Barefoot

Part Seven

She gasps, tears welling in her own eyes. She moves onto her knees so she's eye level with him and leans her forehead against his. "I'm so, so sorry, Kaden."

"That's why I've been so closed off," he tells her, opening his tear-filled eyes.

"What happened after that?" She asks softly.

"I screamed at him. Oh god, my heart hurt so much that night. I tried so hard to get away from his two friends, but they were bigger and stronger than I. He came over to me next and beat me. I was so weak that I could hardly put up a fight by the end. Then, he pulled out a knife."

She gasps and closes her eyes, not wanting to hear his next words.

He continues. "He stabbed me twice." He pulls up his shirt to reveal two thick scars along his abdomen.

"Oh my god," she cries, the tears in her eyes overflowing down her cheeks. "Kaden," she says, her voice breaking.

He puts his hands on her cheeks and brushes her tears away with his thumbs. "No pity, okay?"

She nods. "Kaden, you are so strong. That must have been so hard, but you got through it, and for that, I'm so proud of you."

He looks at her fondly. "So what about you?"

"What about me?" She asks.

"Why were you at the creek the other day? And why don't you have a home to go to?"

She suddenly pulls her eyes away. "It's a very long story," she murmurs, closing her eyes.

He immediately wants to rid her of her pain. "I have time," he whispers, mimicking her words from earlier.

She moves to bury her head in his chest and he wraps his arms around her. "I didn't have a very happy childhood," she says softly. "In fact, I didn't have much of a childhood at all."

She turns her head so she's looking up from his shoulder. "When I was four, my parents got in a car accident. They hit a patch of ice and lost control of their car. I was in the backseat in my little kid car seat and I was fine, but my mom and dad died. They had managed to wrap the front of their car around a tree."

He squeezes her. Despite his terrible experience with his dad, he still had a childhood and nearly all of the memories were positive.

"After that, I bounced around from foster family to foster family. No one wanted to adopt a little girl who was messed up mentally," she says bitterly. "I used to cry every single night about my parents. I can still see the accident in my mind." She shudders and squeezes her eyes tightly. "After that, I grew up closed up like a clam. For four years, I didn't talk to anyone. During that time, I had three different families. In the end, they all took me back. No one wanted me."

He pulls her face up towards his and kisses her on the forehead.

She keeps going. "Eventually, I found a family that kept me. It was a family here, just a couple miles outside town. I've lived here for over a year."

He looks at her, confused. "But I've never seen you until the past few days."

She puts her head down and tugs his jacket tighter around her shoulders. "That's because I wasn't allowed outside the house," she whispers. "He locked me in the basement."

His blood boils. "Locked you?"

She nods slowly. "He treated me like an animal and he never really considered me to be a human. The only time they let me out was to beat me. The only reason that that couple wanted me was because they needed a punching bag. They would have these huge parties and they would get drunk and-and-" her breathing picks up and she starts to shake. He rubs her back soothingly and she stands up with a start, taking a few steps away and then falling to her knees.

He hurried to his feet and is beside her, knowing where this is going. There's only one thing he can think of that would affect somebody this much. He gathers her into his arms and she feels suddenly frail.

She opens her eyes and the amount of hurt and fear in her eyes makes him want to find whoever did this and make them pay.

"What did they do to you?" He asks quietly, fearing her next words.

"They used me."