The Dog, The Baby and The Criminal

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Dominic

I fucked up; I never fuck up. After I had walked out of the cell and left Evangeline on her own, I went to my office to gather all the records I had on her. I sat at my desk and flicked through them until I got to the one I needed, medical records. I pulled out a bottle of whiskey from my drawer and took a swig straight from the bottle. I needed that.

I opened the records and started to read through, taking notice of her age, twenty-one. The first few, the first sixteen years of her medical history, seemed quite normal, the odd doctors appointment here and there. It was when she turned seventeen that they started getting interesting, five months after turning seventeen she had been diagnosed with depression after admitting to a doctor she had been self harming. Two months after this, she had been admitted to the hospital for an apparent suicide attempt, an overdose on pain killers. What could have possibly made her feel like this?

There wasn't anything unusual after that until a month before she turned twenty, she had been admitted to hospital again, but this time it was from an apparent assault. Assault? She had three broken ribs, a broken wrist, and slight bruising around her neck as if a hand had been wrapped around it. I flipped to the next page where there were pictures of her bruised and battered body. It looked horrible, who did this to her?

For some absolutely insane reason, I felt myself getting angry as I looked at the pictures of her body, the bruising around her neck definitely wasn't slight like the records said, her whole body looked as though it had been picked up and thrown at a wall, or kicked repeatedly. I don't know what made me angrier.

I flicked through to the next page before I could get even angrier, as if what I'd read next wouldn't infuriate me. There was nothing out of the ordinary again until three months after she turned twenty, February last year. She was pregnant. Due date: 17th November. I was planning to save myself some reading by skipping a few months, but I was quite curious about this girl so I decided to read it in full.

Five months into the pregnancy, the gender was noted in her records, although she apparently didn't find out herself. A boy. A month after this, she had been admitted to hospital again with five broken ribs and a punctured lung. The baby somehow miraculously survived through the injuries.

The next page showed photos just like her last admitting, there were bruises all over her in this one too, even a few littering her small baby bump. Someone hurt her while she was pregnant? I squeezed the bottle of whiskey tighter and tighter as I looked through the photos. I was knocked out of my angry state when I felt the glass bottle shatter against my hand. I quickly stood up "fuck" I muttered under my breath, I quickly grabbed the rest of the records and made my way out of the office. I spotted a maid on the way "Clean up my office" I demanded, she nodded and hastily walked past me.

I was so angry and I knew only one thing could calm me down, I decided it was time to go and see my boy. I made my way to his room and went inside. He had just started to stir from his nap. It was late in the evening now, around ten pm, he had been asleep for a few hours. I quickly made him a bottle of milk, tucked the records under my arm and picked him up. I made my way to the rocking chair close to the window and sat us down. He was staring up at me when I looked down at him. Adorable. "Hungry, little man?", he gave me a cute, toothless smile and I smiled back at him, I only ever smiled at him. After a few seconds his smile dropped and he started to cry. I quickly put the bottle in his mouth and started to feed him. I rocked us back and forth to sooth him while he ate, after about five minutes he was done. I burped him and then just held him for a bit. He was back to sleep after a while.