Chapter 5
AVA - SHE CALLED US brAVE
Content Warning: This chapter contains depictions of domestic violence. Please take care while reading.
The road blurred at the edges as I drove, one hand clenched on the steering wheel, the other tightening and loosening like my fingers could wring the dread out of the air.
The sun was starting to dip low behind the tree line, casting long shadows across the backroads. Sofia’s aunt lived just outside the edge of town in one of those aging single-level houses with wood panelling that had seen better days.
As I turned onto the gravel drive, I already knew.
Something in me… just knew.
The front door was cracked. Not wide open, just hanging like someone hadn’t had the care to finish closing it. The porch light flickered above.
I parked and stepped out slowly, in one hand, my fingers closed around the small canister of pepper spray I kept in my purse. Not much. But something. In the other, my phone was gripped tightly.
Each step I took towards the house, up the. stairs and on the porch, I... it felt like I was walking to the end of something. The cold air whipped around me, a reminder that this was the season when things died.
I paused for a moment, trying to compose myself. Prepare myself for whatever lies beyond the front door. But how could you do that? I had been in far too many similar situations, and still, it never got easier.
I took a deep breath, felt the weight of the can in my hand, even though I knew precisely where the predator was. The door screeched when I pushed it the rest of the way open.
“Sofia?” My voice broke the silence like a match in a gas leak. “Ms. Cross?”
No answer.
I stepped into the hallway. The air was wrong, not that cool, sharp scent of the moment before fall and winter.
It was thick with copper and smoke and something heavier.
I eyed the space I had started to become familiar with, but the furniture was overturned.
A shattered lamp glittered across the floor like broken teeth.
The TV had been pulled halfway off the wall, still flickering with static.
There had been a fight.
A bad one.
I edged toward the kitchen, trying not to make a sound. I caught sight of something on the floor... movement, barely... a hand.
I rushed forward, crouched low. Let my eyes adjust to the dark.
No.
Sofia’s aunt was sprawled out on the linoleum floor.
Unconscious, bleeding from a deep gash along her hairline, her breath ragged.
I checked her pulse. Faint but steady.
I needed to find Sofia, so I stood on shaky legs and turned toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
The feeling deep within my soul was telling me I already knew what I would find, but I had to see it, see her.
Every step felt like dragging my soul through molasses. The door to the guest room was broken, one hinge hanging.
I pushed it open and there she was.
Sofia.
Her body was crumpled beside the bed like a discarded doll, her head twisted at the wrong angle, bruises blooming like dark petals across her skin.
No breath.
No pulse.
No saving her.
I dropped to my knees beside her, hands trembling, tears begging to be released.
“Sofia,” I whispered.
I didn’t know if I was saying her name to wake her up or to mourn her.
My breath caught in my chest, like if I let it out, it would turn into a scream I’d never stop.
She’d called us brave. Just last week, she told Remi and me that we made her believe she could get out.
That she could make it.
That she was more than what he did to her.
That because of us, she had a life to live beyond him.
But that was a fucking joke.
Because now...
She was gone.
I pressed my hand to my mouth, forcing the sob back down. No. Not now. Not here. Not when there was still work to do.
But the sorrow hit hard. Soul-deep and crippling.
Another one. Another goddamn woman lost to a system that only cared when it was too late.
Another girl who screamed for help and was handed paperwork instead of protection.
My chest heaved. For a moment, I wanted to give in to the pit that had opened up inside me and curl up beside Sofia.
That place where the question echoed: Why try? Why keep doing this?
But then my gaze fell to Sofia’s eyes, wide, empty, still searching.
And something in me lit.
A fire. Hot and ancient. The kind that didn’t burn you down, it turned you into something- changed you fundamentally.
I reached forward with shaking hands and gently closed her eyes.
“You can rest now, sweet girl,” I whispered. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
With my hand that still held my phone, I placed the call.
“This is Ava Sinclair,” I told the dispatcher. “I need officers and medics at 73 Millstone Lane. One injured. One deceased.”
I didn't listen to the response; my phone slipped from my hands and settled beside my still full can of pepper spray.
I don't know how, but I managed to stumble back through the hall, my legs barely working. The chaos blurred around me, glass underfoot, overturned furniture, broken picture frames that still held smiles from better years, the couch where I had once sat and talked of hope.
When I reached the kitchen, I dropped beside Sofia’s aunt again and yanked off my cardigan, balled it up, and pressed it hard to the bleeding wound at her temple.
“You’re okay,” I whispered. “Just hang on. You’re okay.”
But my hands were shaking. I didn’t feel okay. I felt hollow. Ravaged. Like every woman I couldn’t save was clawing at my ribs from the inside out.
Maybe I should’ve pushed harder.
Maybe I missed something.
Maybe it’s always too little, too late.
But as the sirens neared and the flashing lights began to stain the walls of the kitchen red and blue, I felt something settle in me. Not calm.
Conviction.
I would not let Sofia die in vain.
I would not stop until the ones responsible, all of them, faced the fire they lit.
Corruption. Negligence. Cowardice.
I would burn it down. Every last piece of it.
The door slammed open.
Boots thundered in.
And then I saw him.
Chief Harlan Gray.
Gun drawn.
Eyes wild.
Not the stoic man from the station.
This man looked awake for the first time. Like he’d finally seen the nightmare we lived in.
I met his eyes.
“She’s in the guest room,” I said softly.
And I watched something in him break.