Chpt. 14 TPOV:
A sound of whimpering or crying wakes me with a start; I immediately sit up trying to take in my surroundings. The room is pitch dark, I can barely make out the light coming in from the window next to the bed. Immediately I glance next to me, relieved to see Ana and Christian sound asleep. I slip out of bed and go in search of the noise I heard. It's only when I go to turn on the bathroom light that I realize the reason the bedroom was so dark; the electricity is out.
"No….Stop….Please…." I rush back into the room at the sound of Ana's voice.
"Ana, baby wake up," Ana is tossing and turning in bed, fisting the sheets tightly. The moment Christian reaches out to touch her, she jumps. She literally jumps and moves herself to the far corner of the bed, as far away from Christian as she can possibly get without falling off the bed. She brings her legs up to her chest, hugging them as she rocks back and forth whimpering.
"Go find flashlights," Christian whispers.
"Ana…you're safe, no one is going to hurt you," I hear him softly tell her as I move towards the hallway closet.
"Don't touch me!" I hear her gasp and my heart breaks. I quickly grab two flashlights, thankfully both have fresh batteries in them and head back into the bedroom. Christian has moved so he's sitting in front of her now, but her head is against her arms not even looking at him. The amount of anger going through me right now is like nothing I've ever felt before; I want to literally kill the bastard who hurt her.
"Ana, baby, you're safe," I try to assure her as I approach the bed. I place one of the flashlights on the bed next to her, turned on, hoping the light will help her. I place the other flashlight on the night stand next to the bed, pointing towards the ceiling so it will light up the room.
"Make it stop…please," she whispers her voice barely audible.
"What can we do Ana?" Christian moves a little closer to her on the bed while I gently sit on the bed next to her.
"Hold me…" she begs, the words fucking killing me.
"Of course, Ana," I lay my hand on top of hers cautiously, waiting for her to push me away. She tenses under my touch but doesn't pull away. I hate whatever is making her react this way right now, but I'm thankful that at least she's allowing me to touch her in this small way.
I don't know how long we sit there, with both Christian and I holding her hands, but no one says a word. Eventually her breathing evens out, but with her head still down I can't tell if she's sleeping or if she's coming off the adrenaline rush from the nightmare.
"Do you want to lay down with us Ana?" Christian asks.
She nods, just barely, but it's there. Christian gets up and moves the blankets down while I approach Ana slowly. Just before touching her, I softly let her know that I'm going to move her, hoping not to startle her. She doesn't answer but doesn't object when I slide my arm under her legs and the other around her back. I lift her just enough off the bed and move her back to where she was laying between us. She rolls to her side, with her back to me just as Christian pulls the blankets over us. She reaches behind her and grasps my hand, squeezing it tightly. She pulls me closer to her, although I'm hesitant I slowly move closer to her. With her back pressed against mine, I can still feel the tension radiating through her body. I wish like hell there was something I could do to make it go away.
"What can we do Ana?" I repeat Christian's earlier question.
"Just hold me, please," she whispers.
I look over at Christian just as he slips into bed next to her; I have no doubt that the tension and anger in his eyes match what's already in mine. Christian slowly moves closer to Ana; I know he's just as cautious as I was, worried how she's going to react. I think we're both worried that lying between us, with both of us this close to her, is going to be too much. It was only moments ago she was refusing to let us touch her. Ana suddenly lets go of my hand to pull Christian even closer to her. I wrap my arm around her waist, anchoring her to me.
"Are you okay Ana?" Christian asks.
"I'm better now," she admits but it doesn't go unnoticed that she doesn't exactly answer his question.
"We'll never let anyone hurt you again Ana," I promise her.
I have no idea who hurt her, but I know between myself and Christian that he will never get close to her again. Ana doesn't respond, but I slowly feel the tension leave her. Eventually she relaxes between us with her head on Christian's arm and her hand in mine against her leg. After a few minutes, her breathing steadies, the toll of the nightmare finally hitting her. Unfortunately, there's no way I'm going to be able to sleep. I need to know what happened to her and who the fuck hurt her.
"We need to find out who did this to her," Christian whispers after enough time has passed that we're both certain that Ana is sound asleep and we won't wake her.
"I know."
"I'm going to kill the bastard."
"You and me both."
We take turns sleeping, one of us constantly awake to keep an eye on Ana. I think we're both expecting her to have another nightmare. The only comfort I have right now is that even in her sleep she's still holding my hand. Considering her reaction when Christian tried to touch her right after her nightmare, the fact that she's lying between us touching both of us means more than she'll know.
When the alarm goes off only a couple of hours later, Christian and I both slip out of bed to start our day. By the time I finish in the shower, Ana and Christian are sitting at the table drinking coffee. Despite the interrupted sleep last night, surprisingly Ana doesn't look as tired as I expected her to. Before getting my own cup of coffee, I lean in and kiss her.
"I was in foster care for about a month when I was younger," Ana says the moment I sit down catching me by surprise. By the look in Christian's eyes I can tell he's just as taken back by her announcement as I am. I expected Ana to put off this conversation, to not want to discuss what her nightmare was about. I expected to have to try to convince her to talk to us, to tell us what happened to her and who hurt her. What I hadn't expected was for her to willingly open up about it, to want to talk about it the moment the three of us were together this morning. I know when it comes to my nightmares the last thing I want to do is talk about it.
"My mom…she wasn't well," Ana sighs. "What I learned when I was older was that she had bipolar disorder; I knew she took medication but when I was younger I had no idea what it was for. She had these crazy mood swings…one day she would show up at my school, pull me out early and we would spend the day doing something unexpected. Whether it was driving hours away to find a new adventure or hitting a local movie theater for an all day movie marathon. Then there were days when she was the complete opposite; she wouldn't get out of bed all day, she wouldn't even wake me to get to school on time. It was as if she was two different people and each day you had no idea which one you were going to get."
"Ana," I reach out and take her hand in mine trying to offer her some comfort because I have no idea what to say.
"I would come home from school and it would be like walking on egg shells," she admits. "Some days she would snap and yell for no reason. Other days she would be in the kitchen baking home made cookies from scratch. There was no predicting what you would walk into. One day…I came home and she was still in bed, which wasn't all that unusual. Even though she always declined, on days like that I would make her sandwich for dinner when I made my own and bring it into her room. That day though I couldn't wake her which had never happened before. There was an empty bottle of pills on the bed next to her."
"Fuck Ana," Christian mumbles.
"She later told me that she had accidentally taken too many pills because she was having trouble sleeping," Ana says.
"That wasn't the case though," I say rather than ask the realization hitting me of what happened.
"No," she shakes her head. "I called 911 and within a few minutes my house was flooded with people I didn't know. An ambulance took her and eventually a social worker came to pick me up. My mother had no family, her parents were deceased and she had been an only child; it was just me and her."
"They put you in foster care," Christian says.
"I was sent to a home that had a bunch of kids," she continues after a few minutes of silence. "I couldn't even tell you how many kids were there or how many were foster kids. I shared a small room with four other girls; I remember there being at least two other bedrooms for the kids. If you…when they thought…"
"It's okay Ana," I move my chair closer to her and rub her back. Christian moves his chair in front of her placing his leg between hers.
"When you did something wrong, you were…punished," she takes a deep breath before continuing. "It didn't matter what you did or even if you actually did it, you were punished."
"How?" I ask.
"How did they punish you?" Christian growls.
"There was this…closet downstairs in the basement," her body shivers as she closes her eyes obviously remembering. "They would lock you in it..."
"There wasn't a light in there," her fear of the dark suddenly making a little more sense now.
"No," a tremor goes through her again. "It was dark…so dark you couldn't see your own hand in front of you. The entire basement was dark, but not as dark as that closet. It was one of those old houses with an unfinished basement where the pipes leaked and you knew there were probably mice living in the corners. The small windows that were once there had been boarded up for probably years."
"And they sent you there?" Christian asks.
"They sent a bunch of us there," she nods.
"Did they…." Her reaction to us touching her last night still haunts me.
"Before they would let you back upstairs," she whispers before closing her eyes. "the…Phil or one of us older sons would come downstairs. They would….they would touch you-"
"I'm going to fucking kill them," Christian barks.
"Fuck Ana…" I wrap my arms around her trying to comfort her.
"They threatened that if we told anyone that they would…rape us and then kill us," she whispers.
"Fucking bastards," I hiss.
"Ana…I'm so fucking sorry," Christian says.
"I was only there a month or so," she shrugs. "The other kids though…they had been there a lot longer. The social worker came by one day and told me I was going home. My mom had been released from the psychiatric hospital and I guess they deemed she was able to take care of me again."
"How old were you Ana?" I ask.
"12-"
"Fuck!" Christian suddenly stands and starts pacing the room. I know what he's feeling because right now it's taking everything in me not to run from this apartment and find the bastards who did this to her. I have no idea how I would find them, but when you're this angry your mind doesn't worry about those things. All I know is I feel like I need to do something; that they need to pay for what they did to my Ana.
"I told my mom what happened after I had been home for a little while," she says. "She immediately took me to the social worker's office but they didn't believe me. They said that those people had been foster parents for years and that if something like that had been going on other kids would have complained."
"You're fucking kidding," I growl.
"My mother packed us up and left that day, with no job or anything, she moved us out of the state. She apologized over and over again…she kept saying it was her fault. She swore that day things would be different; that I would never be put in that situation again. That she would change."
"Did she?" I ask.
"Yes and no," she sighs. "She never tried to kill herself again, thank God. But she would frequently go off her medication and the mood swings would return. When I was older I recognized the signs more; I knew when she was manic and when she was depressed. No matter how depressed she got though, she never…took too many pills or put herself in the position that I would be taken away again."
"Fuck Ana, I'm so sorry you had to go through that," I lift her from her chair and carry her to the living room couch sitting down with her on my lap.
"I want to kill the bastards that did that to you Ana," Christian falls onto the couch next to us taking her hand in his.
She doesn't say a word; her head rests on my shoulder and her body molds into mine. Even with my fucked up childhood, I'd take that any fucking day over what Ana went through. The system that was supposed to protect her, failed her. They allowed a sick pervert and his children to molest the children they were charged with caring for. Where the fuck was his wife when all of this was going on? Did she really just ignore what was happening under her own roof? There's no way she didn't know what was going on.
"They're never going to touch you again Ana, I promise you that," I assure her.
"I know," she whispers.
"Did you ever see any of them again?" Christian asks.
"No, we left the state and never went back," she answers.
"Thank fuck for that," he says. "I promise you Ana if I ever get my hands on them I'll fucking kill them for what they did to you."
"Don't Christian," she puts her other hand on top of his. "They're not worth it."
"You're fucking worth it Ana," I argue.
"You hurt them and then I lose you…possibly both of you," she counters. "They're not worth us…losing what we have."
Damn….as much as I hate to admit she has a point.
"If they come near you, if they so much as look at you….they're done," Christian hisses.
"Christian, I can't lose either of you…I need you both too much."
"You won't baby," he assures her.
Christian sits back on the couch and pulls her legs so they lay across his. I don't know how long we sit like that; I can't even consider moving even though I know we need to head into the office today. By some weird coincidence both Christian and I didn't have anything scheduled until our meeting with Elliot and Ana this afternoon. We both planned on stopping by different job sites before going into the office, but nothing was more important than Ana right now.
"Shit, you guys are going to be late!" Ana quickly sits up on my lap.
"It's fine Ana," I assure her.
"We didn't have anything that couldn't be rescheduled," Christian assures her.
"I'm sorry I didn't-"
"Don't apologize," I interrupt her.
"Still-"
"It's fine Ana, this…you were more important," Christian argues.