Chapter Five: Violent Reactions

Since Olivia had already heard enough from the pregnant victim, she decided that it was time to leave. Her and Elliot would have to go and question the mother- she might have had something to do with Kelly's incident. Now all she needed to do was ask Kelly where she lived.

Before almost leaving the hospital room, Olivia quickly turned around. "Kelly?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind telling me where you live?" Afraid Kelly was going to refuse to because she eyed Olivia suspiciously look, Olivia slowly grabbed back her pen and paper. It didn't even take long to convince Kelly that getting her address would help

"Okay, if you say so. Hopefully I can trust you, 'cause you're a cop." Then Kelly took the pen and wrote down her address on the yellow lined pad of paper.

Once Olivia had left Kelly's hospital room, Kelly was sure that she just regretted giving Olivia her home address. Her mom would most likely find out, and she would get into lots of trouble. Every time she got busted, for the littlest things, her mother would take out all the rage from drinking whatever she had been drinking, which most of the time was vodka. Sometimes Kelly would end up with blood gushing out from her forehead, or her arm, or anywhere her mother wouldn't be afraid to hurt. Other times Kelly would end up with cuts so bad, she'd have to be rushed to the ER to get stitches. And every time she would go, the doctors would ask her mother what had happened, and her mother would cook up lies such as 'She fell down the staircase, very hard' (which happened to be one of her most commonly told lies), or 'I told my Kelly not to play near those large rocks, but she never listens'. Most of the time the doctors suspected abuse, but the way Rhonda would tell the "stories", they just let it be.

"Hey, Kelly, happy birthday!" said one of Kelly's friends, Sarah, while Kelly was on her way home on the bus. To be actual, Sarah wasn't really defined as one of Kelly's "friends", although she was a caring, unselfish person. Kelly was just really friendless; sitting by herself both on the bus and during lunch.

"Thanks."

"So how old are you turning?"

"12."

"Luck for you, I have to wait until August."

Deep inside, Kelly was not lucky that her birthday was February 3rd. She wasn't even lucky that she had a birthday, for the most part. Her mother never even remembered her birthday; Why would she want to? She would just be remembering the day that the child of a rapist was born. Even if her mother had remembered her daughter's birthday, there would be no presents involved at all, like the other eleven birthdays Kelly knew of. Everyone one of her birthday's was almost the same as Harry Potter's birthdays.

When the bus came to a stop in front of Kelly's neighborhood, Kelly (as well as three other kids) got off the yellow bus, which had windows you could hardly even see into because of the dirt it had collected throughout the school year. She went inside her small house that her mother and her lived in, which was gray with maroon-colored shutters around the clear windows.

As soon as she shut the door, she heard her mother trudging down the stairs, with a look of anger on her face.

'Oh no,' Kelly thought, 'What did I do now?'

"Kelly Como, you, you get over here right now!" shouted her mother. Kelly knew that whatever she did, although she can't possibly recall anything she would regret doing, it wasn't good because of her mother calling her by both her first and last name. Whenever Rhonda wasn't mad at Kelly, and wanted Kelly for some reason (such as to clean up the dishes, or to clean up the rest of this shattered bottle of vodka that she "accidentally" dropped, or to grab her another drink from the fridge, because her mother was too damn lazy to do so) she would either say "Kelly" ,"Hey, you", or "You son of a bitch, get your ass over here right now". Kelly could tell right now that the vodka was making its way through her mother's thin body.

"What?"

"I got a phone call from school."

Kelly was really starting to wonder what her school called for. Her grades were fairly good; but even if she was failing any classes, her mother wouldn't give a crap. Then it came to her; her English Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Smith, had noticed a couple of bruises on her arms today and had questioned her. All she had said to her was that she "fell", so why couldn't she just believe her and drop the damn subject?

"Your teacher called me today." You could already see the enormous amount of rage coming out from her brown eyes.

"And?"

"And she told me that she's been noticing bruises on your arm for the past few weeks, and new ones keep appearing. She tells me that you tell her every time that you "fall".

Right now Kelly's heart was pounding as fast as a stampede of elephants. She knew that even though she never told her ELA teacher the truth about her bruises, she was going to be punished. Severely.

"Now how does she know about them?"

"Mom, what are you talking about?" Kelly's questioned didn't seem like she was asking her mom a question, but more like making a statement. Her heart was pounding even faster.

"You know what the hell I'm talking about, Kelly Como! You know how she knows about your bruises, because you must have showed them to her! Or maybe you intentionally rolled up your sleeves so that someone would notice; and you desperately are crying for help! And let me tell you something, Kelly Como, I will not tolerate that in this household; you selfish little son of a bitch! Oh, I'll show you more than a bruise!" She then took the bottom of the bottle of vodka she had been drinking and came after Kelly, screaming. Then she twisted her arm, and slammed her against the wall, and hit her over and over. The whole entire time Kelly was crying, but all Rhonda told her that crying was a sign of weakness, and she was a "woman" now, so there was no need to cry.

After that, Rhonda ran out of her home, and drove off to a local bar, leaving Kelly bloody on the floor, and she almost was unable to move.