Luke's PoV

We had made the small walk to our apartment, we only lived a few blocks away but it was slow going since it was January and there was still snow with ice on the ground. Alex and Reggie lived with me, we would have all lived together but figured Juilie and Bobby would want their space as a couple suddenly without parents looking in their rooms when we came out this way. We had all moved north at the age of eighteen to San Francisco and lived downtown. It was expensive but the music scene was booming so we made enough money to get by. It did mean though that we were a six hour car ride from our families or an eleven hour train ride so we only went home for Christmas.

Once inside I took Julie's coat for her to hang up while Alex started building a fire in the fireplace. Reggie then cut up more of the brownies for us to eat and we resumed sitting on the couch while I set up the controllers. Kira, our rescue husky had come out to say hi, she was an old girl that was originally abused by her former owners so she was often shy around new people. She came up to me and licked my face while I was plugging things in and I gave her a gentle pat. She then wandered off to see if Reggie had a treat for her.

Once I sat back down and we all had brownies and beer, Kira came to investigate the new person. At first she sat next to my legs with her head on my knee and stared at Julie but eventually moved closer to smell Julies out outstretched hand.
"Just stay still and let her sniff you, she's very nervous if you make sudden movements or are too loud"
"Aww that's so sad, I won't hurt you Kira, you can take all the time you need!" she said. At that Kira decided she liked Julie and nuzzled her hand gently before moving to lean against her legs instead, settling her head on her lap.
"Oh wow she likes you, you must smell like brownies still, she never does that to new people although she does like females more" I said.
"Do you think she would mind if I patted her head?"
"Try, just do it slowly" I said. We were all leaning forward in anticipation, but Julie gently and slowly patted Kira's head and Kira loved it, she turned around and licked Julie's hand which got a soft giggle out of her.
"Is Kira allowed on the couch?" Julie asked.
"Oh yeah she is, call her if you want! She loves tummy rubs also" I said.

We had a similar lounge set up, there was a three seater couch which me and Julie were sitting on, Alex was probably going to sit next to Julie but Kira was about to steal that spot leaving Alex to sit on the ground since Reggie had already claimed the other one seater.
Julie patted the free spot next to her and called Kira in a sweet voice. The girl jumped up happily and head butted Julie's arm before settling down with her head on Julie's lap after pushing her hand up onto her head.
Julie giggled and resumed patting the gentle giant's head which got a happy tail wag.

The night progressed with us teaching Julie how to play Mario kart, ordering pizza around midnight and then settling down to watching a movie as we ate food. Half way through though I had noticed that Julie had fallen asleep with her head on my shoulder. I sat very still not wanting to disturb her and once the movie was finished Alex helped me gently move her so she was laying down on a pillow and I could get up. We then covered her with a blanket and left her with Kira. It looked like Kira had found a new friend to guard which was sweet.

In the morning Kira came storming into my room and gently nipped my hand, something was wrong and I immediately got up to follow her. I sneaked into the lounge not wanting to wake up Julie but then realized she had her face covered under a blanket and I could hear her softly crying which is why Kira had woken me.
"Julie, are you okay? Kira here is worried about you" I said softly as I sat down at the end of the couch where her feet were.
"Oh, no I'm fine, I have to get home though is all" she said in a happy cheery tone. She emerged from under the blanket and quickly began finding her items to head home with, refusing to look at me. I could see she had been crying and had noticed that her phone was in her hand and beeping indicating there were new messages.
"Well here, i'll walk you home then, Kira needs a walk anyway" I said as I got up to find her leash.

I pulled my boots on quickly as Julie was half out the door and called Kira to me, quickly clipping her leash on as we caught up to Julie. We walked in silence but something was wrong. I didn't have to pay attention because Kira was telling me everything I needed to know. Kira had walked around me to walk between me and Julie and was hugging her side. Kira was abused as a puppy and if something was wrong she would know all about it as well as be able to hear someone's heartbeat or sense a change in their mood.

We got to the apartment and Julie went to unlock the door but Bobby had already opened it giving her a fright. Kira had pulled forward to stand in front of Julie and was softly snarling at Bobby even though she was good friends with him, right now she didn't trust him. I gently pulled Kira back and patted her to calm her.
"What's up with her Luke?" asked Bobby.
"I dunno, she doesn't trust you today I guess, well sorry for dropping Julie home so late, she fell asleep so we let her sleep on the couch. Thanks for coming over Julie, we had a blast, are you feeling better Bobby?"
"Ah yeah I am thanks" he said as he moved aside to let Julie in after she gave me a wave goodbye and a gentle pat on Kira's head who licked her hand again.
"Awesome, did you want to hang out tonight then? I have some lyrics I was thinking we should go over for a new song and we need to practice for the gig next week" I asked.
"Yeah sure, sounds good"

Bobby left and we walked out of their property but I pulled Kira down the side of their house. I could hear yelling and Kira started snarling aggressively this time. I had to shush her once she started barking and pulled her away and headed home. I needed to talk to Alex and Reggie but how, Bobby was our friend, Julie needed help but how did we move forward without breaking our friendship up? There was no evidence of any abuse just controlling what she does and scaring her… there were no marks on her that we had ever seen so why would she be so scared? Couples yelled at each other, it was normal right?.

I looked down at Kira who was glaring at their house from across the street still snarling and pulling to get over there. If I dropped this lead something told me she would be running through that door to bite Bobby. There might not be any evidence of abuse but there were plenty of concerning signs.

I headed home and began working on the lyrics that I had rumbling through my head. Kira came with me to my room and at some point Alex had delivered me breakfast but left me be. They all knew when I was busy it was better to just give me space to concentrate. The only exception was Kira since she was my girl but she often understood and slept on my bed while I worked only asking to be let out to pee if she was desperate.

Later that evening I emerged having just finished eating my breakfast and found Reggie working on dinner.
"Dude, did you just eat your breakfast?" Reggie asked as I put my plate into the dishwasher.
"Maybe, I had a lot on my mind alright. Hey, are we good to go over to Bobbies this evening to work on music? I said we would if that's okay?"
"Um sure, I think Alex is taking a nap as he's still hung over so maybe go wake him up for dinner" he replied.
I nodded and went to wake up Alex, calling Kira over and into his room. She happily jumped in and started nuzzling his neck. She was the best at waking us up and when there was no one new in our house she was a completely different happy dog.
"Ugh Kira, I love you but why do you have to lick my mouth" he complained as she relentlessly continued licking his face. "Okay okay i'm up, move over girl i'm getting up" he said as he pushed her gently off of his chest and sat up.
"Good girl Kira" I said as I gave her a treat and smiled at Alex who just glared at me before it broke into a smile.
"We are going back to Bobbies tonight to work on music if that's okay? Reggie told me to wake you!" I said with a big grin.
"Ah sure, i'll just take a shower then i'll come eat.

I gave Kira her dinner and sat down to eat ours. It was ramen noodles with broccoli, chicken, mixed in with egg, mushroom and cheese. It was amazing as always, and I shared a small bite of chicken with Kira under the table while no one was looking. I then took her out to pee, gave her a treat and we headed back to Bobbies with our guitars. Alex kept his drum set there since we couldn't play with Kira being so scared of noise and we often didn't jam on our guitars too loudly with her. She was getting better especially with our acoustic guitars as long as she was awake and could see what we were doing and how we were making the noise.

We arrived at Bobbies and went into his heated garage to set up our instruments, Bobby was already there setting up his.
"Hey Bobby, Julie forgot to take her tin back, we finished the brownies though, they were soo good. Where is she?" asked Reggie. "She's out for the night, here I'll take it upstairs" Bobby replied.

We jammed for about an hour before I showed them the lyrics I was working on and we started hashing out the music for it. I needed to use the washroom though so I left to go inside their main house to use the washroom. After I washed my hands though I decided to check on Julie and Bobbie's room. I couldn't see any evidence of Julie but her boots and coat were still at the door.
I gently pushed the door open since it wasn't closed and couldn't see anything since the light was off, I pulled out my phone to turn the torch on to shine it into the room and could see a Julie sized lump on the bed curled up completely under the blanket including her face.
"Julie, are you okay?" I whispered in case she was sleeping.
"Luke?" she asked.
"Yeah it's me" I said as I came in, closing the door and turning on her bedside lamp.
"Where's Bobby?'' she asked as she sat up and rubbed her face with one hand.
"He's in the garage, he said you were out, are you okay? How come you were here?" I asked as I sat down on the bed and noticed she was keeping her other hand out of sight.
"You should leave Luke, he got mad at me for spending so much time with you yesterday" she said, her voice beginning to tremble.
"You were with all of us, I don't see what the big deal is, what's wrong with your hand Julie?" I asked gently.

She pulled it out slowly and I noticed tears were streaming down her face at this point, it was wrapped in cling wrap but from what I could see it looked like a really bad burn.
"What did he do Julie?" I said as I tried my best to keep my voice calm, I wanted evidence and now that I had seen it I was very tempted to go bash his head in but Julie needed help. Anger wouldn't help right now.
"He was cooking breakfast and asked me to pass him the eggs, he grabbed my hand when I had passed him the eggs and held it on the element that was on high. I screamed at him to stop but he said this was because I sat next to you and didn't leave when I was told to"
"Julie, why didn't you ask for help? Has he done this before? He can't treat you like this, you know that right?" I said trying to hide my anger behind my concern.
"He took my phone away, and locked me in here. I must've fallen asleep since the door obviously isn't locked any more. After I ran it under water and found a plastic bag to keep the air out in our bathroom, I tried to leave and that was when I realized. The window doesn't work either before you ask so I decided to just lay here and somehow fell asleep" she said crying softly. I reached to rub her arm gently but she flinched again, it was literally like the first day I had met Kira.
"You didn't answer a question, has he done this before?" I asked, pulling my hand back.
She nodded her head once.
"Why didn't you leave Julie?"
"H, h, he said i, i, if I told a, a, any one that he would, s, s, shoot me in the head before I had a chance to leave" stammered Julie. I tried again to touch her arm to offer comfort and this time she didn't flinch but instead flung herself into my arms and cried into my shoulder. I held her tightly for a moment before gently pushing her back.
"We need to go and now, where does he keep his gun? I need you to pull anything else you think you need onto the bed and I'll help pack it. Don't move your injured hand, we need to take you to a hospital for that, just use your good hand"
"Hey Luke are you up here? Are you okay?" asked Bobby from the hallway as he neared his room.

Oh no :p Bobby is on his way, whats going to happen? hope ya'll are enjoying :p