AN: I apologize profusely about the delay... My friend has some problem with Internet and her chager apparently, so it's kinda difficult to keep in touch. Her is what I wrote, nowhere near what she can do with that, but I'm still posting it so that you can see where the story goes. I'll replace it by her edited chapter as soon As I get it.
Sorry again for the delay!
Jess stood up and began pacing.
"Due to his age, he wasn't going to school*, so he didn't have to be discreet. Moreover, who would ever suspect a cop with Honors?
"That fatal day, she was driving Kael to the association, and that bastard blamed his son for that. Deeming that if it were not for him, his wife would still be alive. While beating him, he never stopped yelling that, over and over again. At the time, Kaelig was very advanced, and he almost mastered lip-reading. When you're being yelled at with the same words, you know what they mean. So he was beating him up, then shutting him down in a room without light, and then that son of a bitch went merrily back to work, where everyone was looking up to him. He was not a drunk, nor a drug addict. He was just a controlling motherfu…a controlling jerk that, not able to control his wife anymore, decided to take it out on his four-year-old son. His poor four-year-old who never asked any of this and was way too weak to defend himself…"
She sat down at Kael's head, stroking away the hair on his forehead.
"I was worried about not seeing him, so I went to his house, and arrived at a bad time. The door was unlocked, I suppose he thought that, with everyone knowing he was a cop, he was taking no risk. I barged into the room after hearing cries and ended up on a scene that would never quit my mind.
"Kael was on the floor, whimpering, not having strength, or permission maybe, to do more. Standing, his father had a belt in his hand and was slamming it down on his back, alternating between whipping him and punching him.
"I don't know what I was thinking, or if I was thinking for the matter. I just know that a moment I was standing by the door, and the next, I was over Kael's form, the belt in a hand and having just received a nasty punch on the back. That's when I understood that this wasn't just pretend. I mean, I was sixteen, and even I wanted to cry out with the blow I just received. I couldn't even imagine what it could have been on Kael's weaker body.
"The cop understood right away. He ran for the door and locked it, and I used that time to check over Kael, unfortunately not for long. The father dragged me by my arm in another room, slamming shut the door of the room we just left. And then that it became weird. As angry as he seemed during the beating, he was totally cool and relaxed, but very assertive while talking to me. I suppose this is how a cop is during an interrogation. I was in a daze, I don't think I listened to him at first. Then I caught the words 'forget' and 'never coming again' and I exploded. He didn't expect that. I sure as hell wouldn't let him beat his son – his son for God's sake! – and turn my back as if I hadn't seen a thing. He slapped me, then had me up the wall, a hand around my neck. That's when we came to the most bizarre and insane deal I'd ever made."
She looked at Becker who had sat up since she left him, pleading with her eyes to understand her and not to judge her. She looked away.
"I didn't want Kael to be beaten ever again, but I didn't stand a chance against the highly decorated cop that was unfortunately his father. He, on the other hand, did not want me to arouse suspicions. We…agreed for him not to beat Kael ever again, in exchange for my silence and my…" she trailed off.
"Your?" Becker asked, worried about the outcome of said agreement.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
"…and my being available when he had some steam to blow off."
The soldier tensed, afraid to understand what she just hinted at.
"Kael was given the right to come to the association as often as before" Jess resumed with a steady voice, "and I was in charge of bringing him there and bringing him back home. Of course, as soon as most of his bruises had faded away, as not to give anything away. When I went back to his home, he was led in his room as usual, and I was taking his place for whatever the bastard wanted. Sure, he had to be cautious with where exactly he struck, but he could go at it way stronger than with his son, I could take it."
"He didn't…" the captain could bring himself to ask it.
Cocking her head to the side, Jess made for the first time contact with Becker's eyes, not understanding.
"Oh! You mean… No, absolutely not! His fix, that was power, not that kind of power, no. He didn't… No! He was… seeing us as living punching bags, not…that way. He had normal relationships with women apart from beating us up. He never touched us for something other than slapping, whipping or else, fortunately."
"'Fortunately'?" Becker thought bitterly.
He was more and more enraged and horrified about what had happened to Jess. As a soldier, his first thought had always been protecting the weakest, and sometimes the strongest (the latter often against their wishes). He was proud of his uniform, reminder of the protecting action he was always taking. As he had told Matt, 'uniforms promote public confidence', that was part of the reason he didn't want him and his men to go in the field without them. As a soldier, it was his duty to help, and not use the power he had to turn it against people.
He was revolted – no, he did not think there was a word strong enough to express what he felt – that a police officer, a LEO, could use his position and his strength to break down people that certainly did not deserve it. His fists were clenched, wanting to punch something – something, and positively not someone – but didn't want to spook any of the witnesses. They had seen enough violence to last a lifetime.
On second thoughts, he really wanted to hit someone, and that someone was the bastard who had hid under the police uniform to commit those crimes.
He knew he was sometimes overprotecting the others, his colleagues mainly, and not only because he was paid for it. But there and then, he could not find his feelings being too strong about his hate of the guy. He hurt Jess, and a child. Like Jess, he could not comprehend how a man could ever hit his own blood. Parents were supposed to protect their children. Not beat them.
His strength had always been his greatest fear. He was trained as a soldier, and that meant he knew how to hurt. While exercising his skill, he was always scared, more like terrified of going overboard, of not seeing the line between necessary force and what was after. He knew some of his teammates during his time in the Special Ops didn't have any remorse about roughing up a prisoner, or unnecessarily barging in all guns blazing, just for the show. Just to prove to themselves and others they were strong. Scratch that: that they were stronger.
The very difference between duty and right: some often turned their duty to protect into a right to be violent.
He was looking at Jess, and Kael. Though Jess could show real demonstrations of powerful will, she wasn't any less weak physically, with her petite body and lean figure. And he could not even imagine how she had been three years ago, when she had willingly given into this monster's wish to save another life, when she had let herself be broken physically and had accepted someone else's dominance over her flesh and bones, not saying anything to anyone. He could not imagine the state she probably had been in right after one of their sessions, battered but showing a strong figure, protecting Kael. It was not fair. She should not have had to endure all of this, neither did Kael. They should not have had to comply with this man's violence. There should have been someone to see this, someone to take care of this. Heck, if it had been him, he would have taken them both on the other side of the planet in a blink, not caring about the consequences. Probably waiting with his favorite gun guarding the door, reading to shoot if he were to catch sight of one single hair of this man.
Jess seemed totally lost in contemplation of the young boy, most likely remembering all those times she had wished there was someone to get the both of them out of a situation they should not have been involved in in the first place. That was why the soldier was surprised to hear the sound of her voice once again.
"I could take it, I really could. I thought it was no big deal, Kaelig was safe and sound. I was protecting him and that's all that mattered. If people noticed things, I would say I got into a little fight with boys, and no one thought otherwise, I always wanted to prove myself I was the strongest, so wrestling around was a habit. But Kael wouldn't open up. It was… it was as if the situation hadn't changed. I didn't understand it.
"Until the day I went to pick up Kael a bit earlier than expected. How could I have been so blind? How could I ever believe that a son of… like him could ever respect such a deal.
"You know what I thought at that very moment? It's very childish, but that's what I thought: 'he cheated. We had an agreement, and he cheated'. At the moment, it may be awful to say, but I wasn't thinking about Kael under his blows, I was thinking that I had been had by a cheater, something that had never happened to me before. He freaking cheated.
"Then I heard another whimper that brought me back to reality. I had to act differently. I knocked at the door, as if I hadn't seen a thing, took Kael to the association, and his father was none the wiser. I brought him in as usual, we played as usual, we stayed the whole day as usual. But when came the time to bring him back to the monster, I didn't. I took off with him."
Becker stared at her, shocked. Jess was still stroking Kael's forehead, as if she had not just said she attempted – pardon, managed – to kidnap a four-year-old boy with a cop father.
"I couldn't count on my friends to help me, I didn't want to involve them. I didn't want to involve anyone but me and Kael. I had that perfect plan in my head, I had the whole day to think things through. I went to an ATM to get all the cash I needed in once, so that they could not track me with my withdrawing money. I checked us in a motel on the opposite side of the city, under false names, waiting to have a better solution. I bought food, enough to last a few day, but easily transportable. I was waiting the morrow to get to the airport and get the first plane out of here, as far as possible, where he could finally be safe. I think at the moment I didn't think there would be consequences, what I was doing was right, no one could say otherwise. I was righting a wrong. I had planned all of this.
"I hadn't planned that his father would be intelligent enough to know I had taken off with his personal punching bag so quickly. I hadn't planned he would be resourceful enough to send an AMBER alert and get his teams moving. I hadn't planned on all the little traces I left here and there thanks to CCTV and our description. I hadn't planned that, as a cop, he would beat me on all fields.
"Not nearly five hours after we had exited the center, he found us. I was desperate. I didn't want Kael to go back, or him beating me again, him lying to me about not beating him. I wasn't thinking straight. I told him I would tell everyone, absolutely everyone, that it would not be a secret anymore, and that Kael would finally be freed of him.
"That's when he drew his gun on me."
AN: *Wikipædia says that in England, unlike France, "Full-time education is compulsory for all children aged between 5 and 16 (inclusive)". Kael being four at the time, I supposed he wasn't going to school when his problems began.