NINETEEN #3
She looked in the direction I was pointing before turning back with a little shake of her head. “No. My father would chain us to the bed when he went out so we couldn’t cause trouble.”
My temper was close to bursting; I had never felt such rage.
You need to calm your shit, Rook. Amelie needs you right now, cage your psycho!
“It ends here. I want you to tell me everything about your past, Amelie.” My tone of voice brooked no fucking argument. I was done tiptoeing around that shit. If I didn’t know everything, I couldn’t help her.
“I don’t know how?”
“Just start at the beginning. You don’t have to have any secrets with me, my darling girl.”
That single tear which ran down one pale cheek was almost my undoing, and I changed my mind. I needed her out of there. We both needed air, preferably fresh.
“Do you have a place around here where you would go to think? Someplace that made you feel calm?” I asked, pushing to my feet. “Whenever the shit kicks off in my life, I go to my mom’s grave.”
“I thought that was the place you had nightmares about?”
“Yeah, in my dreams it sucks, but in real life, it makes me feel peaceful.”
Amelie shrugged, “The garden, I suppose.”
“Then let’s go there. Come on, take my hand.” And she did. With my other hand, I slid my phone out and messaged Jessa.
ME: I have her. Message Tanner and give him the address. He will pick you up, and I will meet you back at the house.
Jessa gave me the thumbs up and then added a text.
JESSA: Tanner said Aaron passed out behind a hedge at our place at the party. He woke up and heard you and Amelie talking about her dad and his sister.
So that was how he found out and then decided to throw Amelie to the wolves on impulse. I pushed away the thoughts; there was nothing I could do about that now.
Amelie led me out of the room and past the back door, pointing to the window she had escaped from the night she ran away—the same night, she had called the police and turned her father in.
We walked into the garden at the back of the bungalow. The view outside the property was spectacular, but inside it was overgrown, untidy and unloved.
I walked with Amelie with her tiny hand in mine as she motioned towards a crumbling wall beneath a large cherry blossom tree. It was the same type as the ones at the front of the house. I was surprised that it was still in bloom, considering most trees had started to lose their leaves.
Beneath that tree, in the garden of her old house—the one place she used to steal fragments of freedom—Amelie unleashed the horrors of her past.
During their early years, life was basic but normal from the sounds of things. They didn’t have much money, and their parents were strict but not abusive.
“Then mum started to struggle, mentally. I remember her telling us the same story several times, almost like she had forgotten she had already told it. And then the hoarding started. There was just stuff everywhere; she even picked stuff up off the streets. Dad didn’t understand it, none of us did.
And then he lost his job and the drinking began. ”
Jacob Thorn used to go on all-day benders from the sounds of things, initially punishing his wife for his unemployment. When Louise became numb to his abuse, he turned that rage on the children.
What began as sudden outbursts quickly shifted into a pattern of severe and calculated punishments.
Amelie recalled the day she and Adam ate the last packet of biscuits; the physical retaliation left Adam with broken fingers that never received professional medical care.
Instead, Louise bound them together using electrical tape while remaining emotionally distant from her son's pain.
These experiences left Adam with physical reminders hidden beneath his clothes and emotional scars that would stay with him always.
The atmosphere in the garden grew heavy as Amelie described a constant state of fear.
For the minor mistake of having the television volume too loud, she was subjected to a punishment that resulted in a lifelong aversion to sudden noise.
In a nutshell, Jacob Thorn had turned the volume up full and held his eight-year-old child’s head against the speaker until she was sick.
Amelie explained that her hearing didn’t return until the following week.
The darkest nights were often during thunderstorms, when Jacob would use physical restraints to confine Amelie and Sophie to their beds. While there was no sexual abuse—a small mercy in a horrendous situation—the psychological impact of their confinement was life-changing.
To hide the evidence of their treatment, the children were effectively isolated from the outside world. Jacob created a fraudulent educational record to avoid suspicion from authorities, keeping them trapped in a deteriorating and claustrophobic home.
Amelie’s level of intelligence was a testament to her resilience, and she found solace in whatever books she could find despite her lack of formal schooling. The fact that she had been imprisoned in her house explained her lack of modern social etiquette and occasional dated use of language.
Adam had eventually become hardened to his father’s punishments.
Amelie said he started building up his strength by using an old weight bench and eventually fought back when he could.
Sophie had unfortunately developed a medical issue that was never diagnosed while they lived at the house.
That turned out to be Type 1 Diabetes, and she now needed daily care.
That was the main reason Vanessa hadn’t brought her to live with us straight away.
Sophie had been fostered by a medical professional who could give her the around-the-clock care she needed.
Amelie told me about having to knock on the living room door to beg for the toilet. The kids would go months without a shower, and Amelie would scrub her skin with a cold kitchen sponge.
Jacob and Louise weren't parents. They were monsters who belonged in a concrete cell for the rest of their fucking lives.
I looked at my own hands and felt a physical sickness.
I thought about how I’d treated Amelie when she first arrived.
I’d been a spoiled, wealthy brat throwing tantrums because I’d been separated from my mother.
My complaints were nothing compared to hers.
The Thorn kids had lived through a war zone, and I’d grown up in a palace.
I looked across the grass, knowing I had to stop whining, grow up, and fix things with my family—especially Cameron.