A/N: This chapter might be a trigger warning for anyone who has ever been sexually assaulted or raped. Please proceed with caution.
BPOV
The music pulses around the gym while Brady leads me to the dance floor. I am the lady of the hour and this once was my element but now I felt like an impostor.
This isn't who I am anymore; cheerleader and party girl extraordinaire. Edward kissed me goodbye, leaving with Emmett, promising to see me later as I was staying at Tanya's house tonight.
He was reluctant to let me go after Royce's tantrum on the field, saying he was too keyed up for the evening to end well.
Edward had a knack for reading people so his reluctance and prediction left me on edge.
"For a Queen, you're awfully emo," Brady says before pulling the running man.
I laugh.
"Better," he grins.
A couple of girls around us are eyeing him and they'd be fools not to, he's an attractive clown.
"So you into older men, Swan?" he asks, pulling me into a spin.
"Not older men per se just Edward," I tell him, keeping it light.
"Must be some dude if he caught your eye," he says honestly.
"He is," I say before cautiously adding. "I'm sorry if you thought this was a date."
"It's my bad, I waited too long," he says.
"How long were you waiting?"
He shakes his head. "Nope, it's too embarrassing," he sings, dancing into the dance circle next to us.
As my date, Travolta's his way across the dance floor, I step off for a drink.
The room is packed with all grades so it's hard to move through the crowds. I see Alice and Jess across the dance floor. Alice's dress is surprisingly conservative compared to her normally short attire.
Angela is with Ben, she was so blissfully happy that he asked her. I thought it was sweet that he didn't stick with the tradition of taking the girl he escorted, but that seemed to be the majority of the court this year.
I see Royce and Rosalie near the doors where he looks to be berating her. She looks bright and shiny in her white sparkly dress, but with her face crumpled she looks truly miserable.
I turn away not wanting to see the drama unfold. I wasn't ready to come down from my high of winning.
I find Jazz alone near the water bottle table. He went stag to the dance for some strange reason.
"Queen," Jazz says with a sad smile.
"Is it a good time to tell me why you've been so weird this week and why I saw you arguing with Alice in Port Angeles last Saturday," I say with my hands on my hips.
His face pales while he lets out a breath.
"Why are all the small ladies so demanding?" he questions out loud.
I roll my eyes.
"C'mon," he says nodding toward the doors. "Let's take a walk." I take his offered hand as he leads me out into the hallway.
In the hall it's quieter, you can still hear the music pumping out of the gym but it's not as loud or crowded. I can actually hear better.
"Alice and I used to hook up," Jazz starts from out of nowhere.
"Excuse me?"
I instantly try to remember them actually in the same place at the same time or saw them interacting. Alice was the most high-maintenance person I'd ever known and Jazz the most laid back.
"It started in tenth grade," he says. "I stopped things when I saw how she was treating you. I couldn't understand how you were her best friend and she could treat you like that. The things she was saying about you after you had your stomach pumped, I couldn't do it anymore."
They had absolutely nothing in common, so how did they manage to pull off hooking up for almost two years without any of us knowing.
"Why?"
"Because I knew what happened to you, she had no clue what you went through. If she was a good person she would have asked questions—"
"So you broke it off during the summer, why are you arguing now?"
His face is torn almost like he's in pain.
"This isn't your fault, none of it is," he says carefully.
"Did something happen to Alice?" I ask, feeling my pulse quicken.
His eyes always perfectly clear blue darken.
"Jasper," I say like a plea at his silence.
He shakes his head now, not looking at me.
"She came to me— at first I thought it was another one of her schemes to start our arrangement back up. She said she had no one she could talk to about it. She suspected that's why you turned to drinking. He said something about you when he—"
I was now holding onto his forearms gripping his suit jacket in a fist.
That's why he disclaimed it isn't my fault, but if I would have said something, Royce wouldn't have done the same to Alice or God knows who else.
I feel my breathing pick up.
Jasper looks like he feels just as guilty.
"When?"
"She said he cornered her after practice last Tuesday," he says.
"After Rosalie got suspended?"
He nods. "No one was there to stop him either," Jazz says quietly.
"Christ, Jazz," I get out.
"The argument you saw us having was me trying to convince her to say something," he explains.
My tears are streaming down my face at this point.
He wipes gently under my eyes looking just as heartbroken as I feel.
"I need to talk to my dad," I whisper.
Jazz sucks in a breath but nods.
"We all need to talk to the Chief," he corrects.
Power in numbers and all that I suppose.
A few junior varsity players stumble out the entrance of the locker rooms. They're rowdy and obviously drunk, their suits are disheveled.
I turn away, wiping my remaining tears.
"I should probably take care of all this," I sniffled, gesturing to my face.
Before Jazz can respond Royce comes out the same direction as the junior varsity players just did. He looks amped up as he passes us, which we weren't in his eye line since we were standing around the corner.
"I want to beat the fucking shit out of him," Jazz says.
"We need to enjoy what's left of the night, we will never be Homecoming King and Queen again," I tell him trying to bring back the light. "I'll talk to my dad in the morning and you can come over."
"Alice said she'd only share if you do," he sighs.
"She can come too," I say, despite my discomfort of having my former best friend in my house.
After all that she did to me, I knew I needed to overlook it all at the moment in order to have Royce be held accountable for what he did to me and her. Who knows, more girls might then start to come forward.
"I'm going to use the locker room to fix my makeup," I tell Jazz, taking a step back.
"I'll see if I can find Alice, tell her our plan," he murmurs.
I nod.
Jazz heads back into the gym while I step into the girl's locker room. Unfortunately, these were the closest bathrooms in this wing of the school.
I look in the mirror seeing my makeup looks like a fucking wreck. "Great," I mutter as I dig through my clutch knowing I only brought mascara and lipstick for touch up.
Just as I go to turn on the water I hear what sounds like a wheezed breath.
I stop, turning slowly to see if I can hear the noise again. After a minute I hear it again, it's not quite a cry, but it sounds strangled and weak.
"Hello?" I call out moving down the rows of lockers.
I stop when I see the tattered bright and shiny piece of white fabric, my breathing picks up when pointed silver heels follow.
Then blood, so much blood.
The hair and the dress were all I needed to know this was Rosalie's broken body lying out on the floor. Her face is too swollen for me to make out any distinct injuries, her dress was torn all the way up to show her underwear was missing.
My hand slaps against the locker to steady myself, the sound causes another strangled noise to come from Rosalie.
Fucking get it together, Bella.
I hear laughing.
"Help," I yell. "Help!"
The clacking of heels comes toward us faster.
I move out into the aisle so I can be seen, I see Tanya and Maggie come into sight.
"Bella?" Tanya says with a frown.
"I need Jazz," I breathe out.
"What's go—" she says, her eyes going right to Rosalie.
Both Tanya and Maggie look in shock.
"I need Jazz," I say louder.
Maggie nods, taking off in a run.
"We need to help her," I start. "She needs help now."
"We need to call for an ambulance," Tanya says, digging out her phone.
Jazz comes running in with Brady and Maggie following.
I stop them before they can see Rosalie.
"I need your jacket," I tell him.
His eyes roam my face until he nods, taking his jacket off. I take it laying it over Rosalie to cover her up.
Once she's covered I let them move forward.
"What happened?" Brady asks moving toward her like he is going to pick her up.
"Don't lift her," Tanya warns her phone still to her ear. "We don't know what her injuries are, we need to wait for the paramedics."
Jazz kneels down gently lifting her wrist and watches his watch.
"Her pulse is weak, T," he calls out, leaning down. "She's wheezing, I'm thinking possible clasped lung?"
Tanya rattles off his assessment into her phone.
It takes ten minutes for the EMTs and my dad to find us. When Tanya hangs up, she calls her dad to let him know we're on our way to the hospital.
"Bells," Dad breathes looking at the paramedics working on Rosalie. "Kids, let's go out to my cruiser," he says.
At this point, the hall is filled with kids then I remember Royce and some of the junior varsity players leaving the locker rooms.
"Dad," I yelled over the crowd.
"Bells, I need to talk with the paramedics," Dad says.
"Royce King, he did this to her, him and a couple of boys— Riley Biers, uh Tyler Crawley—"
Shit, what was that third boy's name?
"You saw them?"
"Royce left the locker room a few minutes before I went in. Jazz saw him too," I tell him earnestly.
Dad radioed to one of his deputies telling him Royce and the boys I named weren't to leave school grounds. "Jasper, take Bella."
"Dad?"
"Bella, I need to talk with the paramedics," he repeats.
"Dad, he raped me too," I say quietly, clutching the opening of his coat in both my hands.
Charlie's face pales before his face goes absolutely livid.
"Waylon?" he barks into the radio. "I want Royce King in custody."
"Jasper, take Bella out to my cruiser," Dad chokes out before leaving me to go back to the girl's locker room.
I feel the weight of everything starting to drag me down. The sob that rips out of me is insistent, Jazz wraps his arm around me leading me out to my dad's cruiser where the lights are flashing.
Time might as well be non-existent as it passes, but I don't even know how long we are out there. The paramedics come out with Rosalie as the whole school watches. Through my tears I see Edward pushing his way through the crowd, he exhales when his eyes land on me.
I'm in his arms in a second, letting a fresh round of sobs wrack my body.
"You're okay," he murmurs against my head.
I want to tell him I don't feel okay.
I want to tell him that because I didn't speak up, Royce has left a trail of broken girls in his wake.
I don't tell him any of this.
I cling to him hoping that he'll forgive me, like I hope the others will too.
"She told her dad what Royce did in front of everyone," I hear Jazz tell him.
"Tanya only told me that Bella needed me," Edward says, I feel the rumble of his chest against my ear.
"Bella found Rosalie beaten and assaulted in the locker room," Jazz says.
I feel Edward's intake of breath but he only holds me tighter, closer.
"Edward, I need to talk to my daughter," Dad says, now joining the conversation.
I hold tighter, not wanting him to let go.
"Bella, we need to go to the hospital," Dad says with a sigh.
I turn my head to peek at him.
He runs a hand over his face.
"Did you both know about this?" Dad asks, giving both Jazz and Edward a glare.
I see Jazz nod and feel Edward's nod.
The noise Charlie lets out is one of frustration.
"All you in the back now," he says.
Edward helps me into the backseat of my dad's cruiser where I'm sandwiched between him and Jazz. I catch Charlie's eyes in the rearview mirror.
He's tired and pissed, maybe even a little hurt.
"Bella, what you said back there— were there any witnesses?"
I'm quiet for a minute before I find my voice.
"Jasper was the one who stopped it," I say.
Jazz squeezes my hand.
"When did this happen?"
"After Prom," I tell him.
"Esme was right," I hear him mutter under his breath.
"Bella and Rosalie weren't the only girls," Jazz says.
"Who else?" Dad grits out.
"Alice Brandon," Jazz tells him.
"Remind me to never be interrogated with you again," I tell him with a glare.
"No Bella, Jasper should be telling me these things just like you should have," Dad says lowly.
"You weren't being held down by someone twice your weight while they tried to impale you, Dad," I snapped back.
"Bella," Edward says gently.
"No, I have every right to say what I want about this since it happened to me," I emphasize stabbing my finger in my chest. "I didn't say anything because I was ashamed and more so worried about you losing your job if we went after the Kings. You know as well as I do Dad that the likelihood of Royce just walking away is pretty fucking big."
After I've completed my rant, my eyes remain on my dad's through the mirror. I turn my head glancing at Jazz who has his head down and then at Edward who is looking at me with such empathy, I feel my tears build.
"I'm taking you all to the hospital, the police chief from Port Angeles is going to meet us there. I need to recuse myself from this case since Bella is now involved. The P.A. Chief will need to see if he can switch over the jurisdiction of the case to Seattle since Alistair King is the D.A.," Dad says, pulling into the Forks Memorial's parking lot. "We're going to need statements from both Bella and Jasper. Edward, I want you to stay with both of them as they give their statements. If you notice anything funny about the questions he's asking I want you to intervene and say they'll answer when their lawyer is present."
"Do you really think the Port Angeles Chief will try to sway the investigation?" Edward asks, leaning forward a little.
"He's a nice man but was hired with Alistair's endorsement," Dad explains. "I already placed a call to a friend in Seattle to beat Paul to the punch."
Edward nods.
"Don't let on that you have a law background, just play the supportive boyfriend and friend to these two," Dad directs.
"This is why I wanted out of criminal law," Edward says to me. "Too many dirty people in the world."
I believed him.