Author's Notes: I'd just like to thank everyone who's been reading this story and gave such great feedback. I'm very glad that the previous chapter went over as well as it did. I was hoping that it was a very startling chapter, and I can see from the feedback that it was. Thanks for your support.
"You set this up." Brenda looked up at Jason and sighed. He stood at the open curtain of the examining area with a scowl, his usually bright eyes darkening with anger and possibly disappointment. "Admit it, Brenda, you set him up."
She sighed, then coughed. Her hand rose to her neck and Brenda groaned. There wasn't any permanent damage, though it would have been a lot worse had Jason not shown up when he did. As it were, there was some bruising on the inside of her throat and she would be speaking in a very hoarse voice for a couple of days, which would be followed by a deeper voice before she got back to her high feminine lilt.
"I'm not admitting anything." She coughed again and shook her head. She'd already been told by two doctors and Bobbie Spencer that coughing wasn't going to clear her throat. It was only going to hurt, but she was stubborn. She had to at least try. "All I wanted to do was talk to him."
"You provoked him."
"Everybody provokes him, Jason." Brenda turned her head to the side and let her eyes close. Her head dipped down and she sighed. "Disagreeing with Sonny is provoking him."
"This was all part of your plan, wasn't it? Get him to hit you so he'd go to jail? That's why Alexis has been working with you against Jax. Because you promised her Kristina back. You probably even promised you'd get the boys back for Carly. But see, what I don't get is why you would even bother? Alexis pushed Alcazar over the banister and you hate Carly. Why would you help either of them?"
Brenda turned back to him and looked at Jason. He was fishing for answers and she couldn't give him any. She hated that she had to keep something from him, but… Sure, she could have asked him if he had a tape recorder or something. He couldn't lie, so if he said that he didn't have one, then she'd believe him. But, she also knew that if she asked him if he was going to use the truth against her to protect Sonny, his answer would have been yes. She hated lying to Jason, but she couldn't afford to have him mess everything up. Not after the work she'd put into it.
However, there were partial truths…
"I'm not helping either of them. If they get something out of Sonny being a complete maniac, then whatever. I could care less about what Carly and Alexis want."
"You only care about what you want." She shrugged. "And what do you want, Brenda? You want his pain? You want his anguish?"
"I want him to understand that he isn't above the law. He kidnapped Sam, and she went all Patty Hearst on him. He shot Carly in the head, and she went back to him. He called Alexis a bitch and went possessive over Kristina in front of a court appointed shrink, and he still ended up with custody." Brenda sighed. "And he stole everything that you could have had, and yet here you are, ready to defend him to me. Don't bother, Jason. It's not gonna work."
"Then what will work, huh? What's going to make you drop this whole thing? What's going to make you tell Ric that you won't press charges?"
Brenda looked up at him with cold, hard eyes. She knew that as much as she condemned Sam and Carly and Alexis for being Sonny's pawns, she would have done the same thing. On more than one occasion, she'd let him off the hook for the pain he caused. She would have done anything to be sure that he was alright. But, that was then, and in the present life, her eyes were wide open. She knew that Sonny wasn't able to do any good for anyone but himself. She knew that he'd continue doing what he did until one day, he hurt someone beyond repair.
"Absolutely nothing," she said in her hoarse voice.
Jason sighed and shook his head. He started to say more, then stopped when Sam walked up beside him. She put a hand on his arm, then pulled him down. She whispered something in his ear and he turned away. Brenda couldn't see his face, but his back was stiff as he walked away.
Brenda watched Sam as she walked towards her, arms crossed. Her face was blank and only her posture and pursed lips showed Brenda that she was upset. A part of her felt guilty that she'd pumped the young woman for information, but it had been for the greater good. Surely, Sam would understand that. She could have become one of the women whose children were snatched from their arms had her daughter survived. She would see that Brenda had done a decent thing.
And if she didn't, well… She still had Lois if she really needed a friend.
"This is why we had all those lunches?" Sam tossed her head to the side. "So you could get information on Sonny?"
"Not really?" She shrugged, then tried to growl the frog out of her throat. Once again, something Bobbie had told her wouldn't work but she had to try anyway. "I wanted you to keep Jason out of the middle of it, so he wouldn't get hurt."
"And what about now? He's not hurt now?"
"It could be worse, Sam. He could be in jail." She sighed. "Sonny's going to go down one day, and it doesn't matter who has anything to do with it. When he goes down, he's going to bring Jason with him. Do you really want that?"
Sam stared at her for a moment, body stiff, then let her shoulders sag. Her arms remained crossed. "Sonny's his best friend, Brenda. This hurts him. Watching him in jail because of your plans…"
"This has nothing to do with my plans. Sonny's in jail because he doesn't know how to control his temper. I just wanted to tell him that Robin was upset with him and it got away from that… Because he doesn't know how to just listen." Brenda gripped the sides of the examining bed tightly, then leaned forward. Her arms were stretched straight. "And Jason's not hurting because Sonny's in jail. Jason's hurting because he actually saw the truth about Sonny. Because he actually saw him do the one thing that he'd sworn he would never do, the thing that Jason knows he might have done to you or Carly one day." She leaned back and let her arms relax. "Be honest with yourself, Sam. You've been afraid of Sonny, before. You've always known he had it in him."
She opened her mouth to fire back a retort, but no sound came out. Brenda held back the smirk that Luis had so easily impressed on her as Sam let the truth come over her. Sonny had kidnapped her. He had screamed at her, and more than likely, during the kidnapping, he'd laid his hands on her at least once. She may have been on the fringes of Stockholm Syndrome, but it wasn't permanent. She was slowly losing her brainwashing, and it hurt. She felt the same pain that Jason felt, and she had to know that it was the same kind of pain. They were both seeing the truth and neither wanted to admit it.
"You want Sonny to go to jail, Brenda. I know that. You know that. Everybody knows that."
Brenda shook her head. "Live on the Nile if you want to, Sam." She shrugged and let her body crumple in on itself, hunching forward. "We all know Sonny won't stay in jail for long. Even though I'm pressing charges, Reese Marshall will have him out of jail before the clock strikes midnight."
"But, he'll be labeled an abuser."
"Because he is. I never laid a hand on him. If I'd actually touched him, I'd say that I deserved what I got, but I didn't. If he can't take back-talk from me, then how is he expected to take it from anyone else?"
"From his children, you mean?" Brenda shrugged and Sam shook her head. "He's going to lose Michael, Morgan and Kristina, isn't he?" Brenda shrugged again. "That's why Alcazar was out there on the phone, and why Leticia called to say that Carly and Alexis had shown up at the mansion to take the kids." Brenda shrugged. "Like there were documents already just waiting for something to happen." Brenda looked up at the ceiling and whistled. "Sonny's going to lose his kids as a result of this."
Brenda let her eyes fall on her and said, "Can you really say that he doesn't deserve to lose them?" Sam opened her mouth, started to speak, then snapped her lips shut. She sighed and her arms fell to her sides. There was nothing she could say, and even if she wanted to argue, there was no argument. Brenda fell backwards onto the uncomfortable bed with a plop and said, "Exactly."