My Brother's Best Friend -VS- My Abusive Ex.

Chapter Twenty-One

I walked down the stairs slowly, still a little hesitant about facing Kim. She risked her life for mine and here I was in my home perfectly safe with the people that loved me. How would I ever be able to repay her? I stopped a few feet away from the couch where she was lying. I had no idea of what I could say. “Kim,” I whispered.

She turned her head slowly to look at me and started crying. “H-He said you we-were with him! He t-told me he had y-you. I’m s-so sorry Case. I sh-shouldn’t have listened t-to him.” I walked to the front of the couch so I could kneel down next to her.

“You didn’t know,” I said trying to soothe her. She was apologizing to me for trying to save me. “You can’t apologize for that. You did it for me. I’m the one that’s sorry. You went through all of this because of me. I am SO sorry Kim.”

She tried to smile at me, but her face was so swollen from the beating that it ended in a huge groan of pain. Eric was the first to rush over and make sure she was okay. It would’ve been cute had she not been in pain that I knew had to be horrible. “Are you okay?” Without waiting for her to answer he turned to me and said, “We need to take her to the hospital. I don’t care what Joe wants I’m taking her.”

My phone rang immediately after he finished his sentence. I handed it to my brother and said, “Last time I checked he was to talk to you next time he called.”

He answered the phone, “Hello.” I could tell he wasn’t even trying to hide his anger.  He stood up from the side of the couch and began to pace. His hands were clenched tightly into fists and I knew Joe was trying to make nice. He was talking to Eric like he had talked to me. He was talking as if none of this had happened, but unlike me Eric wasn’t going to fake his approval of this to get what he needed. I didn’t understand how he had managed to hold it all in with the girl he was clearly, deeply in love with taken by Joe. Normally Eric would’ve been out the door in seconds with a shotgun in his hand. Traeh learned how to shoot in case something like this had happened, but Eric, Aiden and my father knew how to shoot from their years of hunting and they had gotten very good.

“She needs to go to the hospital,” Eric said through his teeth. A few moments later he responded with, “I’ll discuss it with everyone and get back to you,” and he hung up the phone. Tossing it back to me he said, “Joe wants something in exchange.”

When my brother couldn’t look any one in the eye, we all immediately knew what he meant. We knew WHO he meant. “No,” Aiden and Traeh both barked at him at the same time. “There is no way he is getting her,” Traeh said. “How can you even consider that? She’s your baby sister!”

“But she’s the girl he loves,” I whispered. I looked up at my older brother through my now tear filled eyes. I was looking at the guy that raised me, that gave up so much for me, protected me, and loved me. How could I ask him to also choose me over Kim? “I get it,” I told him as my tears fell. I couldn’t and wouldn’t ask him to do that. He’d done everything he could for me and now I had to fix my problem myself. I smiled at him, knowing it may be the last time I saw him. I was trying to make it easier for him, but I knew being okay with it and smiling was just making it harder, because he knew all of it was fake, and he knew I was only smiling because I loved him so much that I didn’t want him to feel any pain about choosing Kim.

“You’re not going,” Traeh said trying to sound strong. He tried but failed. He sounded desperate, tired and completely broken. “You can’t really think that we are going to let you go.”

“We aren’t,” Aiden spoke up. “I just got you Bunny. You don’t really think I’m letting you leave, do you?”

“You have to,” I told the both of them. “Kim got into this mess because she risked her life for me and I’m more than ready to pay her back.”