Chapter IX
Tell Me
Sara closed her eyes and mentally counted to ten. Grissom had treated her like a China Doll after he'd told her. Like she was some fragile, helpless victim. She didn't want Catherine to think less of her. It had taken so long to earn her respect in the first place. She sighed and looked up from the sprout and mushroom omelet she'd been picking at. Catherine gazed right back at her. Her sapphire blue eyes were awash in tears. Sara looked for pity, but could not find it. She saw sorrow and guilt, but no pity. Catherine reached out for her and covered her own slightly trembling hand with her slim, perfectly manicured one. "Tell me."
Sara looked one more time into Catherine's eyes and drew strength from the other woman's warm and steady gaze.
She winced as his hand gripped her thin shoulder hard enough to leave bruises. "Just where the hell do you think you're going! SLUTTING AROUND LIKE YOUR WHORE MOTHER!" Before she could even get the 'No' out, he'd hit her. It was a hard closed fist punch to the side of her head. "Fucking whores!" His words rang and echoed crazily in Sara's fuzzy head. He hit her again and this time she heard the delicate crunch of cartilage and bone when his meaty fist hit her face. He'd broken her nose. She could feel the tears well up behind her eyes and they spilled out and flowed down her cheeks, but she did not cry out. Her tears only made him madder. "You're CRYING? I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT!" She felt herself being moved, carried by her one arm back into the main part of the living room. He threw her to the hard wood floor and she winced at the impact of her bare knees and elbows on the wood.
She heard the unmistakable rasp of worn leather on denim and winced, feeling more tears coming. There would be no bag of oranges for her tonight. Tonight he was coming at her with his belt. The first hit fell right between her shoulder blades and her entire body arched away from the pain. She still did not scream. The hits kept coming, and she eventually did scream, which only made things worse. After what seemed like forever, they stopped and he picked her up by the arm again. Her feet dangled off the floor. Tom Sidle was a huge and strong man, and her bleeding back and sides were testament to his "manly strength" He glared at her; his beady, bloodshot brown eyes meeting her glazed-over ones. "Well?" She wanted to say sorry, but only coughed. "Useless bitch, just like your worthless whore of a mother." He threw her down again, hard. She landed on the coffee table, a cheap particle board: wood-glued flea-market buy. The old and warped table legs collapsed under her sudden weight and on the way down, her arm got pinned underneath her and when she and the table finally hit the floor, she felt a sharp pain shoot through her wrist.
With Sara down, Tom turned back to his wife, who was cowering in the corner of the room, her back against the wall. "Now, Tommy, you showed that girl good. Let's just go to bed." He shook his head and spat on the floor. "I don't think so, Bitch."