AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why? You’re my baby sister Jessie,” she said as her shoulders shook, unable to control it any longer. “I’d never…neverlet him touch you in any way.”
“In any way?” Dan repeated. “You’re saying…”
“He threatened to hurt Jess the way he’s hurt you?” Will asked gently cupping the back of her head in his hands.
She nodded and let herself be pulled into his hold as Jess hugged her. “Mhmm!” whimpered out of her at the hold.
“Liv, what’s wrong?” she asked hearing her soft exclamation.
“Oh honey, why didn’t you leave?” her mom asked reaching them with her dad.
“I couldn’t…if I go he’ll find me.”
“We’re calling the cops,” Dan stated reaching for the phone.
“You can’t Dan,” she said panicking. “If he finds out…he’ll get to me first or else you all.”
“Not if he’s in jail,” he argued.
“And that might work for five minutes, but he won’t stay in for long. He’ll get out and he’ll come after me.”
“Why did you marry him Liv?” Jess asked as her mom led them to the couch, holding her so tenderly it was too much.
Unable to keep the words in any longer, no matter how much it might endanger all of them, they fell as she fought to keep the tears away. “He wasn’t like this, not before…while he was undercover, he was the Scott you all knew but when he stopped working on those cases…I packed my bags the first time he hit me and that’s when he told me if I left him, he’d come after you. You were eighteen Jessie; I couldn’t let him do that to you.”
“So instead, you let him use you as a punching bag for two years without saying a word?” Dan asked, his tone showing his anger making her heart stutter.
“At least I stayed alive and so did you all…all of you.”
“Those time I thought he wanted to kill me?” Will asked as her gaze rested on him for an extra second.
“You don’t know how right you were. I tried to keep it to myself to not let you all see but he’s just gotten worse, and it finally was too much.”
“What did you do Liv?” Jess asked.
“You remember the woman from the play, not the character though I did think about it plenty, the writer of it. She followed me into the bathroom at the café and gave me her card.”
“She’s one of the teachers for the psychology department and she has a practice,” Jess stated.
“I went to talk to her.”
“When?” Dan asked.
“Two months ago, just to talk, be able to admit it. She wanted to help but there’s nothing the police can do. I can’t tell without risking my life and your all’s.”
“You can’t protect us any more Liv,” her dad said gently. “You have to protect yourself.”
“First things first, is getting you out of that house,” Will stated. “My place is the most secure so you can stay there; we won’t let him hurt you again.”
“No, just leave me alone,” she said, trying to figure out a way to keep them safe still as she pushed herself up.
“Olivia Marie Johnson…Jackson, stop being so stubborn. You are not staying with a man who hurts you,” her mother stated. “We are calling the police and they are going to pick him up.”
“It won’t stick; it’s my word against his.”
“What about the marks on your back Sis?” Dan asked.
“He’ll claim someone else did that, anything he possibly can, and they’ll believe him. He’s a cop and there have been no calls made to the house because we don’t have neighbors who can hear us fight. The x-rays won’t make that much of a difference and there are no hospital or ER reports. He wins. I lose. Then lose you all, then my life. So please just stay away.”
