Lukes POV
I followed closely behind Julie as I wanted to know if we could be seen by her father or not. We entered the house and found him sitting in an armchair with an empty beer can in his hand facing away from us.
"Come here!" he yelled, making both of us jump. I shared a worried look at Julie but she steeled herself and walked towards and in front of him. I moved to stand in front of her just a bit in a protective stance and held my arm out in front of her body, even though there wasn't anything I could do. As I suspected he didn't react, he couldn't see us but it made me wonder if he could hear us.
He looked her over in a disgusting way that made my skin crawl with a creepy smile that made me want to grab her and run away as fast as we could.
"Carlos is out for the night, grab me a beer and then go shower, shave everything and take your time" he commanded. This confused me for only a second, he wouldn't, would he?
Julie did as was commanded, almost in a dream state, she passed him a beer from the fridge and walked up the stairs to the bathroom. I ran to catch up walking straight into her room, giving her a fright by accident. She was trembling, crying again and trying to find clean clothes to get into after her shower. I walked up to her and tried to touch her shoulder again with no success.
"Hey, he's not going to do what I think he's going to do is he?" I said with a waiver of fear in my voice.
"N, N, No, but he l, l, likes to let his friends do w, w, w whatever they want while Carlos is out" she managed to stammer through her tears.
I wanted to murder the asshole and take her far away from here, Alex and Reggie found there way into her room and gave me a look asking what had happened. Julie walked through them to continue trying to get her pile of clothes sorted and head to the bathroom.
"That asshole is going to let his friends rape her and there's nothing we can do" I said through clenched teeth as I followed her through the door.
Julie had pulled off her sweater but didn't jump this time when I walked through the door after gently knocking.
"What are you doing here, I need to shower!" she explained, a little embarrassed, pulling her sweater up to cover her tank top.
"Please like I would look at you like that with what is about to happen to you, I'll turn around if you like, I'm not leaving you alone to cry in the shower, I'm not leaving you alone ever Julie unless you ask me to, I can only guess what's running through your head right now and you shouldn't be alone in this, not for a second" I said with all the conviction I could muster and tears in my eyes threatening to fall.
She slid down to her knees and cried into her hands and I slid down with her and concentrated very hard on trying to rest my hand on her shoulder, it went through again which frustrated me.
"Why can't you be real, a real human that I could hug right now? It's been so long since I've had anyone to care about me, I've spent so many nights crying myself to sleep wishing that I could have just one person see the pain I'm living in and hold me, care about me" Julie confessed and my heart broke for the second time that day. Before I could reply though we heard a sharp knock that made us both jump then Julie's father growling
"I don't hear the water running, keep it moving". We listened to his heavy footsteps fall away the moment I got up and turned the water on just to get rid of him. I fell back down on my knees and passed her some tissues since that was all I could do. She blew her nose and began stripping down, I turned around and faced the door till I could hear the shower curtain move aside and the sound of water beating against the bathtub change to hitting her body. I then sat down with my back against the door and sang to her since it was all I could do at this moment. I barely got a full sentence out though before her dad banged on the door again and screamed at her to stop singing. I stopped immediately and stared at Julie who had peaked around the shower curtain at me with a surprised look on her face. He heard me but couldn't see me.
Julie quickly ducked back behind the curtain as Alex and Reggie poked their heads through the door to check in with what that's about. We quickly decided they would try talking to him and see if he can hear them if they're talking or if it's just when we sing. We needed to know so that we wouldn't get her into more trouble than she already was in. They poofed off and I remained silent but I could still hear her trembling and her breathing picking up as she neared the end of her shower.
"Hey, I know it's not going to be okay, none of this is okay but we are here, if you don't want us here tonight we can leave but if you want us to stay we will stay, or I will stay, I don't know if the other two will be able to stomach watching i'll be honest. None of us would ever let this happen if we could stop it. We would storm that door down if we were alive and force him to stop and we would have taken you and your brother to one of our houses and hid you till you were eighteen. There were wanted posters out for me before I left, we had already been hiding me, we could have easily hidden you and your brother" I said.
Her crying and breathing calmed down a little and she managed to whisper out "I wish that could have happened, it would have been a dream come true to be rescued from this place but to keep my brother with me. I need to hop out, can you turn around please?".
"Of course" I said as I promptly turned around, faced the door and covered my eyes with my arm. She got dried and dressed before telling me it was okay, she was wearing sweats and a t- shirt, all loose clothing so it wouldn't irritate her lashes from this morning. I held up her black hoodie that was hanging on the door, for her to get into before we left the bathroom. I walked with her back to her room and laid next to her as she got into her bed and under her covers for comfort. I tried to get under them also and it worked, she couldn't touch me but I could lay under the blankets with her. It made me wonder if I could share body heat with her. I began to hum the song Unsaid Emily to her quietly and I watched her begin to drift off into a peaceful sleep where she stayed for a few hours. I didn't dare move, it was bliss to watch her have some peace in her life.
Alex and Reggie had poofed in, saw what was going on and whispered their findings to me before poofing back out. He couldn't hear us no matter if we talked or yelled, only if we sang or played music. They had begun trying to spook the asshole by playing music in the basement or pushing his beers off the table onto the floor while Julie was safely in the shower where she couldn't be blamed for anything. Sadly her break from this hell was quickly ended when her father stomped up the stairs and banged on her door to get up, giving both of us a massive fright as I had also closed my eyes to rest.
She jumped out of bed not wanting to relive this morning and called out that she was coming down. I got up as well and stared at her with all the concern I could muster on my face.
The guys had poofed into her room as they could hear her father from the garage and accidentally gave her a fright but quickly apologized.
Julie took a deep breath and stared at a spot on the ground "You don't have to witness what is about to happen, I know I wouldn't want to" and with that she turned and left us in her room.
