Angel: No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?

Buffy: Me.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Becoming

I can do this. I can be tough, and strong, and tell the truth even when I would rather curl up and die somewhere. "Yes. I can tell you about that day."

"Good. Start wherever you feel comfortable."

I could start on our way to White Castle, when we first saw Lily, but I knew that he didn't really want me to start there. He wanted me to start back in the basement, when Kurt and I talked. It makes me look a little bad, like maybe I had wanted to run away from home, but the truth is going to come out anyway, and it's better for him to ask the questions instead of the defense. That way he can kind of control things and make a good impression on the jury. Kurt always says that you only get one chance to make a good impression, so I better make a good one.

"It was a Friday, so I had school first thing, which was kind of school. You know, not that great. So after school Kurt took me to his house, and we split up. He went downstairs and I stayed in the kitchen."

"Finn, I'm going to stop you there and get a little clarification. When you say Kurt took you to his house, do you mean the place where you all lived?"

My face felt hot, and I knew that I was blushing. "Yeah, I meant our house. Mom and I had just moved in with them on that Sunday, so it was still kind of hard to think of it as belonging to all of us."

I was messing up already and we hadn't even gotten to the hard stuff yet. Think, Finn, and quit being so stupid. "Mom wanted to go out on a date with Burt, which usually meant that Kurt and I had to stay home. She didn't like us going places when she was out, because she thought we might get in trouble and not be able to get an adult to help. I thought she was being mean, but I guess she was right."

He nodded, which I'm pretty sure means that I should keep going. "But I talked her into letting me go out with Puck for the night. We were just going to go bowling and get a hamburger. That was it." No matter how many times I say those words, they're still really hard to believe. With all the dumb stuff that I've done, you would think that it should have been a pretty tame night. "She made me promise to be back by 1."

"Where was Kurt during all this?"

"In the basement, which was our bedroom, too. We had to share. I asked him to go with us, but he didn't want to." It had been a really not sincere offer, but at least I had done it. "So I guess he was just going to stay home alone and do whatever."

"Can you back up and tell me a little about how things were going with Kurt?"

My face felt hot again, but this time I was because I was ashamed of myself rather then just being embarrassed. I acted like a rampaging douche to Kurt. I mean, yeah, he acted like one, too, but that w as no excuse. "Not very good." Then I thought of something. "I mean, not very well. I shouldn't say good."

Someone snickered, which was kind of mean of them. I was trying to be smarter here. "I didn't want to live there, period. I liked it when it was just Mom and me, and I didn't know Burt hardly at all. Definitely not enough to want to live with him. I knew Kurt better, but I didn't want to share a room with him. But nobody asked me. They didn't even tell me before it happened. They just made it a big surprise and all of my stuff was packed." Even now, it still hurt that they had done that.

"Anyway, it wasn't really Kurt at all. Well, it kind of was, but not mostly. Mostly it was just that I was mad at everyone and I hated them all. Puck was always mad at his Mom, too, so we were just going to get away from it all for a little bit." I took another deep breath, because I did want them to know what I had wanted things to be better. "We were going to watch a movie when I came home, though, even if he didn't want to go with us to bowl."

"Did the two of you ever talk about what was going on between you?"

"Yeah, we did that night. I told him that I wanted some space. Not just space in our room, even though I needed that, too, but him just backing the hell off and letting me get settled in instead of being up my ass all the time. He said that he would." Thinking about what I had wanted then and what I wanted now was what Kurt likes to call ironic. "He said he would. He wanted us to be a good family, just like I did. I just wanted us to be normal. That's pretty much all about Kurt." It was nowhere near all about Kurt, not even a tiny little bit, but it was all that I wanted to say about him.

"All right. Go ahead and tell us about where you and Mr. Puckerman went that night."

I didn't tell him that Puck would have hated being called 'Mr. Puckerman', even though I wanted to. "We were going to go bowling. We didn't really have enough money for it, but Mr. Flannery will let us bowl free if we stay after closing. Closing was at midnight, so I would still get back in time. Only there weren't any open lanes, so we were going to get a burger and then come back."

"I, um…can I have drink of water, please?" I wasn't really thirsty, but Samantha told me that I could ask for one if I needed to stall them.

It wasn't that I didn't know what to say, because I did. Everything that happened that night is really, really clear in my brain. I just wanted a chance to remember Puck the way he had been that last night, because it was a good memory. We weren't fighting, and he wasn't acting like an asshole. It was just him and me, the way it had been when we were kids. We had been bros for forever, and I still can't believe sometimes that he's never coming back.

I took a few sips and tried to calm myself down. This was the worst part, even worse then what Joseph did to me in the bedroom. "Puck wanted White Castle, so we were going there. It was dark out, and we almost didn't see the lady on the road. Puck probably would have gone right by her, but I made him stop. She was holding a little baby, and I thought maybe her car had broken down or something."

Every time I start to think that maybe Lily wasn't as bad as Joseph, I remind myself about that moment. She didn't have to get us to stop. She knew full well that Joseph wouldn't take both of us, and that the one that he didn't pick would have to die. Maybe she even knew which one of us it would be as soon as we stopped. But she let us pull over anyway. That's how I knew she's as evil as he is.

"She was so nice when we stopped, and kept thanking us and telling us that she had a flat tire and couldn't get it fixed herself. I've changed lots of tires, and I thought it would only take a few minutes. Then we could get burgers. Then we saw the guy in the drivers seat."

"Is he in the courtroom today, Finn? Can you point to him?"

I pulled my shoulders back and pointed at Joseph. "Him." He shook his head a little, but didn't say anything. It scared me. "He's the man I saw."

"Let the records state the witness pointed to the defendant. What happened when you saw him?"

"I started getting freaked out, because why wasn't he changing the tire? At least he could have stayed with the baby. I looked over at Puck, and his eyes were telling me to get back in the truck and we would run like hell. I was backing up, but I was still looking at the guy so I saw him point at me instead of Puck. I saw that he had something in his other hand, but I didn't know that it was a gun until he shot Puck in the head with it."

For a second, my vision got funny, and I all I could see was the way Puck had looked without most of the top of his head. You know in the movies when someone gets shot, they always manage to live long enough to gasp out that they love you, and ask forgiveness for the things they did wrong? Even when someone gets shot in the head, there's this perfectly round hole, but everything else looks fine. Let me tell you something: that's not what it looks like in real life. In real life there are brains everywhere, and blood is all over the car and bones and teeth are in places they shouldn't be.

I looked at a corner one of the desks until I could get a mental image of Puck looking ok again. He even did that head jerk thing that he always did because he thought he was too cool to just nod like the rest of us did. I always thought it looked stupid, but Puck never really cared what anyone else thought.

I drank some more water and dug my fingernails into my leg until I could feel bruises forming. "I just froze, because I couldn't believe what had happened. I mean, shit like that doesn't happen to real people. By the time I thought I should run, Lily had already put one of those shock guns to my neck and zapped me with it really hard. I would have fallen down, but she grabbed me and pushed me into the car."

"Finn, I want you to pause there, ok? I'm going to put up a picture of the scars that were left on your neck. They perfectly match a Stun Master Multi-Function Stun Gun found in the house. That stun gun is exhibit 7a." He held it up in a Ziploc baggie, and I couldn't help but flinch. Being shocked with that thing was like having the worse muscle cramp ever, only it was all over my body. I actually thought I was going to die. Then I realized that I wasn't, because they just would have shot me like they did to Puck. They wanted me for something worse. Once I figured that out, I started hoping I would die, because it would be easier for me.

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to keep going or wait for him to ask another question, so, for once, I kept my mouth shut. "What happened once you were in the car."

"I don't know. The stun gun didn't knock me out, right away, so I remember the car starting and them arguing a little, but I finally either passed out or fell asleep. When I woke up again it was light out, but I didn't know if it was Saturday morning or Sunday morning or what. I was laying down in the backseat of the car, and the first thing I saw was the baby on the floorboard. It was a baby doll instead of a real baby. I was trying to sit up, but my muscles were stiff and my one arm was asleep, so I couldn't. Lily saw me trying and made Joseph pull over on the side of the road. When we stopped, she pulled me up and gave me some water. I was shaking really hard, and I couldn't really hold it, so she had to help me. She kept asking if I was hungry or needed the bathroom, like she was my friend or my Mom or something. I asked her to bring me home, and she told me that we were going home. But I knew that she didn't mean back to my real house. As soon as I could hold the water bottle by myself, we got back on the highway."

"Did you make more stops?" Mr. Robison was trying to keep me on track.

"Yeah, we had to stop for gas and food and stuff. But they didn't let me get out of the car. When I had to pee, they made me do it in a milk jug. Joseph did make Lily get out of the car and go inside when I did it, so she wouldn't see my private parts, but it was still humiliating. Food was from the drive thru, but when we got up close, Lily would pull out the stun gun again and put it against my neck. She told me that I could still try, but that even if I got someone's attention, they would kill me before help could get there. So I didn't do anything."

He nodded at me, and I tried to keep going. "Mostly, they sat in the front seat and I sat in the back. So I thought that maybe I could open the door on the highway and jump out. Yeah, I might get splattered on the road, but it would still be better then whatever they were planning on doing to me. I kept hoping that there would be a big traffic jam, so someone would see me trying to get attention and help, but there wasn't."

"Do you know how long you were in the car?"

"Two days. We drove all night, too. That was when they started fighting. Lily was mad and wanted to stop at a hotel, and Joseph said that they couldn't, because then what would they do with me? They thought I would start screaming if they brought me in the room with them, but they couldn't leave me in the car, either. They were right. I would have screamed in the room, and I would have kicked the windows out if they left me in the car. But I didn't get the chance. I did try to tell them that they could just leave me somewhere and I would find my own way home, but he gave me this really nasty look and I shut my mouth pretty quick."

They kept getting louder and louder, so I finally laid down in the seat again and just pretended I was somewhere else. They were still fighting when I fell asleep. I just kept waking up and falling asleep for that night and the next day. I watched the road signs, so I knew what state we were in and everything, but I couldn't keep track of all the highways we were on. I knew when we were close to their house, because they both started getting really worked up. I knew that he would have to let me out of the car at the house, and I would have a chance to run then."

"Is that how it worked out?" He was gentle, but I know that I still have to answer.

"No. The garage was attached to the house, and they shut the garage door before they let me out of the car. When Joseph finally opened the car door, I rushed him and knocked him down just like I would in football. Then I ran for the door. I was faster then he was, but when I got to the door, it was solid metal and had the sort of lock you need a key for. By the time I got turned around, both Joseph and Lily were in the house and they had that door locked, too. I was trapped. I thought that maybe there would be a push button to put the garage door up, like at home, but there wasn't. No windows, no anything. And it was hot in there. The worst part was, I could see them inside, laughing at me. I couldn't get out and I wasn't about to put on a show for them to watch any more, so I just sat down. I didn't cry, because I was too mad."

Yeah, because that's the important part of this. Not the murder, not the kidnapping, not any of what followed, but the fact that you didn't cry. Good priorities, Finn.

Right this second, the fact that I hadn't cried like a little bitch right then was the only thing I had to hold on to. "They left me out there for a long time."

"Do you know how long?"

"Not exactly, but it was late in the morning when we got there, and it was dark when they finally let me come inside. It was really cold, and all I had on was a T-shirt. Lily came out and gave me a water bottle. She said that if I cooperated, it would be easier for me and that nobody wanted to hurt me. I took the water, but I went all the way to the other corner of the garage to get away from her. So she went back inside."

"I thought they would probably make me spend the night out there, but it wasn't very long before Joseph came out. He had the gun with him, and he pointed it at me so I wouldn't get any ideas about running. Then he let me come in the house. It looked like a normal house. Nicer then the one Mom and I lived in, anyway. But I didn't really get to see much, because he made me go over to this little room. I didn't want to go in, but he pushed the gun on my back, so I did it anyway. Then he closed the door and locked it behind him."

He held up his hand. "Finn, I'm going to stop you again to show the jury a picture. Is this the same room he put you in?"

I had to look for a minute, because I wasn't sure. It was the right shape and color, but it was very clean. But the radiator in the corner looked familiar. I looked more carefully, and nodded. "Yeah, that's it."

It felt strange to see it, and to know that other people saw it, too. Everything that had happened at their house was a secret, right down to me being there at all. Now anyone could look and see the private space where I had lived.

"Just to let the court know, the room in question is 6 feet long and 3 feet 10 inches wide. That's fewer square feet then the average bathroom. Finn, I want you to describe the room for us."

I had been about to do that before he interrupted me. "There was a mattress on the floor, but a small one. It didn't have a bottom sheet on it, or blankets or even a pillow. There was a five gallon bucket at the end. That was it."

"Were there any windows?"

"No."

"Was there a light?"

"Yeah, there was one up on the ceiling. But the switch for it was on the outside, and he turned it off. So I was stuck in the dark."

He nodded. "What did you do then?"

"I tried the doorknob, but I couldn't get it to unlock. So I finally just laid down and went to sleep. I couldn't see, even after I gave my eyes plenty of time to adjust."

There was more that I could have said, but I stopped there. If he wanted me to say them, he would have to ask directly.

Luckily, he didn't. "Tell me what happened the next morning."

"I woke up when he unlocked the door. I didn't know what time it was, but he came in and stood there in the doorway staring with me. I thought that anything I said would be wrong and make him mad at me, so I stared back and didn't say anything. He kept staring at me like a wolf stares at a steak. It scared me."

He nodded, which I'm pretty sure meant I was supposed to keep going. "He asked if he could come in, which was stupid, because it was his house. But I told him sure, he could some in. He looked at the mattress and he asked me what I had done with the sheets and pillow. He acted really surprised when I told him that there weren't any. So he told me that he would bring me some, and breakfast and something to drink, too. He was really nice to me, like I would forget what had happened the night before. He said that it was Lily's fault that I didn't have any sheets because she forgot to get new ones after the last person left."

"Objection!" Suddenly everyone was screaming, and I came really close to doing it too, because it scared me so badly. They warned me the defense attorney could object at any time, but I had gotten too caught up in the story and I forgot. Both lawyers were arguing with the judge, which meant that the rest of us had to wait until they were done fighting.

Since I didn't have anything else to do, I looked for my family. They were exactly where they said they would be. Mom looked like she wanted to cry, but she nodded at me. Burt gave me a thumbs-up, which made me feel like I was at least doing something right. Kurt mouthed 'I love you' at me. I smiled at him, but I couldn't do anything back.

I wanted to look at the jury, to see if they were believing me or not. I didn't, though, because if they looked like they didn't, I wouldn't be able to keep going. This wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be. I had been worried for no reason.

You haven't been cross-examined yet. You haven't even had to talk about any of the hard stuff. Idiot.

I had already talked about Puck dying, and nothing that Joseph had done to me was as bad as that. While I was thinking about that, Mr. Robison came back. "Finn, you can only talk about things that pertain to your own case, not any previous cases that may or may not have happened. Do you understand?"

Um….no. I shook my head, so he tried again. "What I'm saying is that you can't talk about anyone but yourself. If you didn't actually see anyone else, you can't talk about them. Understood?"

This time I got it, so I nodded. "Understood."

"Ok, so what else did Joseph talk about?"

"Not much. He brought me breakfast and I ate in the room. Then he asked me if I needed anything else. I wanted him gone, so I told him no and he left. It was like that for the next few days. I didn't try to fight him, and he brought me a nightlight so I wouldn't be stuck in the dark all the time, but I could unplug it if I wanted some dark."

"Do you know how many days it was?"

"Nor right then. I was trying to keep track, but because there were no windows or clocks or anything, it was hard to be sure. Sometimes I would fall asleep, and only think I had been asleep for an hour or two, but he would bring me another breakfast and say it was a new day and I couldn't know for sure. Or he would bring me what he called lunch, but I would look past him in the hall and it would be dark out. So I knew he was lying about stuff, but not how much."

"Did he let you out eventually?"

"Yeah. He didn't have the gun that time, but he did have the Taser. He made me walk in front of him with it touching my back. First we went to the window, so he could show me that there weren't any houses close by. I couldn't even see any far away ones. Then he showed me the alarm system, and how it would go off if I opened any of the doors. He would catch me before I could get help. I was really, really, trapped and he wanted to make sure that I knew it. Once he was sure that I did, he put the Taser away and let me go pick out anything I wanted from the fridge. I got a Sprite. Then Lily came in and said 'Hi, Finn. Do you want to watch some TV'. I never told them my name, so that freaked me out."

"Where had Lily been since the three of you arrived at the house? Was this the first time you saw her?"

"Yeah. I don't know where she was before that." Lily was kind of hard to explain. When she was there, she was there, but most of the time she was just not around. It was…yeah, I don't know.

"Alright, sorry to interrupt you. Tell me what happened after that."

"Lily said they wanted to show me something, so I followed her into the living room. They had a really big TV, and they made me sit on the couch while they screwed around with the TiVo. Then it was my family on the screen, all wanting me to come home."

"How did that make you feel?"

For the first time, I felt tears starting. "Sad. I wanted to run up to the screen and touch it, just to be close to them. But I couldn't. Then I felt like a jerk because I hadn't been very nice about moving to Kurt' s house. I felt like no one loved me or was listening to me. But they did, and I could tell from the video."

"Joseph put his hand down on my shoulder and I almost screamed, because I didn't want him to go anywhere near me. He pointed at my brother Kurt and said some really, really nasty sex things about him. I don't think I should repeat them, because they were gross." If I couldn't get out of this with any dignity, at least Kurt could.

"I'm sorry, Finn, but it's important that you be clear about any threats that were made. We're trying to get the full picture of what happened, and what things were like for you."

Sorry, Kurt, I tried. "He said that if he had known the Kurt was in the house, he wouldn't have bothered with me and Puck. Um, then he said he would make me a deal. He would take me home, but only if I would agree to make a switch for Kurt. He had a total plan for it. He would take me to the school, and then I would use his cell phone to call Kurt, since mine was gone. He knew that Kurt would come running out to see me, and he could grab him from there. It probably would have worked."

I couldn't even look at Kurt. Yeah, I had told him that Joseph had talked about making the switch, but I hadn't told him that there was an actual plan made. I especially hadn't told him, and never would, that I had spent a few minutes considering it. But I couldn't do it. I might be selfish, and I might make stupid choices, but I would never, ever, put someone else through what I had gone through.

"I told him that I wouldn't help him, or let anything happen to Kurt. So he said that I had to pay a price to keep him safe. I agreed, so he sent me upstairs to take a shower. When I got out, he had taken all of my old clothes, and left me new ones. No shoes, though, so I think he was still worried that I would run. I still didn't exactly know what he wanted, but then he started asking me questions about sex. You know, if I knew about it, and if I had done it, and things like that. That was when I knew."

"Had you? Been sexually active, I mean."

"Yes. One time." One really confusing time that I still made me feel sick and confused when I thought about it. Sex should be cool between people, not to make a point to someone else. Which is another reason I'm not doing anything with Kurt yet. I want it to be because I 100% want to, not because I want to prove that I can do it without flipping out.

"He started asking if I knew how two men had sex, and I kind of did, even though I'd never actually seen it. It's not that hard to figure out." I took a deep breath, because it was hard to talk about. I know that what happened wasn't my fault, and that it happens to a lot of people, but that didn't mean I wanted to have to talk about it. "Then he asked about….um…." I wasn't sure what I was supposed to call it. I would rather die then use the term 'suck him off' in front of Mom, but I didn't know if the old lady in the jury would know what a blow job was. There's another word for it, one that starts with F, but I can't remember what it is. Screw it, someone would just have to clue her in. "He talked about blow jobs. I didn't know as much about that, but he said I could figure it out. He said to get down on my knees and do it."

"He forced you to give him oral sex?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell no?"

"Yeah. He was pushing on the back of my head, and I kept shaking my head and not opening my mouth. So he pulled my head back and smacked my mouth with the back of his hand. My lip started bleeding everywhere, but he still made me blow him. It was really bad."

Someone gasped out in the audience. I knew that it had to be someone from my family, because I kept promising them that he hadn't done anything to hurt me like that. Kurt knows that he choked me, but this was different. Not so much to me, but probably to other people.

"I don't know how long it took, but I know I could barely breathe and I ended up choking at the end. He looked at me and told me what a good job I had done, but he didn't say it in a nice way. He said it like you would tell a dog it was good. He even patted my head like a dogs." The word was degrading, which is another one that Kurt taught me. It means you not only treat someone like crap, but you make sure they know that you're looking down on them when you do it.

"That was bad enough, but then he sat down next to me, and said 'you know why we can't take you home, right?'. I didn't, and I still don't. I mean, I didn't know if it was because Mom and my family had put my picture everywhere, or because they had killed Puck, or I gave good blow jobs or even something else. But it wasn't like I was expecting him to let me go anyway, so I said that I understood. That made him really happy, and he said that since I was going to have a new life with him and Lily, I could have a new name. But I didn't want a new name, and I was scared that I might pick the wrong one so I told him that he could pick for me. He liked that even more, which was good. If he was happy, he was going to be nicer to me."

"What name did he pick?" He was trying to lead my and keep me on track.

"Jeremy." I always wondered who the original Jeremy had been. Was he their real son? Another victim? Someone else? "Jeremy Samuel Wright. That's what I was supposed to tell everyone my name was if anyone asked. After that he took me back downstairs and told Lily that I had decided to stay with them and we needed to have a celebratory dinner. She made steaks for all of us."

"Did you going along with things make it easier for you?"

"Definitely. They let me stay out and watch TV with them. When it was bedtime, Joseph said I had been such a good sport, that he was going to give me a treat. He would leave the door open if I wanted, which I really, really did. But he said that since we were still trying to get to know each other, he had to take some precautions to make sure that we all stayed safe. So he showed me a pair of handcuffs. They weren't normal handcuff, though. They were more like…." I looked over, and suddenly I couldn't help but start laughing. It probably wasn't as funny as I was making it sound, but I needed something to break the tension. "They're exactly like what he's wearing now. The chain was really long."

I wanted to ask him how it felt to be the one chained up like an animal, but I held back. Being on the stand is about more then telling the truth. If you tell the total truth, and still come across as a giant douchebag, they might still vote against you. Kurt was surprised to find out that its not about who's telling the truth at all, but I wasn't. That's why Puck got the girls and I didn't. I was honest, and I was the better choice, but he knew how to tell the better story.

"Can I have another glass of water, please?" I wasn't thirsty, but my thoughts had gotten all scattered when I started laughing and I had to get them organized again. I only took a few sips, because I don't know if I'm allowed to get down and pee, or if I just have to hold it until I'm done.

"Anyway, he pushed one side of the cuff through the radiator, so I was chained to it. But he did leave the door open, and I could see out into the hallway and part of the living room, so it was pretty cool."

"Did it hurt you?"

"Uh-huh. The handcuffs didn't really, because they weren't on too tight or anything, but my one arm got pulled up when I laid down, because the chain wasn't really long enough. The next morning I had a bruise there."

"At this point were you still asking to go home?"

"Yes. But after that day, he would look at me like he was all confused, and he would say 'but Jeremy, you are home. Remember? This is where you live.' Then he got really mad about it one time and put his fist up like he was going to hit me. After that I didn't ask any more. Once I quit asking, everything just settled down and turned into a normal day, even though it wasn't really normal." Wow, that had made me sound really stupid.

"Can you describe one of those normal days for me?"

"Sure. During the week, Joseph worked, but I don't know where. He never talked about that. He would get me up at 5:30. I hate getting up early, but I wasn't about to talk back to him. He would unlock me, and let me go use the bathroom. Lily made breakfast. She was a good cook. It was always pancakes, or waffles, or omelets. She never made us eat cold cereal or granola bars. At first, he would chain me back up when left, but he didn't always do it in my room. Sometimes he would double the chains and hook me up in the living room, so I could watch TV. Lily would bring me lunch. Her lunches were good, too. If I asked for something and she didn't have the stuff for it, she would ask Joseph to get it for me, and he usually did. If she had free time, she would come and sit with me and keep me company. There was a chair that was way out of my reach, and she would always sit there."

"Actually, Finn, I want to pause you right there and talk about Lily for a minute. Is that alright with you?"

No. I still couldn't quite figure out how I felt about Lily, and I sure as fuck didn't want to talk about her. But this wasn't really about me, so I nodded. "Ok."

"Did Lily know that Joseph had sexually assaulted you?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"How do you know?"

"He told her. After he was done the first time, and we were having dinner, he told her all about it. Like, not just that he had done it, but all the gross details. It was really embarrassing."

"What did she say about it?"

I couldn't look at him or anyone else. "She said that I sounded talented, and was he going to hog me all to himself, or was he going to share me? They talked about me like I wasn't even there."

"Did she ask you to do something sexual with her?"

"Not then. That came later. She never got close to me, then, because I think she was afraid of me. Later on, she wasn't, but then she was."

"So what other sorts of things would you do?"

"Not very much. My legs started hurting a lot after a few days. I already have growing pains, and I wasn't able to get up and walk around like I should, so I was pretty miserable. I told Joseph, and he said he was sorry, but I had to stay like that until we knew each other better."

"Did he let you loose when he came home, or did he keep you tied up then, too?"

"The first week or so he kept me tied up, but he would undo me for meals or to go to the bathroom. When it was just Lily, I had the bucket. She didn't have a key to the handcuffs."

"After dinner, I would help clear the table or wash the dishes, just like at home. Then we would watch some more TV and go to bed. I never thought I would get bored with TV, but I totally did. Did you know that you can watch Law and Order all day long, every single day? I don't even like Law and Order, but I would just go from one channel to the other, because it was that or Dora the Explorer. 11 was bedtime, and he would lock me back up in my room. All week long, that was how things worked."

"What about on the weekends?"

"Joseph was home on the weekends, so it was better and worse. Better because I wasn't chained up and I could walk around the house and explore a little bit, but worse because he was there watching me." It had been really creepy. The only place I could have any privacy at all was in the bathroom, and even that was kind of hit or miss. But I didn't want to talk about that.

"Did he make any attempt to sexually assault you again?"

Was he stupid? Of course Joseph had done it again. Why would anyone go through all the trouble of stealing another person and only make them suck him off once? "Yes. Unless he was running late, he made me to it in the mornings. He called it his wake-up call. Sometimes he would want it before bed, too, but not always."

"Did you ever ask him to stop, or tell him that you didn't want to?"

"I tried, but he didn't listen. He said that he was getting me ready for having a boyfriend someday, which was a lie. They weren't going to let me go to find a boyfriend, no matter what he made it sound like. I tried to tell him that I didn't really like boys like that, and he laughed at me again. He said that I would like boys a lot when he was done with me."

"So he was forcing you to have oral sex with him daily?" I nodded, and he looked at me. "Did he force you to have actual sexual intercourse with you?"

Honestly, I wish he had just said 'rape'. The way he said it made it sound…I don't know. It sounded like something you would read about it biology class. "Yes."

"Tell me how that happened."

"It was on a Sunday, but I'm not sure which one. I just know that he had been home the day before, and I was going to watch Family Guy that night. He was super nice to me all day. I mean, no handcuffs at all, ice cream for lunch, R rated movies. He even gave me a beer with lunch. He wanted to give me more then one, but I didn't drink the rest of them. I'm not stupid, and I knew he was trying to get me drunk. I knew why he was doing it, too."

"I just sat there getting more and more nervous, and feeling like I was going to puke at any second. By the time he actually told me to come on upstairs with him, I was actually relieved, because at least I could get it over with."

"Where was Lily when this happened? Was she in the room with you, or did she stay downstairs?"

"She stayed downstairs. She knew what he was going to do, though, because she couldn't look me in the eyes when walked by her. She didn't want me to ask he for help. I wouldn't have anyway, because I knew she wouldn't."

I tried to look as pathetic as possible when I looked up at him. "Do I really have to tell you all the details?"

"We don't have to talk about everything, but I need just a little bit more. What did he say to you after you got upstairs?"

Lots of things, all of them creepy and wrong. "He said that we had waited long enough, and that it was time for us to take the next step. I said that I wanted to wait a little longer because I didn't feel good, but he said I was just nervous."

"When we got upstairs, he sat down on the bed and told me that this could go either very good or very bad for me. If I behaved myself and made it easy, he would be gentle and we could both enjoy this. Otherwise he wouldn't be gentle, and did I know how easy it would be to hurt someone with rough sex? I don't actually, but I could guess, and I definitely didn't want to get hurt down there. I told him that I would behave, and do whatever he wanted. He made me lay down on my stomach, and then he…" I choked a little, and could barely get the words out. But I had to. Not only for me, and for Puck, but for all the other people that aren't here because of them. "That was when he raped me."

"Did it hurt?"

"Yeah." The word came out funny, more like a breath of air then a real word, but I must have been loud enough because he nodded. "It hurt a lot. I was crying before it was done" The crying was mostly because I was so humiliated and not so much because of the pain, but telling them that couldn't hurt.

That's the third (or fourth, or fifth, or maybe it's only the second) reason I'm not doing it with Kurt. I don't want to hurt him, period. And as long as we're talking about it, I definitely don't want him to hurt me.

"Finn, do you know the date that this happened?"

"No." That's one of those questions that doesn't sound important, but it really is. If it was before May 5th, I had been raped, period. If it was after, then they had to prove that I hadn't given consent. If saying no and crying wasn't proof of not consenting I'm not sure what is, but I guess that's part of the jury's job.

I do think that it was before my birthday, but I can't be sure. Living with the Wrights was like living in a fucking carnival house. They never let me just watch TV like a normal person. If they had done that, I would have been able to use the satellite to look for the date. The only thing I knew for sure was if it was a weekend or a weekday, and sometimes not even that. Sometimes I would count five days in a row that Joseph went to work, and think that the next day must be Saturday and he would be home, but he would go to work then, too. Or he would work two days in a row, and then be come for two. But if I asked, they would always tell me that he had worked only five days in a row, and then it was the weekend. They were so convincing, though, that I always ended up thinking that it was me who got confused or didn't count right.

Mr. Robison nodded at me, and I tried to think of something else to say. "After it was over, I didn't even look up. I just kept my face in the mattress and kept crying. He tried patting my back, but I jerked away from him so he just left me alone. When dinner was ready, Lily came up instead of him. She brought me a plate and sat with me while I was eating."

"Did she say anything to you about what had just happened?"

Of course she did. Neither one of them ever shut up about anything. "Yeah. She tried to make me feel better about what had happened. Like, she kept telling me that Joseph hadn't meant to hurt me, and that he felt really bad that I was crying now and why didn't I got downstairs and tell him that it was ok? He had just raped me, and it was still all about him and his feelings being hurt. Yeah, well my feelings were hurt too, and so was my ass." That hadn't sounded funny in my head, but I heard a few people snicker and realized that it kind of was. In a sick way, not a normal one, but at least I know Puck would have appreciated it.

"Finn, I need you to focus. What else did Lily say?"

"She asked if I was bleeding, or if he had hit me anywhere. So she knew what he was willing to do to me. I told her no. Then she put her hand on my back and asked if I wanted her to tell Joseph that I was really tired and needed to go to bed early. I said yeah, and she let me go back downstairs. It was really weird and unusual because she was almost never alone with me unless I was chained up. I think Joseph thought I might hurt her to try and get out of the house."

"Would you have?"

"No. He already said that she didn't have the code, and, even if she did, he was still down there. I could get out, but he had the car and could run me down. I just walked down to my room and curled up on the mattress. I wanted to be left alone, but Joseph came in with the handcuffs. It was like his version of tucking me in. I wouldn't even look at him the whole time he did it. After he was done, he sat on the side of the mattress and sighed real deep. Then he apologized."

"For raping you?"

"He didn't call it that. He said he was sorry for pushing me into it, and for not recognizing that I needed a little more time to be comfortable with the idea of us having sex. I didn't say anything to him about that, because what was I supposed to say? I just laid there and pretended I was anywhere else. He rubbed my shoulder for a minute, but I wouldn't do anything. I didn't even jerk away this time. He actually put his hands on me and rolled me over, so I had to look at him. He gave me half of a baby monitor, and told me that I could use it to call him and Lily if I needed something at night, like the bathroom. Before that, I just had to pee in the bucket if I got desperate. He gave me a soda, too. Usually he didn't give me anything to drink at night. I told him thank you, and I put the drink and walkie-talkie next to the bed. He left and didn't touch me again."

That was all I could really say about the night he first raped me, but it didn't seem like enough. I don't know why I didn't cry when I was telling them about it, because I had cried at the time, and I still sometimes cry when I think about it. But now that we were here, and at the one point in this trial that I probably should be crying, nothing was happening. I wasn't going to fake it, because everyone would probably be able to tell that I was faking.

"Finn, is there anything else you want to tell me about that night?" Mr. Robison must have thought that I needed something else, too.

My stupid brain spun and melted. Why couldn't I be more like Kurt, who always knew what to say? "I didn't want him to touch me. He knew it, too, no matter what he says."

"Thank you, Finn. What happened after that?"

"Things got weird. Well, they were already weird, but it got worse. The next morning he was extra nice when he woke me up. He was….he was almost flirty with me. Before he just told me what to do and I didn't have a choice. After we had sex, he started asking me what my opinion on stuff was. When I went out in the living room, he had bought me an X-box, and 52 games. I know, because I counted them. Good games, too, not the cheap ones and definitely the ones that were MA and Mom didn't want me playing. He said that I could play it whenever I wanted, even if he and Lily were using the TV first. Suddenly I was the most important person in the house."

"He was nicer to you?"

"Way nicer. He treated me like a boyfriend that he wanted to impress. He even started taking me out on dates. Real dates, that were outside the house. That was a week or so after he did it. I hadn't even gotten fresh air in forever, because he didn't even open the windows. You have no idea how cool it was."

"Wasn't he afraid that you would run if he let you outside?"

If you had asked me then, I would have said no. That Joseph knew everything, and had a plan for anything I might try. But now I know that that's wrong. The reason Joseph got away with what he had done for so long was that he had me too scared to even try and escape. It looks easy now, but nothing was easy there. "I think he was, so he made a bunch of rules for me to follow. He said that if I behaved myself and did exactly what he wanted, he would take me out again, but if I didn't, he would take away all my privileges."

"Tell us what sort of privileges you had by then." What he was really saying was that he wanted me to remind them what I was willing to fight to save, and how pathetic the privileges I wanted really were.

"My X-box and games. Being able to watch TV. Having Lily make me food I liked for dinner and lunch. Having the door open even when I was chained up. My walkie-talkie." They really didn't sound like much when I listed them out, but it didn't make them any less important to me.

"So he could easily make things worse for you if you didn't comply with him?"

Only in about a million ways. "Uh-huh. Before he even let me have breakfast, he sat me down in the living room, and we went over the rules. Don't move once you're in the car. Lily would sit with me in the backseat and help me keep quiet. Don't make eye contact with anyone. Don't take your hands off of your knees, period. Don't talk to anyone, not even him or Lily, unless he specifically asked. Don't do anything that might make someone look at you. Then there was the big one: don't try to get anyone to help you. If you do, we're going to have the gun with us and you won't be going back to our house period. There's a lot of desert out there."

"He actually came out and threatened your life?" He had to act all shocked, even though we both knew everything I was going to say.

"Yes. He wasn't kidding at all, I could tell. He looked at me the same way he looked at Puck right before he shot him. Just because he liked me right then didn't mean he wouldn't get rid of me if he thought he needed to. By the time we were actually ready to leave, I almost didn't want to. I was pretty freaked out."

"When I got in the car, Lily sat down next to me. She pushed my shirt up so my side was uncovered and she put the shock gun up against it. She said if I did anything to draw attention or if I moved away, she would shock me and never let me out again. I put my hands on my knees like he said to, and Joseph pulled out. He was all fake cheerful, like we were any family out for a drive. I didn't want them to think that I was going to be bad, so I just sat there and looked at the floorboards. Joseph thought that was really funny. He said 'Jeremy, come on now. We're taking this trip just for you, so you could at least pretend to enjoy it. I'm not going to be upset if you look out the window. You can even pick where we eat lunch. But we're going to have to eat in the car, so pick wisely.' I told him that I wanted McDonalds, even though I wasn't sure if I could eat anything. He did it, but first he drove around for a long time and let me look at stuff. We had to go a long time before we saw anything except a lot of red dirt, so he wasn't kidding about me not being able to get help quickly if I tried to run away." For the first time, I started getting a little choked up. Before he had taken me out, I had still hoped that someone would help me, and that I would somehow get home. But that empty desert, which was where I knew my body was going to end up, just drove home how alone I really was, and that there was no one to help, period.

"Did he get you the food?"

"Yeah. He even supersized it for me, even though he usually wouldn't. He drove us back out into the middle of nowhere so Lily wouldn't have to hold the Taser on me while we ate. I hadn't had any sort of fast food in a while, so it tasted really good. Then we went home. When we got there, Joseph asked if I had had a good time, and I told him yes and thanked him for lunch. He was always nicer to me when I was nicer to him. Then he wanted me to give him a blow job, but I was pretty much expecting he would want that, so I didn't fight him. After that, he and Lily watched some TV, and I read a book they had given me. I had to stay in the room with them and not wander, but they didn't pay any attention to me. Then it was bedtime and Joseph chained me up again. He looked at me, and he said 'see, Jeremy, how much fun we can have as a family when you behave yourself and do as you're told? This is how easy and fun things can be every day when you quit fighting me.' So basically he told me to just let him do whatever he wanted to my body, and I could get McDonalds and a car ride. I'm pretty sure that professional hookers get paid more then that."

"I didn't say that to him, though. I just nodded and pretended that I totally agreed with him. That made him really happy. He said that we couldn't go out every day, but we would go at least two or three times a week."

"Did he keep that promise as well?"

"Yes. He started talking me out more and more. At first it was with Lily, but once he saw I wasn't going to do anything it would be just us. The longer it went on, the more relaxed he got about going places where people might see me. Then he told me that, since I had been extra good for him, he would let me get out of the car at the gas station and go inside. But if I did anything to try and get someone's attention, or even if I thought about it, he would not only shoot me, but everyone in the gas station. I didn't want that to happen, so I didn't say anything to the guy behind the counter. I didn't even look at him, so Joseph wouldn't think I was getting any ideas. No one got shot, and I got to see actual people other then Joseph and Lily. It was pretty exciting."

"Finn, I'm going to stop you there for a minute. There's something else that happened about this time that we need to address before we go any further. Tell me about what happened with Lily while Joseph was at work."

I knew exactly what he wanted me to talk about, and this was going to be one of the worst parts to tell. Not because what happened was worse then anything else, but because I knew that no one was going to believe me. Kurt doesn't think that I know it, but I do. Lily's not even as old as Mom, and she's kind of pretty. I can see how some other teenage boy would be super excited about getting to have sex with her. If I hadn't known what kind of sick person she really is, I might have even been excited. I picked at my sleeve. "Joseph was really worried that he would get caught with me, even though he pretended not to be. Then he thought that maybe Lily would turn on him and get a deal. So he tried to make things so they both did everything, so she couldn't blame it all on him. She had to be the one to hit me with the Taser, or chain me up sometimes. She also had to go with him to get me, because then they were both kidnappers, instead of just him. So when he raped me, she had to be part of that, too. One Saturday, Joseph told her to take me up to the bedroom, and not come out until she had had sex with me."

For about five seconds, you could have heard a pin drop in the courtroom. Then it exploded with noise and everyone talking at once. The judge pounded his hammer thing, and was yelling for everyone to be quiet or he would throw all of them out. It got the worst of it under control, but now everyone was looking at me like I was a bug under a microscope. Everyone in Lima knew that someone had been charged with raping me, but everyone assumed that it was Joseph. Well, it was, but Lily was getting charged right along with him. Good. At least I keep telling myself that it's good. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. I don't know for sure.

I wanted to look over at the jury again, just to see if I could read their faces and tell what they were thinking, but I didn't have the balls. Maybe they wouldn't believe that it was what it was.

Then make them believe it, stupid.

That was a good thought, and I pushed forward. "She didn't even try to get out of it. She just took me upstairs and told me to get undressed. I like girls, so I thought that I would like it more then I had with Joseph, but I didn't. It still felt wrong, and I just wanted it to be over. I didn't cry when it happened like I did when Joseph did it, but she didn't hurt me, either. When we were done, she got dressed right away, but wouldn't let me put my clothes back on. She just stood there and looked at me. I tried to cover myself up, but she pushed my hands away. She said I had a nice body, and there was nothing to be ashamed of. I wasn't ashamed, but I didn't want her staring at it, either. Finally she told me that things were even now, and we didn't have to talk about it any more. That was pretty much how we dealt with everything. It happened and then we just pretended that it didn't. So I thought that would be the end of it."

"Was it?"

"No. I thought she was just going to do it once, because Joseph told her to, but it didn't happen that way. She would wait for him to leave for work then she would make me have sex with her. She said that she was teaching me, just like Joseph did."

"How often did this happen?"

"I had to have sex with her every couple of days. But she would make me do other things, umm…like with my mouth and stuff pretty much every day." I couldn't believe I was talking about going down on some chick right in front of Mom. Not only that, in front of my boyfriend and stepdad, too. I laid my head down in my arms for a minute, just to block out what was happening to me. Seriously? This time last year my biggest worry was trying to get into either Quinn or Rachel's pants, not trying to keep perverts from getting into mine.

"Finn, I know that you're embarrassed, but I'm almost done, I promise. What did Joseph say about Lily wanting to have sex with you?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if he knew about it except for the first time, but I didn't want to be the one to tell him." I might be wrong, but my gut told me that having sex with Lily was only ok if he was the one who told us to do it. If we were doing it without his permission….well, it would probably be worse then a smack on the mouth.

"Alright, I'm going to move on. Tell me what happened that night that someone came to the door."

Thank God, we were almost done. "It was a weekend, so we were all watching a movie. Joseph and Lily were sitting on the couch, and I was laying in the floor in front of it." If I sat on the couch with them one of them would always try and touch my junk. Sometimes they both would. If I wanted my body to myself, I needed to stay on the floor. "I think it was Braveheart. Or maybe Lord of the Rings. I can't really remember now. Someone started pounding on the front door and scared the crap out of me. Joseph grabbed my arm and yanked me up to my feet. He told me to go to my room and be nice and quiet while Lily got the door. While he was chaining me up, he told me that he had invited some of his friends over to play with me, and it would be my choice whether it went easy or hard for me. It made sense. I mean, who would be friends with a pervert except other perverts? He said if I started making noise or cried or asked them for help, he would be very, very angry with me. He turned the light off on me, and left me sitting in the dark. I wanted to plug in my nightlight, but he hadn't said it was ok, so I didn't. I laid down and waited for what felt like forever. Finally, it was so long that I fell asleep. But I woke up really fast when they started screaming at each other."

"Do you know what they were fighting about?"

"It was the police at the door, not his friends. He just made that part up so I would keep quiet. Someone had actually reported seeing me, and they were coming to check things out. But there wasn't any evidence, so they ended up leaving. Joseph was freaking out because he knew that they would be back. He accused Lily of doing something, and she told him that it was his own fault, because he was the one who kept taking me out of the house. If he hadn't done that, no one would have noticed me. That was when he hit her."

"Did you see him do it?"

"No, the door was still closed and locked. But I heard it, and when he opened my door, her eye was kind of puffy and red. I was pretending that I was asleep, but I kind of cracked on eye open to look at them. Joseph called my name a couple of times, but I didn't do anything so he thought I was really asleep. Then turned to Lily and told her that they couldn't keep me now because it was too dangerous. She agreed with him. I had been with them for months, ate dinners with them, had sex with both of them, and basically done been in their sight all day long, and they were still willing to kill me just like that. They talked about doing it right then, but Joseph thought I might get suspicious and fight back. So they left me alone. The door wasn't closed, so I thought I might be able to fight free. I fought all night long, but all I did was hurt both of my wrists."

"I'm going to stop you again, there, and ask the jury to look at exhibit 10. These pictures were taken at Lima General Hospital, where Finn was treated four days later."

Actually, I was pretty interested to see this myself. I remembered the hospital, but it was the same way you remember a dream a few hours after you wake up. It was like none of it was real.

The pictures were real, though, and they were no way to make them look like anything but what they were. In the first one, you could see my face, so you knew that it was actually me in the pictures, and the next two were just of my wrists. They looked terrible. I mean, really, really gross, like my ribs had looked after I broke four of them playing football. I wondered if he picked those pictures because they were the clearest, or just because they looked the worst.

Guess what? The prosecution can lie just like the defense does.

"Sorry for the interruption, Finn. Please continue."

"When he woke me up the next morning, he acted like nothing had happened. He told me that he had thought about it, and decided that he wasn't going to share me after all. I told him that I was grateful, and he said that I should show him how happy I was. He kept me with him all day long, making me do some really gross sex things." Please, please don't ask what those things were.

He didn't, but he did ask something worse. "Finn, was there ever a time when you approached either Joseph or Lily for something sexual, instead of the other way around?"

Great. There was no real way for me to answer this and still look good so I just decided to be as honest as possible. "Yeah."

"Can you describe some of those times to me?"

"I never really wanted him to touch me, but..." I stopped for a second to try and gather my thoughts. "When he got mad, he got rough with me, too. He only hit me a couple of times, but he would yank my arm, or put the cuffs on too tight, or be a little too rough when we had sex. So if I saw he was starting to get mad, I would offer to suck him off, or put my hand down his pants. That always put him in a good mood and kept me safe."

"What about actual sexual intercourse? Did that ever happen?"

"Only once. Joseph was running an errand, and it was just Lily and me. She was taking a shower, and I was walking around the house and being nosy. I never got to look at anything without them hanging over my shoulder, so I was able to take my time. I ended up in Josephs office, where I had never been before. I was looking at some pictures and files when Joseph came home and caught me. I thought I would hear the garage door come up, but I hadn't. He was pissed. Super pissed. The way he looked at me was like that way he looked at Puck right before he killed him. I thought that if I didn't do something really quick, I was going to end up dead. He knew that I was trying to play him, but he didn't want to lose his chance to do it without me being miserable. Afterwards, he was still mad, but it was a calm mad. He just told me that the office was his private space, and not to go in there again. I agreed, and that was that. We didn't talk about it again." My heart was beating so hard that I was surprised my shirt didn't move.

"What was in the pictures and files that he got so upset about?"

I couldn't answer. If I answered honestly, I would be breaking the rule about not talking about cases except for this one. If I lied, I was committing perjury. If I didn't answer at all, I looked like I was hiding something and then no one would believe anything I said. What was I supposed to do? I tried looking at the lawyer for help, but he was waiting for me to answer. No matter what I did, I was wrong and I was going to get Joseph off.

Suddenly my throat closed and I couldn't breathe. I kept trying to get air, but nothing was happening. The judge was pounding his hammer, and someone grabbed my arm and drug me out of the courtroom. "Finn, Finn. Finn, it's alright."

It wasn't. Couldn't they see that? I wasn't breathing and you can only go like five minutes without breathing before you get brain damage and die. It already felt like it had been more then that.

I was able to take in a tiny breath when I realized that the person standing with me was one of the Lima police officers. I knew him, and I could ask him how to answer the question. The pressure on my chest loosened a little more. Someone else patted my shoulder. "Finn? Can you tell me what happened? Are you epileptic or diabetic?"

Since I wasn't 100% sure what either one of those things were, my guess would be no. I shook my head. "Alright, put your head down between your knees for a minute and just take deep breaths. I've already sent for your family."

Having my head down helped a lot, and my chest eased up even more. I was almost normal when Mom came in and wrapped her arms around me. She was wearing a perfume that I don't like because Burt picked it out, but it suddenly smelled really good. I pressed my face against her and hugged back. No, she couldn't actually do anything to help me, but I wouldn't mind having a few minutes to pretend she could.

"Cowboy, you're doing great. Total rock star." Kurt scratched the back of my neck the way I like it. "You've been perfect."

Perfect didn't freak out on the stand, but I appreciated him trying to make me feel better. I tried to smile at him, even though I'm pretty sure it didn't look very good. "Thanks."

Burt sat down next to me. "What happened, Champ?"

Even though I don't always like Burt, I do like it when he calls me that. I've never had a cool nickname like that before. "I don't know what to say. What I saw had to do with other people that they kept at the house, but I'm not supposed to talk about that. What do I do?" Please, please, tell me. If he told me, I would love him forever.

He didn't exactly have the best advice, but at least he had something. "You don't need to worry about that. If it's a problem, the lawyers will sort it out. It's not your job to fix things."

How did he make things sound so easy? Maybe if I hadn't panicked, I would have been able to think of that. I nodded weakly at him. "That makes sense, I guess."

Mr. Robison came out and sat down next to me. "Are you feeling any better, Finn?"

"Yeah." I tried to sound better then I felt, but I don't think it was working very well.

"Ok, you have a choice to make. If you feel like you're up to it, you can get back up there and keep going. Or, if you would rather, I'll call for a break, and we can resume things tomorrow."

That was the last thing that I wanted. It was bad enough to wake up one morning and know that I had to tell everything that happened. It was worse knowing that it would be at least one more when the defense lawyer got his turn. But to make it three? No fucking way. I shook my head. "I want to keep going."

"Baby, are you sure?" Mom pushed my hair back so she could look me in the eyes. "Because you don't have to."

I liked 'Champ' better then 'Baby'. It made me feel tougher. "I'm sure. I can do this, Mom, I promise."

She didn't look sure, but Samantha keeps telling everyone to let me make my own choices, so she kind of had to go along with it. Kurt squeezed my hands. "You can do it, I promise."

Kurt hates lying, so I knew that he was telling me the truth. "I can."

"Let's go, then." He put his hand on my back to lead me back into the courtroom. "The faster we get back in there, the easier it will be on both of us. Just keep your chin up and don't act like being taken out was any big deal."

I should have asked him what I should say, but I didn't think of it until it was too late. Shit. I kept my eyes on the lawyer when I climbed back up into the witness box. I could do this.

"Finn, I'm going to go back to what we were talking about before. Can you tell me what you saw on those files?"

"People. About my age, maybe a little older. No one looked younger then 15 or so and no one older then about 20. In the pictures, they were in the Wright's house. Most of them were in the same room that I lived in. None of them looked happy."

The kids in those pictures were dead. They were dead because the Wright's killed them. I knew it, and everyone in the courtroom had to know it, too. But no one could come out and say it. Yeah, I know, stupid.

"Did you recognize any of the people in the photographs?"

"No."

"Did Joseph say anything about them at that point or any other?"

"No."

"Alright. I want to move on to the day after the police came. Did anything out of the ordinary happen?"

I nodded. "He told me that we were going to have an extra fun night. Instead of just staying at the house, he was going to take Lily and me camping out in the desert. I knew that he would kill me he took me out there, so I told him that I didn't really like camping. He said that he didn't care, and we were all going. I didn't want to make him suspicious, so I agreed to go. I thought that I would wait until we were out of the driveway and just freak out. Even if he had the baby locks on again, I could fight until he had a wreck. I didn't care if it killed me. I wasn't going to just walk off like a lamb to slaughter."

The panic surged up in my chest again, and I took a deep breath to keep it down. "I didn't fight him or anything, but he figured out that I knew what was going on. He didn't do anything until we were getting close to town. Then Lily leaned over the front seat and said 'Jeremy, what in the world is all over your shirt?' When I looked down and grabbed me and shocked me with the Taser. I can't believe I fell for that again. It hurt as much as it had the first time, but at least I knew what to expect, so I immediately started fighting as hard as I could. We both knew that the gig was up, and it was life or death. I couldn't move very well, but I could do it a little, so she shocked me again. This time she got me in the stomach, and it made me throw up. I was really scared then, because Puck told me one time that that you can choke on your own puke, and that wasn't how I wanted to die."

"Normally I would have thought that Puck was exaggerating, but Lily started swearing and yanked me up so I could cough it out. Then Joseph screamed at her because I could have died in the car. Not that I could have died, but that I could have done it in his car. It kind of made me want to do it out of spite."

"Did he say anything to you?"

"Yeah. He actually apologized to me for what he was about to do. He said he had to,; and he was sure that I understood. Yeah, like I was just supposed to smile and tell him it was fine to kill me. I don't think so. Since we both already knew that I was going to have to die, I didn't even pretend to be nice to him. I just crossed my arms over my chest and gave him the worlds nastiest look. Fuck him."

"Where did he take you?"

"The desert. I don't know exactly where, but we were in the car for an hour and 17 minutes. I know because I was watching the clock. I thought that if I made it out alive, I would be able to tell someone about it some day. If I didn't...well, at least I didn't spend the last hour and 17 minutes of my life panicking."

"When he came to get me out of the car, he had the gun in his hand. That made me feel a little better, because I knew that he was a good shot and he wouldn't make me suffer. One shot to the back of the head and I would be done. Gone. No more Finn. But he was swearing before I even got out of the e car. It was really flat there, and you could see for about million miles in any direction. And what we could see was a boy scout troop that was camping out there. And if we could see them, they could see us, and Joseph wasn't going to shoot off a gun and get their attention. So he made me get back in the car. Joseph was driving around, but he was mostly yelling at us. He didn't want to take me back to the house, because he thought that the police could come back at any minute. But he couldn't figure out what else to do with me. If he didn't leave my body in the middle of nowhere, he thought that they would trace it back to him and Lily. I thought that I was going to die for sure."

"What changed?" He was gentle, like he didn't already know all the answers.

"Lily stuck up for me. She told Joseph to just take me home. But not home like back to their house. Home like to my home here in Lima. She said that I was a good boy, and I wouldn't tattle on them. I kept nodding like I totally agreed with them."

I still don't know why Lily did that. Yeah, she liked me just fine, and sometimes I felt like it was me and her against Joseph, but I never thought that she would have chosen me over him. I definitely wouldn't' have thought she would choose me over herself. But she did. She had to have known that fear wouldn't keep me quiet forever, and that I would eventually tell someone. I knew their names, and I knew what the house looked like, which was more then enough to figure out everything else. Even if they freaked me out so badly that I wouldn't get on the stand, there had to be enough evidence somewhere.

I kind of think that she knew all of that. Lily's not stupid. Well, she's stupid because she stays with Joseph, and she's still staying with him instead of taking a deal and testifying against him, but she's not a dumb person. I kind of think that she was tired of everything and wanted it to be over just like I did. Except I don't think she just wanted it to be over with me, I think she wanted everything over. The kidnapping and the killing and being with Joseph. I only had to live like that for a few months. I can't imagine what it would be like to do it for years. Don't get me wrong, I still hate her for what she did, but I kind of feel bad for her, too.

"Joseph didn't want to do it, but I don't think he had any better ideas, so he finally agreed. He said if he took me back to their house, and I did one last thing for him, he would take me back to Lima. I told him I would do anything he wanted."

"What did he want you to do?"

"He..." My voice choked again, and I had to take a few deep breaths. "He knew that eventually I would talk, and he wanted to have a plan in place for when I did. So when we got home, he sent me up to take a shower while he set the camera up. He wanted me to dry off, but come downstairs naked. He called it having something to remember me by, but really it was just insurance."

"What did he ask you to do once you were being recorded?"

"He wanted me to jerk off on camera, like it was a porno. I was supposed to make it really good, and say slutty things and talk about how much I loved him and Lily. That way, he could pull it out and show everyone that I really did want to be there."

"Did you do what he asked?"

I would have done anything that he asked right then, because he was telling me that I could go home. Even if it was probably a lie, I was willing to grab on to even the smallest chance of seeing my family again. "Yeah. It didn't go very well at first, because I was really scared and embarrassed, and I couldn't really get it up. I finally did, and I did what he told me to and I didn't cry, so he said it was good enough and that we were going to leave right then."

Knowing that all of the police in Lima have seen that video, and that they were probably going to show it to everyone later in the trial made me want to die a little. Even if it was only the jury who saw it, it was still too much. There wasn't anything I could do about it, though, so I just had to suck it up.

"Were you ever afraid that this was just another trick, and he was trying to get you back out of the house without a fight?"

"Not really. I could tell when Lily was lying, and usually when Joseph was, too. They wanted me gone, and this was just the easiest way for them to do it. They didn't let me take any of the stuff they had bought for me, but I didn't want to keep any of it anyway. I would never be able to see it without thinking that I had earned it by letting a pair of strangers fuck me. Um, they were both still kind of pissed with each other about everything that had happened, so we didn't talk much. I mostly just sat in the backseat and hoped that it would be over soon."

"Did you make any extra stops this time?"

"Yeah. Once we got to Illinois, we stopped at a truck stop and ate dinner. Then Joseph paid for me to go take a shower. When I came out, he had brand new clothes for me, even underwear. He told me to put them on, and throw the old ones in a dumpster. There was a heavy hoodie, and it was really hot out, but I didn't complain. Once we got close, he made me lay down in the seat and just tell him how to get to Kurt's house. Only I got us lost because I couldn't look for landmarks and I didn't remember the street names. That pissed him off again, but eventually we found it."

"What did he do when you got to the house?"

"He stopped across the street and leaned over to talk to me. He told me that I should be really grateful to him for giving me this extra chance and letting me come home and that I should remember that when I thought about opening my big mouth. But if I did make a bad choice and blab, he would come back and he would kill Burt. Then he would rape Mom, and kill her too. Then he would take Kurt, and Kurt could be my replacement. I promised him that I wouldn't do that, and that I really was grateful to him. That satisfied him, and he told me to get out of the car and count to 10,000 so he and Lily could get back on the highway. When I was done counting, I could knock on the door and go inside."

A lot of what happened then is blurry, but I can clearly remember walking up to the front door of my house. The steps were familiar, with the creaky second one. The railings were smooth and clean, with no paint chips, because Kurt takes good care of them. The grass was mowed and everything looked exactly the same. That sameness was what made it weird. I was so different then I had been the last time I walked up these steps that it felt like everything in the world should be. But it wasn't. "I knocked on the door, but no one was there. It was past six, so Burt should have been home, even if Mom was still at the hospital. At least Kurt should have been there, but he wasn't. It was just me. I waited, but no one came home, and it started getting dark. I thought about going over to one of his neighbors houses, and asking to use the phone, but I couldn't make myself do it. I knew that they would come back soon if I was patient."

"How long did it take for someone to come home?"

"Not until the next day. I ended up falling asleep out there and not waking up until late the next morning. I was scared to be alone out there, but I was even scareder to go ask strangers to help me. They probably wouldn't be as mean as Lily and Joseph, but I wasn't sure. I mean, they looked normal when you first saw them, too. That was when Kurt came home. I think I scared the crap out of him when he walked up the steps and saw me."

"What did Kurt do?"

"He just ran up to me and hugged me. He was asking me where I had been and stuff, but I couldn't answer. I didn't want to lie to him, but if I told him the truth, Joseph would hurt him. So it was just safer for me not to say anything at all. Mom and Burt were in New Mexico, because the police told them that that were where I was, so he called them and took me to the hospital to be looked at. That's really all that I remember."

"Finn, did you go with the Wrights voluntarily the night Puck died?"

"No." I breathed out a sigh of relief. He was going over everything again, which meant he was almost done with me.

"Did you ask them to let you go home?"

"Yes."

"When it came to sexual contact, did you tell them that you were uncomfortable and didn't want to be have sex with either one of them?"

"Yes."

"Have you been honest and truthful with me to the best of your abilities today?"

"Yes." Even when it was embarrassing and it sucked big time.

"Thank you, Finn. I have no further questions for you right now. Due to it being so late in the day, I think we should wait until tomorrow to start the cross-examination."

That's lawyer talk for 'you can go away, now', which was fine with me. I was a little shaky when I stepped out of the box, but I thought I was doing pretty good. I was supposed to go out into the hallway and wait for my family, so we could leave right away. It would cut down on the number of reporters that could get in my face

As much as I love my family, I was really hoping that they would give me some space, too. The story that I told today on the stand was the absolute truth, which I hadn't given to any of them. I kind of smoothed over some of the bad stuff, because I didn't want them to be upset and because some of it was embarrassing for me. But now everyone knew everything whether I liked it or not.

But maybe that was a good thing. Now there was nothing left to hide, and we could all move on from it together. This wouldn't be as bad as I was imagining it could be, right?

Finessa, you're going on the rag again. Quit your hormonal PMS bullshit and act like a man. You owned that courtroom in there. Every juror was hanging on what you said, and they believed you. The hard part is done. Dude, you're a total rock star.

It was like Puck was right there next to me, his arm over my shoulders and his mouth almost touching my ear. You know what? He was right. I had been strong up there, and I should be proud of myself. No matter what happened tomorrow, I could do it. I was pretty tough after all, who would have guessed?