CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
Everything happens at once. The screen door bounces against the door in a metallic grind, and Aidan comes flying inside.
His clenched fist strikes my father on the side of the head as he screams. “Get your fucking hands off her!”
Mom screams and comes flying along the hallway as I begin to crumple to the floor, but not before Aidan catches me.
I clutch at his arms, scrambling to right myself.
“Briar! Fuck. Tell me you’re okay. Breathe, sweetheart.”
I’m gasping for air, my throat burning and aching as I try to nod.
“I. Och. Ay.”
“Jesus Christ. Has he done this before?” Aidan cradles me against him, holding me away enough to watch that I keep breathing.
“Oh, my god he’s unconscious.” Mom cries on the ground beside my father.
“Good.” Aidan growls over his shoulder. “Why didn’t you stop him? He was killing her.”
Oh god. I never wanted him to see any of this. But the truth is, I am not sure if my father was going to stop. I’m still seeing stars from the lack of oxygen.
“You were just fucking standing there!” He keeps yelling as he scoops me up into his arms.
Mom leaps to her feet. “What are you doing?”
“Taking her to a fucking hospital.”
“Dad,” I rasp out, barely able to speak as I stare down at his lifeless body.
Oh, god.
“I’m calling 911.” Mom flaps around and grabs the phone, punching it.
“Is he alive?” I half whisper.
“Unfortunately.” Aidan replies angrily, glancing as my father’s legs twitches.
Relieved, I take Aidan’s face with my palm. “No hospital. I will be okay.”
I know how this goes. The pain will be horrible but with some pain meds and resting my voice for a week or two, it will be fine.
I watch the realization start to sink in and tears start pouring down my face.
He knows my shame.
I want to beg him not to leave me, but I won’t.
“Hey, hey,” Aidan says and carries me into the living room. He sits with me on his lap and keeps cooing me.
This is where he starts planning his exit. Where he says goodbye.
“Sorry,” I rasp.
“What the hell are you sorry about? Thank god I came back for my phone, which is in your purse, or you could be fucking dead, Briar.”
“He wouldn’t.” I reply, sounding pathetic, and we both know it’s a lie.
Aidan shakes his head, disappointed in me, and it just cuts deeper. Then he gently places a hand on my face.
“How long has this been going on?”
I try to avert my eyes, but he grips me a little tighter. Not hard. He wouldn’t do that. I know this about him.
“Sweetheart,” he prompts.
A choke on the tears which swamp me and collapse on his chest. I can’t tell him. Shame consumes me along with grief, knowing this is the end.
I don’t deserve a man like him.
I never did.
Suddenly, I just wish he wasn’t here.
“You should go,” I rasp and attempt to climb off his lap as Mom cries into the phone.
I hear the sirens in the distance.
Then Dad groans something and Mom has apparently only just realized he wasn’t dead.
“Oh thank god. Oh god. I thought you were dead. That boy nearly killed you.”
Aidan holds me tight on his lap, as if not wanting me near the man who gave me life.
My life is so fucked up.
“Come home with me,” he says, and I glance up at him through soaking wet eyes, surprised. “Come home with me. Move in with me. I don’t want you here.”
“Aidan,” I sob, filled with so much love I think I’ll explode.
He still wants me?
After seeing all that.
“Briar. I love you. I will damn well kill him if he fucking touches you like that again. Do you understand?”
I wrap my arms around his neck. My throat burns like a bitch as I sob and tell him I love him back.
Then the paramedics arrive and everything changes.
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AIDAN
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THERE’S NO RUNNING from this and I wouldn’t, even if I’d thought about it three minutes ago.
Sirens fill the air, and I hear the emergency vehicles as they pull up outside.
“Aidan,” Briar’s scratchy voice from my lap pulls my focus back to her.
Not that it was ever gone.
“I’ve got you.” I hold her tighter and keep my eyes on her father as he sits up. It’s going to take him a little while to get his bearings. Not that I’ve knocked a man unconscious before.
But if anyone was going to make me do it, it’s someone trying to strangle the woman I love.
How fucking long has this been going on?
I know the answer. I just don’t want to hear it.
Forever.
That’s probably how long, by the looks of the fear on her mother’s face. She looks like her world is crumbling apart.
Someone has seen their biggest shame.
The paramedics burst through the doorway and take in the scene. One of them stares at me while the female crouches and drops her large bag.
“Sir, can you hear me? Can you understand me?” She’s pointing a light into his eyes as she takes his stats.
Briar’s mom is crying and telling them that I hit him. That I tried to kill him.
Not yet, lady, but I might.
The male drags his eyes down to Briar.
“Ma’am, I’d like to examine you. Are you able to walk? Can you come over here?”
Fucking hell. He thinks I’m dangerous. In truth, I’m a big guy, and I probably look a little insane holding onto Briar like she’s my everything.
She is.
So yeah, I’m probably a little terrifying right now.
Good.
No one is touching her.
Even though I know they need to take a look at her.
Briar clears her throat and looks at me.
Shit.
No way I’m letting anyone think I’m the guilty party here. I shift on the sofa and move her, waving the guy over. “She does. Her father was strangling her,” I tell him.
He glances at me quickly as he makes his way over with some medical equipment. He takes in the deep red mark on her neck and crouches, reaching to gently touch it.
Again, his eyes dart to me.
Fuck this.
I hold up both hands and step away.
“I saved her. She’s in no danger from me.” I growl.
“Sure. Can I get you to sit on the chair over there, please, sir?” He points to an armchair.
“He didn’t hurt me.” Briar tells him. “It’s...he didn’t...it’s okay.”
I glare at her.
Why isn’t she telling him her father hurt her?
“The police will be here any moment now, so you can give statements. Were you hurt anywhere else?” he asks.
“...then that angry big man flew in the door and punched him. For no reason,” Mrs. Sutton says.
What the fuck?
I stand.
Then sit again as the paramedics both flinch. It’s subtle, but I saw it.
When the cops arrive a few minutes later, I stand once more, thinking here comes a bunch of sound-minded people who will understand what’s really going on. When they ask me to go down to the station thirty minutes later, reality sets in.
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IT TAKES THREE hours, but eventually I leave the station, making sure I clarify I was never arrested.
“No. You are free to go,” the cop says.
I glance at the clock on the way out. It’s after two in the morning.
Mr. Sutton didn’t press charges, and the policeman I was dealing with said he had no former record of domestic abuse. The fact my record was clean as a whistle meant he was happy to let me go.
“This time.” He clarified, telling me to keep my nose clean.
When I reiterated what I’d seen, he explained without Briar making a statement or filing a complaint, there was nothing he could do.
His advice? “Get a new girlfriend, pal.”
I got a little angry at that part and he finally looked at Briar’s medical records when I insisted.
Pushing my luck.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
When I finally got a look, it was clear she’d been abused all her life. I’m no expert, but it looked like she had way more broken bones and injuries than the average kid.
“Fucking hell.” I wiped my hand down my face after draining the last of the god-awful coffee the cop gave me. “I need to get her out of that house.”
“You need to stay away. If her father decides to press charges, it’ll mess up your future,” he said, and I figured it was because I told him I was about to join the Marine Corps.
I don’t care. I love her. I’m not standing by and letting her father hurt her again.
That’s not who I am.
I want to marry this woman. What sort of fucking man and husband would I be to just sit back knowing she was being smacked around by some middle-aged asshole?
A shit one, that’s what.
I flop down on my bed when I get home and set my alarm for eight. I’ll get three-and-a-half hours' sleep if I’m lucky.
That’s if I can get to sleep.
I want to know how Briar is, but I am not going to go over there, obviously. Nor message her in the middle of the night if she has been able to sleep.
My car is still there, so my plan is to call into work sick and convince her to move in with me.
Like immediately.
I’m not the kind of guy who runs from difficulty and if that means I need to marry her right damn now, then I will.
She’s mine.
Mine to protect.
Even if it’s protecting her from her own family... and her own limitations.
The next day, everything fucking changes.