Lethal

Chapter 18

Eighteen

Hayden

Prom Night

I knew my first kiss with Olivia was going to be amazing, it was everything. I can’t even begin to say how long I’ve been waiting for this. To finally have her, she’s mine, and there's no way I'm losing her now.

“I have something for you when we get back home.” I pull her closer to me as we move to the music. “And before you say anything, it’s a graduation present.”

“Hayden, you didn’t have to. We promised we weren't getting presents.” She shakes her head, and I’m so happy to know she kept her word on that. I don’t want her spending money on me. I’ve never wanted that.

“And I don’t want you to give me anything. You saying yes to being my girlfriend, is the best gift I’ve ever had.” I lean down, and kiss her again, because her lips on mine is now the best feeling in the world.

I look up at the DJ, I had this all planned out, there was a song which she said she heard and loved.

She joked she wanted it to be played on her wedding day.

There is no better time for me to have this song playing for her than now.

I’m ready to give her the world and make her smile every day for the rest of my life.

I smile as the song starts playing, and her beautiful eyes look up at me, and the smile on her lips is the best view in the world.

The song, You look wonderful tonight, by Damage.

I didn’t even know who they were, I had to google the hell out of them.

They are some British group, so I have no idea where she even heard the song, but she loves it, and that’s all that matters to me.

“Hayden, you got them to play the song.” I place my hand on her lower back and pull her so closer that our bodies are touching. “I knew you’d like the song.”

“Well, salty and sweet popcorn has grown on me,” I joke with her. I take a step back from her, and spin her under my arm, then pull her closer to me. “I hope you’re ready to be with me forever.”

“So ready, and I hope nothing changes.”

I lean my forehead on hers, my hand cupping the side of her face.

“Nothing will change, I promise. Promise to stay the same, and still make fun of you and the sex stories you read, and I promise to pretend to listen when you tell me about the book, I promise to always buy you a cupcake and a daisy, and the biggest promise I'll make, I will never hurt you.” Kissing her again, I feel her hands move to the back of my neck, pulling me closer to her, deepening the kiss, and the taste of strawberries hits me.

The moment the song finishes she takes a step back and looks around. “Bathroom?” she asks. I point to the door behind her. “Be right back.” She goes to walk away, but I quickly grab her arm and kiss her again. Pulling away from her, she smiles and walks away.

Best night of my life.

I walk over to the side and wait for her to get back.

I watch some of the hockey team dancing with their girls, then over to the football team.

Thinking I spent four years with these people, and now I don’t know if I'll see any of them again.

Do I care? No. Because I know where my life goal is, with the family, and the business we do.

Looking at my watch, I wonder what's taking her so long. I turn to the door when someone walks back into the hall, it’s not her. Maybe there was a line, a few more minutes, if she’s not back I’m going to go in.

I hope she’s not having second thoughts about us. Is she scared that things will change between us? Nothing will change, and I need her to remember that.

Ten minutes, now that’s too fucking long to be in there. Quickly getting up I exit the dance hall and walk to the bathroom. I push the door, but it’s locked. Why is it locked? It shouldn't be locked. I start kicking the door harder and harder to open it. My heart is pounding. Something is wrong.

I kick again harder, and the door swings open. “Hayden,” I hear Olivia, but her voice is broken, this isn’t my girl’s voice.

I don’t see her, the first people I see are three assholes who I’m going to make pay for this, Leo and his two dicks, who are friends with him. Fucking football team think they can do what the hell they want.

The moment I look at her, my body shakes with rage. I look at the three assholes. I’m going to fucking kill them.

Looking behind them at Olivia, her dress has been pushed to her waist, and her underwear is on the floor next to her. They fucking raped her. She’s curled up into a ball in the corner, crying, and I let this happen to her.

“Your girl was begging for it.” Leo smiles as he looks at Olivia, before turning back to me. “Sorry I got the first taste.”

“You’re dea...” I can say a lot more to him, but I don’t want to say anything in front of Olivia.

I grab Leo and slam him against the wall and punch him over and over again.

His friends grab me, pulling me away, and Leo punches me twice, fucking hell the guys got some power behind him.

I quickly get out of their grip, punching one of them, and elbow the other in the nose.

Punching Leo again, Leo’s friend Jason kicks the back of my leg hard enough for me to fall to the floor, and Leo punches me in the face.

Fuck, I feel my nose bleeding and my lip cut, but that’s not going to stop me, because I'll kill this bastard, and I’m going to make it slow.

I get up and punch him again, and again. Patrick pulls me off Leo again, and Jason drags Leo out of the restroom, and I crawl over to Olivia.

“Hey, I've got you. I've got you. I promise. I've got you.” She wraps her arms around me, and I quickly take my jacket off, and wrap it around her, pulling her dress down.

Her body is shaking, I try to keep myself calm, but my hands tense up when I see the hand marks on her thighs.

How fucking hard did they hold her down?

Picking up her underwear I put it into my trouser pocket, not wanting anyone else to pick them up.

She has been humiliated enough, and there are some sick people out there who would do it.

I look up at her, wiping the tears away from her cheeks, she can’t even look at me. Pulling the jacket tighter around her she goes to speak but stops, then chokes out. “Hayden, I screamed. I screamed. No one could hear me—”

“It's okay. I've got you. I've got you.” I scoop her up into my arms. “I've got you—”

“Hayden—”

“Olivia, I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head and starts hyperventilating as she buries her face into my chest and screams. The only thing I can do is hold her, and comfort her the best I can. And I make her one promise that the bastards will pay for hurting her.

“No, no,” she says through tears. She continues to scream no into my chest, over and over again.

“Hey, my little daisy.” I cup her face using my thumb to wipe the tears away. “I’m here, I’ve got you.”

“Hayden I wanted you to be my first.” The words come out through cries, and I put my arm over her body and pick her up.

Kissing the top of her head, all I can do is whisper. “I know, I know.”

I quickly get out of the bathroom and put her in my car. I don't care what she says, she needs to go to the hospital and report this. There is no way she's not reporting this.

“Hayden—”

“Olivia, we're going to the doctors.” I speed out of the car park, and I don’t care if the police stop me for speeding, they might even help me get there faster once they know what’s happened.

“Hayden, it hurts.” Olivia cries.

My hands tighten around the steering wheel. “Hayden—”

“Olivia, I’m sorry.” I try to keep myself calm for her as she continues to cry, covering as much of her body as she can with my jacket.

I look at my knuckles all cut from beating Leo up, he walked out of the bathroom tonight, but I'll come for him.

SAs son as I get Olivia with the doctors, Mason and Miles will help me kill him.

Parking the car, I turn the car off, run to her side, pick her up and take her inside.

“Somebody. Help. Somebody help,” I shout, hoping to get someone’s attention. Fifteen minutes it took to get here. For fifteen minutes my girl was in pain and there was nothing I could do to help her.

One of the nurses comes up and brings a wheelchair over. “What happened?”

“She's been raped.” The nurse looks at me, but says nothing, and takes Olivia to one of the extra rooms and shuts the curtain. I hear her telling one of the nurses her dad's information.

I promised him I'd keep her safe, and I didn’t.

I start pacing the waiting area. It feels like I've been waiting for hours for one of the nurses to come out and tell me something.

All I need to know is if she's okay, even let me go in to see her. But I know they won’t because she's a rape victim and she can't be speaking to anybody until the police speak to her.

Hello, let me talk to them. I can tell them who did it, I can point them out. I can tell them where they fucking live.

I stop pacing the moment I see Olivia's dad. What the hell is he doing here already?

“Sir—”

“Her mom had to come for a quick treatment. I was already in the building.”

“I'm so sorry I didn’t protect her. I'm so sorry I let someone hurt her.” I stop talking when he places his hand on my shoulder.

“Hayden, I know with you, my daughter is the safest. You can't go to the girls' restroom with her.” His words still don’t make me feel any better.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Banks.”

“Hayden, go home, get yourself cleaned up—”

“No, I want to stay here.” Mr. Banks doesn't say anything, tilts his head and stays quiet for too long. “Sir, is everything okay?”

“Hayden, you've been a good friend to my daughter—”

“Friend? I'm more than her friend. Now I'm a boyfriend, sir.” He shakes his head, as if this information is something he doesn’t want to hear. Does he not like me? I thought over the years I had won him over. Why does something feel off to me? Something doesn't feel right. “Sir?”

“Go home. Hayden, get yourself cleaned up, and Olivia will call you.”

“But—”

“Hayden, go home. Let the doctors do what they need to, and she'll call you.”

Before I can say anything, or even look into the room, he walks into the room that Olivia's in, and I stand there, baffled, confused, what's just happened?

I take a deep breath, shaking my head. I want to stay, but why the hell do I feel like I'm not welcome here?

Knowing I’m not going to win this, I leave but each step is so heavy, and my heart aches with each one.

Getting into the car. I go home. What else am I meant to do?

Thirty minutes it took me to get home, I could have got home quicker, but I wasn’t focused on the road, I was thinking about Olivia, and Mr. Banks words. There was something wrong with him, maybe Mrs. B isn’t well and what’s happened to Olivia on top of all that has him acting the way he was.

The moment I walk in, my mum and dad and my brothers are all there, and they all turn to me, because this is too early to be coming back from prom.

“Hayden, what happened?” My mom looks at me, then at my hands. My dad grabs my face and turns it to him so he can have a look.

“Your nose isn't broken. What happened?” His tone is calm, which I honestly did think it would be, but maybe he sees me broken as his tone is soft.

“Hayden. You're scaring me. You've got blood on you. What happened?” My mom cups my face. I haven't spoken for a while, and one look into her eyes, I break down. I cry, holding in the anger has become too much.

“I didn't protect her mom. I didn't protect her.”

“Olivia. What's happened to Olivia?”

“We were dancing, and she said she needed to go to the toilet, she went, she was in there for too long, and I was worried, so I went over. The bathroom door was locked, and I started kicking it, and—” the words got stuck in my throat, I should have looked after her.

“Hayden?” I hear my dad.

“They raped her, and I didn't protect her.” I look away from my family, this is my fault, I should have walked her to the restroom, I should have just waited outside the door for her. Then this wouldn’t have happened.

The best night of my life turned into the worst, all because I didn’t walk her to the restroom.

“Who?”

I tell my family everything that happened and who it was, the fight and the blood, everything.

“Oh, Hayden, you couldn't have followed her into the girl's toilet. You know, this isn't your fault.”

“I didn't protect her, Mom. I finally got my girl, and I couldn't even protect her.”

There's silence in the room, absolute silence. No one says anything, because they all know how I feel about Olivia, and no one knows how to make me feel better for letting her down.

“Hayden, sweetheart—”

“No. How am I meant to face the girl I love when I couldn't protect her, when she needed me the most.” I shake my head, because the only words I can hear are the ones she said to me when I picked her up.

‘I wanted you to be the first.’ She wanted me to be her first, but instead, something brutal happened to her.

I lean back and wipe the tears away. I let her down.

The doorbell goes, and I look over at my dad as he answers the door.

“Officers.” I hear my dad.

I stand up straight away. How did they get here quickly?

“Hayden Crawford?”

“Yes. Is Olivia okay? Do you need my statement?” I take a step closer to them.

“No. You are under arrest for the rape of Olivia Banks—”

“What?”

“If you can turn around. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time.”

“Wait, you have this wrong.” I try to fight this, but there's no hope.

“Officers, you have this wrong. Have you spoken to Olivia?” My dad stands in front of me, so they can’t walk me out the house.

“Yes, she’s the one who told us it was your son who raped her.”

My whole body gives up on me, and I just stand there not sure what I just heard. “What?”

“You heard us, she told us what happened,” the officer replies, and I stand there frozen to the spot. I look over at my dad not being able to say anything, I have no words. This has to be wrong, there has to be a mix up.

“Don't say anything until the lawyer is there,” my dad tells me, and I’m still not able to speak, so I nod.

The officers take me to the car, and I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest and thrown into a pit of fire.

This has to be wrong.