Splintered [Complete | GB+SB]

Nineteen: -A- Report #3

Luke stood at the door, hand on the handle, for a good minute before he finally pulled it open and entered. His mind was going a thousand miles an hour trying to figure out how they could recover from this. Fix it. Then he realized the irony of him focusing on trying to fix things for a woman who just demanded they stop trying to fix everything.

"Mr. Taylor, report!"

It was so familiar that for a second he was transported back in time to when that voice filled him with a mix of anticipation, aggravation, and apprehension. He grinned at his old boss and current friend, brother, and co-boyfriend, and took a seat. Owen grimaced sheepishly.

"She went to the house," he said, pausing to take a drink. It was so fucking hot out there, and he was in long pants, tank, and shirt from his earlier assignment. He knew the others were dying to demand answers, but were waiting patiently for him, so he didn't torture them long. "She knew instantly I was following her, so I didn't even bother with the sneaky-sneaky, I walked with her to the house. She cried the whole way, didn't say a word. I think she strained her throat with everything going on, and some of the tears were frustration over that. I walked her to the house, gave her the key, asked her if I could come back later to check on her."

"What did she say?"

"Nothin'. But she nodded."

"Why can't she talk?" Marc asked, confused. "I thought her mom hit her on the head. Does she— does she have brain damage?" he asked in horror, suddenly wanting to kill someone and ugly cry, possibly at the same time.

"Prior abuse," Sean said bleakly, staring at his hands twisting in knots on the tabletop. They'd really done it this time. "Chemical burns in her throat." He reported it by rote, not really focusing on the men around him, more concerned with how they might salvage this than the explosion of rage happening. He finally looked up when the table shook, and he realized both Nate and Raven were being forcibly restrained from leaving the diner. "Where y'all thinking about going? Not a one of you knows where that woman is except me." That got them to settle down a bit, as if he'd reward them for behaving by revealing the location. He might as well get the worst of it out all at once, while there was a carrot dangling in front of them. "Her stepmom made her drink a concoction of vinegar and lemon juice if she said bad words, raised her voice, or was caught talking to boys. She made her kneel on the hard floor for hours, sometimes on rice — I tried it out, it's goddamn agony — or sit on a wooden stool for five hours or more until her tailbone bruised from the pressure because she couldn't be lazy if she couldn't sit. She was routinely confined and starved. Once for several days."

"Naked, in a closet," Gabe muttered. "In the winter. In the NORTH."

"That was for talking to a neighbor boy. Emotional and verbal abuse on top of that. Continual. Her father allowed it, her sister participated. I think that about covers it?" He looked over at Silas and North, who nodded.

Axel sat down heavily in a chair. Raven began to pace off to the side, still within hearing range but enough apart that he could work out some of this agitation. Corey watched him from his seat on the table, then looked toward his twin, who met his eye and sighed, rested a hand on Axel's shoulder for a moment, then pulled up a chair. It wasn't until he sat down at the table that he noticed that Kota was crying. "Hey, man, she's okay now. She's safe," Brandon said, resting his hand on Kota's bicep. "And we'll make sure it never happens again. All of us. She's not alone anymore."

"She said she was like us, she'd been hurt as a kid," Kota whispered, his head bent forward. "She said she had that same voice I did, telling her it was her fault, that she was the bad one, the problem. She was so concerned about me, about Victor, about all of you... she never told me about her. I'm so damn self-absorbed—"