Saturday afternoon as Dustin arrives
"hey Uhh sir Mr. Rivers just dropped me off, he said something about Lucy, is she here, is she actually alive, when she went missing I thought Logan had finally had enough and killed her" says Dustin speaking very fast
"ahh so you're Dustin, I need to ask a few questions of you first" says Alexander
"what kind of questions, I'm not in trouble am I" asks Dustin
"it's about what happened that day, the day Logan got a hold of Lucy, I need to know some things, I need to know your side of the story" says Alexander
"I had a crush on her, I wanted to invite her over for a movie, I got permission from my dorm advisor but I had no idea how to ask Lucy out, I didn't want Zoey to know right away so I asked Logan, he is generally good with girls, or so I thought at the time, he gave me lines to use, she laughed then said yes to the movie, we got to my dorm kinda late because we walked from her dorm to mine and they're not exactly close, it didn't help that we'd run into Zoey talking to Nicole and Lucy wanted to chat for a minute, when we got into my dorm her left shoe came undone, she said she'd be right behind me so I walked down the hall for a minute then heard a loud noise and ran back, Logan had her against the wall, he was choking her, she fell to the ground and Logan pulled her by her hair out to his golf cart, he saluted me as he turned it on, he'd somehow tied her to the roof of it, do you know what it feels like to be powerless to save the girl you love sir, I couldn't do anything but watch him choke her, he said that if I came any closer he'd tighten his grip and kill her" says Dustin in tears
"it wasn't your fault son, you are not responsible for his actions" says Alexander
"I should be, she was nearly killed because of how I FELT, I wanted to have her spend the night in my dorm room, cuddling and watching a movie, I should have listened to my sister when she said bringing Lucy to my dorm was breaking rules, she'd have been safe then, why did I have to have a crush on her and why did she seem to like me back, it would have been so much better for her if I didn't have these feelings, I wouldn't have put her in danger and I wouldn't have spent the last two years feeling like my feelings for her got her killed, I'm just a stupid gullible boy who is a tool for those who can outsmart me" says Dustin
"there is no evidence that she could have been protected by changing the events of that day Dustin, all the evidence we currently have shows that the location would have changed, she's scared of me because of my size and my authority so I have very little of her side of the story, she's the one that wanted you here Dustin, I fought tooth and nail to keep the influence of that school away from her but Lucy and I came to an agreement, you remote learn here, with her by your side and if she decides to tell you what he did you can tell me as much or as little as you want, Dean Rivers dropped you off because Logan made him look like he knew about what was happening and didn't care, he wants Logan put away as badly as you and I do, that's why he had you pack a bag with your computer and a bunch of clothes" says Alexander
"so what, I'm a tool for your investigation into Logan, I won't put Lucy through the pain of telling me what Logan did to her" says Dustin
"think about it this way, you get to spend time with Lucy, you get to sleep in the same bed as her and IF she tells you something you can help make sure Logan never sees daylight ever again, you'd be helping Lucy get justice, remember I said Lucy was the one that wanted you here, she doesn't trust me, she thinks I'm just like Logan, that if she tells me how Logan exploited her insecurity that I'll do what Logan did to her, it's not true but I need her story so I can put Logan away" says Alexander
"would I be allowed to go on dates with Lucy" asks Dustin
"due to the investigation she can't leave the property but you can order food, use my barbeque and pool, only age appropriate behaviour would be allowed, no picture sharing and pyjamas only in the bed, no sleeping naked and all this is based on her consent, if she says no to anything that means no, I'm told she has issues with hugs that weren't always a problem, if she says yes to dating then you must listen to her, yes means yes and no means no, I've already been over these rules with her, now go to the back of the house, she's in the pool with Zoey, Nicole and Cat" says Alexander as Dustin's face brightens
"m-m-my sister's here, I didn't know what he did to her, I just suddenly noticed she was hanging out with Nicole a ton more and became more secretive, she wouldn't let me hug her or visit her in her dorm room during the weekend anymore, is she staying here" says Dustin
"you're not in trouble Dustin, you need to remember you can't save everyone, the way they were exploited you couldn't have stopped, Zoey had feelings for Nicole, Logan found out and threatened to out her love for Nicole to the entire campus, by the time Nicole found out Zoey had feelings for her, Logan had done the same to Nicole as he'd done to Zoey, he exploited their mutual feelings for one another, an unfortunate trend in Logan's case" says Alexander
"so there really is nothing I could have done to protect them" asks Dustin
"not against someone like Logan, not even the local law enforcement could investigate without his money becoming a problem and forcing them to shut down the investigations, I'm lucky that I have federal funding to investigate but even I'm running into the walls he set up, usually involves trust issues between his victims and the law enforcement trying to put him behind bars, so far only Zoey and Nicole have participated willingly so far, as of this morning the rest point to Lucy's unwillingness to tell her story as a reason they should be hesitant to tell their stories to the FBI" says Alexander
"Lucy's smart but she can be quite paranoid, she expects people to understand based on what she does say and how she acts, as an example this one time in math class the teacher asked her to write an equation on the board, she did exactly that but the lines of the equation were the names of the original mathematicians of the equation, the teacher wouldn't notice and would ask her to tell the class who the original mathematicians, having already written the names down she would simply sit down point to the board and say 'are you new, did you even read the equation I wrote down', the teacher would sneer and force her to come back to the front and do it the way HE wanted, call her an idiot then give her detention, he would keep calling her up to write every equation, by the end of the class she would be trembling so bad she was afraid to get out of her seat, fully believing the teacher would hit her if she got up, though she wasn't wrong about the math teacher having it out for her, her and I were about to be bumped to eighth grade, particularly in math, to be honest Lucy was easily ahead of even eighth grade math, at one point she was writing tenth grade math equations, the math teacher hated that, he wanted her to fall in line with the other students, he wanted her to be dumber than she was, she began thinking all her teachers were out to get her because of one teacher on three occasions, she began lowering the amount of time she spent in class, first leaving when there was ten minutes left in class, it got to the point where she'd only attend half of every class, what happened to her happened because I didn't want the girl I love to be expelled, I got desperate, I wanted to be the reason she put up with annoying teachers, I didn't want her to be expelled, outside class she's actually a very caring person" says Dustin
"is that teacher known for making students act and learn a certain way, because I can tell the way Lucy learns is different than most people and I've barely gotten a chance to talk to her" asks Alexander
"no but he always picked on Lucy, it didn't matter how normal she wrote things he would always have something to say, Lucy writes her numbers with the curls in them, he'd give her detention simply for that alone, sometimes she'd be in detention so long she'd miss her other classes and by that time Logan had a hold of her so she'd go from detention to his room, eventually Logan made her come from her room to his, making her miss every class, when she disappeared everyone thought she'd gotten expelled for skipping so many classes, like I said, I'd believed Logan had killed her, from what little I do know about what happened in his room he was quite rough with her" says Dustin
"how would you know this if nobody else did" asks Alexander
"because she would email me pictures of what she looked like in the morning, scratches everywhere, some looked very deep" says Dustin
"I'll need those photos" says Alexander
"not without her permission, the emails were titled 'in case I wind up dead Logan killed me', at the bottom where she signed her name it said 'for your eyes only', I'm not going to give those pictures to you without her permission, I understand you have pictures from Logan's server of her but he took those without her permission, to me her privacy comes first, she entrusted me with those photos sir, you don't just get them because you ask nicely, if she says it's ok then I'll send them to you but only if she says it's ok" says Dustin as Alexander sighs
"it's clear to me you care very much about her, as an FBI agent I don't have to be happy that you told me about evidence and are willingly withholding it from me but as a father I can understand, I wish there were more people like you Dustin, now go, Lucy's waiting for you" says Alexander as Dustin heads to the back door
"yay Dustin's here, Lucy look" says Zoey not realizing Lucy fell asleep on the floaty
"Zoe, she's asleep, talking to Agent Harris is exhausting for her, you know that" says Nicole
"I know but she wasn't sleeping five minutes ago" says Zoey motioning for Dustin to jump in
"Zoey let me change first, I'll be right back" says Dustin as he walks back into the house
"Zoe, I thought you said he wasn't ashamed of his body, that you'd change in front of one another back at home" says Nicole
"there's an obvious difference here, Lucy is here, even asleep he's always put her first, even when he attempted the movie date, it was because of her, it wasn't because his feelings for her got more intense, it was because she was becoming scared of her teachers, she was skipping class and I have a feeling she told him she was thinking of running away, that teachers don't like her, he was her only true friend Nicole, I wouldn't be surprised if she managed to send him evidence of Logan's brutality without Logan knowing, Cat do you have any evidence of what I feel happened" says Zoey
"she definitely trusted him more than most people thought he deserved, from what I gathered aside from me he was the only one that knew when her period started, that takes a ton of trust, I never let anyone know when mine starts, not until last month, do you think she has a good reason to trust him" says Cat
"that's why our parents raised us the way they did, they didn't want him growing up to be someone like Logan, someone so deprived of information that he'd grab as many girls as he could, he learned a lot from me about how scary it can be being a girl in a world like this, if I were Lucy there isn't a person I'd trust more than Dustin, though Chase comes in second only because of the age difference, him and Dustin were as close as two guys could get without things getting weird, the only reason Dustin didn't go to Chase is because he's had trouble dating where as at least on the surface Logan was seen as the absolute date winning God, he made himself look like a babe magnet with a charm, lots of guys went to Logan for advice, which is why there became such a problem and Dean Rivers is in panic mode dealing with a butt load of abuse claims, I think agent Harris made the right decision asking Lucy what she wanted and brought Dustin here, she might feel safe enough to tell Dustin what happened and he can tell Agent Harris, when I got pulled I begged him to take Dustin out too" says Zoey
"Mr. Harris didn't bring him here voluntarily Zoe, when Lucy gave him the information to unlock the password protected folder with all the pictures Logan took in it Mr. Harris really didn't want anyone who could be compromised having ANY access to her, he didn't want her to feel she had to lie in court when the court date came, my boyfriend talked to him, he's my boyfriends dad, he got mad when I said his dad wouldn't even let Lucy leave the house, even if to just use the pool until she told him what Logan did to him, my boyfriend managed to get his dad to compromise, he made him look at Lucy as a human being instead of just a victim in the case against Logan" says Cat as Dustin comes back out
"how did Lucy sleep last night" asks Dustin as he slowly walks into the pool
"not well, being questioned by an FBI agent terrified her, she spent most of last night crying, saying Mr. Harris wanted to hurt her, she calmed down this morning when Mr. Harris told her that you were cleared to come here and be the in between, between her and him, she's not completely asleep, she's already beginning to wake up" says Cat slowly turning the floaty around
"hey, how are you feeling" asks Dustin visibly concerned
"Logan…. He took it" says Lucy seeming to not make sense
"you talking about IT, as in the email you sent me that day, the day he took you by force" asks Dustin as Cat's eyes widen in shock as realization hits
"I was saving it for you but he took it, I didn't want to but he took it, he said he'd hurt you if I didn't let him" says Lucy as realization hits Zoey
"Cat we need to talk, let's give them some privacy, Nicole, tune them out, focus on your breathing exercises" says Zoey as Cat nods and gets out of the pool with her
"Mr. Harris wants the emails, I told him I wouldn't share them with him without you saying it was ok" says Dustin as Lucy slips off the floaty and into his arms
"he need to go away Dusty, if you think sharing them will help you can, you don't hate me do you, Logan said you'd call me a s**t that you wouldn't believe he was making me do stuff, that you'd want me dead" says Lucy
"Logan's wrong goosie, I never blamed you, my reasoning was stupid, you were leaving class earlier and earlier, I'd felt that if I didn't try to ask you out then that I wouldn't have another chance to because you'd be expelled, it was stupid of me to think that asking anyone but my sister for girl advice was a good idea" says Dustin suddenly realizing Lucy's almost just as short as she was when he last saw her
"I see you looking at my butt" says Lucy
"no, I was noticing that you're literally hanging off me, your feet don't touch the bottom of the pool, you haven't grown even an inch since then" says Dustin
"that's due to the accident, I was one years old, almost to the day, my growth plate messed up, Doctor said I was lucky I didn't end up being the shortest person in the world, I have actually grown, over the past two years I've grown exactly half an inch, do you still love me, even if I'm broken would you still date me, I have a tv in my room, we can try that movie date over again" says Lucy
"of course I still love you, when you went missing I was convinced that Logan killed you" says Dustin
"he tried twice Dusty, once with a knife in his room, then once after I ran away from the school, that second one was with a basketball, he'd paid the LA county police to send me back to PCA but It was a ruse, he sent a basketball flying down the main road, expecting it to knock me off my feet, instead it hit my head, I still don't remember everything, some memories I got back when my sister came to get me with Agent Harris, memories of you, memories of your sister, memories of that night but the events in Logan's room aren't all there, the ones that are I can't tell in what order they happened, in most of the memories I do have I'm wearing clothes that are either too small, I didn't own or in nothing at all, they're fuzzy" says Lucy shivering
"are you cold, would you like to lay on the pool deck with me" asks Dustin
"only if you don't want me to just hang onto you for awhile, I'm actually enjoying being this close to you" says Lucy
"I wish my neck was that strong, I can maybe continue for a few minutes longer, I can lay beside you on the pool deck while we dry off then I'll take you up on that movie date redo" says Dustin
"I love you dusty" whispers Lucy
"I love you too goosie" says Dustin
Several minutes later as they get out of the pool and Cat and Zoey return
"Lucy, Mr. Harris is giving you a few days in 'special time' with Dustin, in return he's hoping you will write what happened when Logan raped you down and have Dustin hand it to him, Dustin doesn't have to read it if you don't want him to" says Zoey as Lucy nods
"what does 'special time' if it means sex the answer is no" says Dustin as Lucy slowly falls asleep
"he's not that stupid Dustin, it suspends the pyjama hard rule for three days, Cat told him that Lucy likes skin to skin contact, it calms her down dramatically, Lucy's almost twelve and you turned twelve two months ago, he has no illusions on appropriate behavior verse inappropriate behavior but he's willing to blur the lines a little if it means she feels comfortable and he gets a little information that can help put Logan away" says Zoey as Dustin winces and Cat chuckles
"she getting a little heavy there Dustin, she started to fall asleep when you asked what special time meant, she may be small but for her size she packs a punch as dead weight" says Cat
"yeah actually, the thing is she wants a redo on the movie date thing, I'd rather not track water through the house, it's not respectful, would you mind helping me get her onto a towel so she can dry up a little, I promised we'd cuddle a little before we went inside" says Dustin as Cat jumps in and picks Lucy up and takes her to the towel set out for her
"Cat, it's been bugging me that she hasn't grown since the last time I saw her, do you think Logan damaged her bones" says Nicole finally speaking up
"no, well I mean it's possible but as I've told you we were in a car crash when I was six, she was one years old, there were tiny fissures created by the crash, they cracked as she got older and taller, she's not quite five foot, maybe four foot eight" says Cat as Dustin lays his blanket next to Lucy's and snuggles her
"will she get any taller, not that I care, I love her just the way she is, I was just curious, I'm sure she's self-conscious about her height, I'm almost certain that Logan took advantage of the height difference" says Dustin
"her doctor said that if she keeps growing she will be lucky to hit five foot two by the time she's fifteen, at which point the cracks she suffered to her growth plates will completely stop her growth" says Cat
"how did she even survive, it seems like something you'd see in a movie that could never happen in real life" asks Nicole
"our bio mom was a lawyer, often involved in Lawsuits against car manufactures and baby car seat manufacturers, Lucy's car seat was custom made, like eight layers of soft fabric then memory foam then the plastic shell, mom specifically designed it so that Lucy would survive a crash, it was also installed with her back to the front of the car, when we crashed she was pulled into the seat and the fabric, it was the violent stop that did the damage" says Cat
"what damage did you take from the crash" asks Nicole as Dustin occupies himself by playing with Lucy's hair
"minor compared to Lucy, mostly joint dislocations, my entire right arm didn't work, it was a scary time, my mom was dead, so was my brother, I unbuckled Lucy's car seat and got her out of the car, hoping to see my dad getting out of the moving truck but when I got out of the car the moving truck was on fire and the engine to the car had just caught fire, our mom had prepared me for that kind of thing, I set Lucy down, opened my moms door and took her phone out, picked Lucy back up after putting the phone in the car seat and moved a safe distance from the van and the car and called the police, it took them forever to get there, mom, dad and my brother were long gone, I don't know what was worse, watching the car burn everything inside to ash or the police making me identify them before CPS got there to pick us up, CPS spent a year trying to find family I told them didn't exist, finally they gave up, gave me baby formula, a bunch of baby bottles, showed me how to make it and kicked me and Lucy out of their care, they left us in Malibu but I quickly found myself walking the highway, carrying Lucy in my arms and carrying the bag of stuff they gave me, hoping I was headed back to LA, after a few days of sleeping on the side of the highway a nice old lady stopped and picked us up, asked where we were headed, I said Hollywood, but Lucy got fussy around Santa Monica and I politely asked if she could drop us off" says Cat
"but your aunt came looking for you right" asks Nicole
"no, she didn't even know we were missing, her and I spent three years on the street, I'd kept moms phone, posting pictures of us on her social media, I was looking for help, I'd unblocked two people that looked like mom and one that looked like dad, finally someone called the police, fearing that I was being abused and Aunt Valerie showed up, gun drawn expecting a rapist to be nearby, Lucy hid behind me and stayed out of view no matter how auntie moved, her first question was if lucy was my daughter, I said no, she's my sister, that our parents were dead, her next question was what our last name was, I said Valentine, the blood drained from her face then said 'oh my god I'm an idiot, you're my sisters kids, come with me', Lucy wasn't having it, cried the whole way, auntie bought her a soft blanket and Lucy stopped crying but would not even look in auntie's direction" says Cat
"whoa wait a minute, could that be the issue, the coming in with a gun thing, could that be why Lucy doesn't trust her aunt" asks Dustin picking Lucy up
"it's possible but Lucy has never said anything about it, not go watch that movie and no funny business, no Pyjamas but underwear is still required" says Cat
"you clearly don't trust me Cat, I don't see goosie like an object for me to use, I never have and I never will, she's a human being, she deserves love first and foremost Cat, IF Lucy and I date long term consent will be a founding fact in our relationship" says Dustin, Carrying Lucy to the guest bedroom