll take the girl and ask my friend to wait in the car." Nina said walking to James and motioning to take the girl from his arms; he wasn't sure he should. "Wait for me in the car, I'll just talk to them." He gave the girl the most broken look but complied. Nina really didn't want to leave him alone, but the little kid came first now.
The family house was big and nice; Chace and Saskia played a video game in the living room where Nina could watch them from the kitchen, with the parents.
"It's been like this for years now, Saskia and our Chace have been inseparables since she joined his school they are siblings for all they know," Mrs. Munford started. "and the way that family treated her... Last week she showed up here in the middle of the night with those things in her neck I couldn't let her go back"
"I know all that's awful but you can't just take a child, it doesn't work like that."
"Miss Fraser." The man protested. "Her parents, they... if we take that child to the police... if we do that, Saskia never sees her parents again. It would make it easier for us but... I hated my parents they were hideous too I still cried at their funeral when I knew I could never see them again, I won't do that to her." The girl closed her eyes and tried to find some air, she knew she could do one more thing.
"I may know someone that can help. He is a lawyer who worked similar cases with kids in my Dojo. I'll leave you guys his number." she said writing it in a block she found in the kitchen counter. "I'll come back in a few days to see how everything is going for her until we can evolve authorities. This girl is been thru enough don't make it worst" Nina said meaning it she come to them herself if something else went wrong to that little girl.
"We won't, we'll do everything we can for her."
"Good luck then." Nina said wishing the best for both the couple with the girl and herself with the soldier waiting in the car.