"Where is she?" he asks, looking around.
"She went back to call Ethan." I point at the bedroom.
"She was sobbing," he says, running back to the bedroom, and my heart sinks in my chest. Literally to the fucking floor. I take two steps to her room before the front door opens again and this time it’s Ethan who looks like he just rolled out of bed.
"What happened?" he asks, looking around.
"We were outside." I start to tell him, and my eyes go from him to the bedroom, wondering if she’s okay. "Watching the sunrise, and we heard snapping coming from the back of the yard. I looked up, but I couldn’t see anything."
He takes out his phone and calls someone. "Back of Chelsea’s house, I want the feed into the woods," he says, and I hear mumbling on the other line and look down when I feel wet again and see that the blood is now seeping through the shirt. "I want all feeds ready to view when I get there in twenty minutes." He puts the phone back in his pocket.
"Where is Chelsea?" he asks me, and I look down. "What happened?”
"She didn’t listen to me when I told her to go inside," I tell him the truth. I leave out that I almost crossed the line with her. I don’t tell him that if there wasn’t someone in the back, I would have probably kissed her and ruined everything.
"Why doesn’t that surprise me." He shakes his head. "Go put on another shirt, and I’ll make sure she is okay."
I nod at him. "Maybe she’ll listen to you,” I huff out and walk to the bedroom, but with the pulling of the stitches in my legs and my side, it takes more time than I want it to.
I peel off the shirt and look down, seeing the bandage soaked through. "Mother." I stop talking when I peel the bandage off and see two of the dark stitches come right out, and I know I have to tell her.
I turn and walk out of the room, and I know that I should wait for her in my room. I know that I should give her time. I’m in the hallway when I hear Ethan. "It isn’t my story to tell, Chelsea."
"Do you know how scared I was out there with him?" she says, and whatever I thought we had is gone with just those words. "He’s here in the house with me, and this morning, I thought he was going to be shot again," she says, her voice low but still loud enough for me to hear. "How do you want me to handle that?” I close my eyes and turn around, walking back to the bedroom.
Grabbing a bandage, I press down on it, and the pain rips through to the other side of me. I have to sit down, and I see Ethan stick his head in. "We are going to head out. I’ll be back with Casey in a bit to tell you what we found." I nod at him. "She’s getting dressed, and she’ll be right in. I told her about the bleeding."
I don’t say anything to him because there are no words to say. I can’t say anything; all I can do is get far away from here and her.
Chapter 14
Chelsea
"Are you going to be okay here by yourself?” Quinn asks me, standing at the entrance to my bedroom. Ethan just walked out.
"I’ll be okay," I tell him. "It was just a bit too much," I tell him, and I close my eyes. "I have to make sure he’s not bleeding too much."
"You call me if you need me," he says, and I just nod at him. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to call him after Ethan, but I didn’t know what else to do. My heart was beating so fast and my whole body was shaking uncontrollably. I was afraid he would walk into the room and see me, so I called the only person I knew who would be here in no time. I was not wrong. He was here in under a minute. I was lucky he was already in the barn working out. I guess it was my lucky day in a way.
I grab a pair of baggy black pants that are tight around my ankles with a white short-sleeved shirt. I tuck it in the front and tie my hair on top of my head. I don’t bother washing my face before going back to him, and I can only imagine how I look.
I find him sitting on the bed, his head down as he puts pressure on the wound. "Hey," I say softly, and he looks up and just the look of him is like you cut off both my legs. Maybe I should have washed my face. I’m sure my nose is red from the crying, and my eyes are puffy.
"Are you in pain?" I ask, and he just shakes his head.
"I’m actually numb," he says. "But I think two stitches came out."
I walk over and put on gloves, going back over to him. "I’m going to need you to lie down."
"I’m so sorry," he says, not moving, his head moving up, and I see the tears in his eyes. I want to tell him that he has nothing to be sorry for. "You asked Ethan about my story."
"I," I start to say. "I know your father tortured you, but I was asking him why."
"I thought you heard me tell the story," he says, and I shake my head.
"I only heard the end of it. When you told them the day Braxton died," I say his real name, and it feels wrong on my lips.
He shakes his head. "You missed the best part of the story," he says sarcastically. "When I was five years old,” he starts talking, "my mother was reading a book to me, and my father came in. He was usually never around except for dinnertime. But this time, it was the middle of the afternoon. Or at least I think it was, then I had just come home from school." His eyes look up at me. "I knew something was off because he wobbled a bit when he came in, and I remember my mother telling me to go to my room."
"You don’t have to do this," I tell him, not sure I can handle this.
"You deserve to know," he says. "If anyone deserves to know my story, it’s you. You saved me. And in return, I’ve put a bull’s-eye on your back." He looks up at the ceiling now. "I whined when she stopped reading to me. My father turned around and slapped me so hard I flew across the room." I can’t stop the gasp that comes out of me. "My mother ran to me instead of going to my father. He beat her right next to me. That is my first memory. I tried to take care of her. She would get up and make sure to make him breakfast and dinner. But when he left, she would sleep the whole day. I would lie next to her, and the bruises faded from a deep purple to a green to a yellow. When you described the sunrise before, all I could do was see her bruises in my head."
I put my hand to my stomach, hoping I don’t get sick in front of him. "Mayson," I say his name in a whisper.
"I never whined again. Never made another noise, and when he would come in from work, I would hide in a corner, hoping it wouldn’t happen again," he says as a tear runs down his face. "But it was not the last time that he beat my mother. I would listen to see if maybe she said something that would set him off, but I understood things more as I got older. I knew that when he was having a bad day, he would make sure she did also. Her beatings would tell you how bad of a day he was having. If he hit her less than five times, he was just irritated. If it went on for over an hour, it was a rough day. If he spent the whole night taking shots at her, you knew that it was a bad fucking day." I can’t stop the tears from falling down my face. "He was six foot one and weighed two hundred and forty-five pounds. She was five foot two and weighed under a hundred pounds. She would fly like a rag doll. Imagine being ten years old and telling your mother what position to get into when your father was kicking her. I would try to clean up when she was in bed, but there wasn’t anything that I could do to stop the roaches from coming in. No matter how much I tried."