Ch 7
Travis pov
It takes us a while to get home and when we arrive I see Carter and Danny at the house waiting for us. When we pull up and park they both jump up to see if we need help. I slowly get her down and carry her inside up to her room. I set her on the edge of the king size bed and look for some clothes for her to relax in. It's roughly around three in the afternoon, and I just want her to rest. I will figure out dinner later for us to eat. I grab some leggings and a hoodie and help her slowly change out of the jeans and boots.
I watch her snuggle under the blankets and lean over kissing her head softly. I look into her eyes and before I can stop myself I lightly kiss her lips. When I lean back I see tears falling down her face. I smile at her and turn to leave.
"I will be back in a couple hours to make us dinner. I have to finish the fence since we have more cattle coming soon and I need to get them fixed."
I watch her nod and soon I'm running down the stairs and out the door telling the guys what needs to be fixed in the field. I start going through the chores I gave her and can see she got to the chickens and got some of the animals fed. When I entered the barn I saw she was cleaning the stalls and loading the hay when she was attacked. I just look down at the spot where we found her and can still see her blood splattered everywhere.
I fought back tears because she didn't deserve any of this. Rhonda knew that I've never been interested in her. I had made that abundantly clear. Yet she still felt like she had first rights to me. Why would I want to be with someone who seems genuine but is so vicious at the same time. I start to clean up the barn and get the hay drug out to be taken to the animals over in the stalls. Then I wrap everything up feeding the horses and cleaning the rest of the stalls.
When I exit the barn I see the lights in my kitchen are on in the house and I know who is in there. She is supposed to be resting and taking it easy. I just stare when Danny and Carter come up to stand next to me.
"Damn boss she gets the shit beat out of her, and still gets up to cook you food?"
They walk off towards their apartments when I head back towards the house. I walk in through the door to the kitchen and don't see anyone. So I walk up the stairs quickly showering, throwing on some sweatpants when I head over to her room. I put my ear to her door and don't hear anything coming from inside. I crack open the door and see her sleeping so I decide to just let her sleep. I quietly shut the door and walked back downstairs into the kitchen. When I enter It's quiet, and a plate of food is on the counter with a beer. Why didn't she wait for me? The kitchen is completely spotless. Although it does look nice it's almost weird.
I sit and start eating when I hear the ding from the washer and dryer both go off. I continue to eat when I instantly hear feet hitting the floor scurrying down the stairs to the laundry room. I can hear her mumbling to herself while she is changing clothes. She takes a few minutes then scurries back up the stairs. I must have been eating slowly because when I finish and start to clean my dishes I get shoved to the side. She takes over mumbling to herself cleaning my dishes for me. I watch her while she dries them and puts away when the laundry dings again. She squeaks and runs to get the next load going.
I tail after her while she mumbles to herself and wonders what she is mumbling about. I stand in the doorway watching her while she switches the loads and starts folding my clothes quickly. When she is done she loads it in the bin turning and stops in her tracks when she notices me in the doorway. I see her start to tremble holding the laundry basket closely so I move to the side out of her way. She slowly walks by closing her eyes and the moment she gets past me scurries away up the stairs.
I walk upstairs and see her quickly put my clothes away taking the laundry bin with her to her room. I see her crawl in her bed, and just walk over to my drawers. I open them and see everything organized and folded neatly. Almost like I'm in a department store or something. I close them slowly, turning towards my bed when I see a fresh set of clothes laid out ready for tomorrow to get dressed while sitting on my chair.
I grab my laptop, open it up on my desk and bring up the browser to do some research. I look up the topic of ptsd and abuse victims. I read for hours and hear her going up and down the stairs with laundry when she peeks in seeing that I'm still awake. She quickly enters putting more clothes away. Right when she turns to leave I stop her in her tracks when I try to talk to her.
"Cassie, sweetie it's almost eleven at night why are you still up cleaning?"
I didn't get any answer back except I can hear her mumbling to herself.
"Cassie, please sit down in the chair so I can talk to you."
I see her quickly walk over sitting down fidgeting with her hands mumbling and looking over at the wall.
"Cassie, look at me! Why are you doing this? You can do stuff tomorrow! It doesn't have to be done tonight."
"I have to get stuff done! everything has to be clean! if I don't I get punished so I have to get it done. I still have more laundry. It has to be clean, everything has to be clean. No dust, no dirt can show, I'm not a dirty person. We can't have people think we are dirty."
The moment she said that I just leaned back in my chair and started looking at abuse with punishments. What I was reading about the difference between discipline and abuse was beyond what I thought. This piece of shit would beat her to instill fear of him to make her submissive. So she would be in fear if she did anything wrong. I look at her and see her keep looking at the wall.
"Ok Cassie carry on then. We'll talk more tomorrow, ok?"
She smiled and scurried out of the room to go do whatever she was doing. I decide to shut off the computer and walk to my bathroom when I see my dirty towel is missing. I grab a hand towel setting it out while I walk in to use the bathroom. When I exit I see it's gone. What the hell, I haven't even used it yet. I quickly exit and start looking through the house for her and catch her downstairs in the laundry room.
"Cassie, I didn't even use that towel! Why did you take it!"
I watch her quickly set it on the dryer, and drop to the floor hiding in the corner while she starts crying. I pinch my nose trying to calm myself down when I just sit down on the floor. This poor girl has been broken down so much to feel like nothing. Now I have to build her back up to make her know she is worth something. I wait till she calms down and I slowly move closer. I move till I'm right next to her when she slowly peeks at me. I just look at her when she looks towards me but not at me.
"Cassie I am so sorry I raised my voice. I shouldn't have and I can't apologize enough."
I see her start to tremble and shake when I reach out to put my hand on her cheek. I ask her to look at me and when she finally does I just smile.
"Never will I raise my hand to you. I give you permission to go to sleep. Finish everything in the morning please. You will not be punished, I promise."
She nods her head just looking at me. I lean forward kissing her head and slowly back up to stand back up and head to bed. I hear her wrap stuff up and hold off on starting the next load. I wait at the stairs when she rounds the corner and stops in her tracks. I reach out for her hand and slowly take it into mine feeling her flinch and slowly relax. I raise it up to my face and give a light kiss to the back of her hand which gets me a small smile.
Even though it is small it is worth it. We slowly walk up to the second floor when I walk her to her room. I kiss her head before she enters and watch her walk over to the bed while I turn to walk to my room. I enter and head to my bed for what I hope will be a nice night. I instantly fell asleep and seemed to sleep for a while before I was quickly awoken by screaming coming from her room. I quickly jump up running bursting in and see her thrashing around on the bed.
I am afraid to grab her but I don't know how to calm her down. I mentally say to myself fuck it, and grab her holding her to my chest. She fights me for a few minutes trying to push away while she screams. I just keep talking to her softly, and soon she slowly calms down. I feel her snuggle against me inhaling deeply so I have a feeling she is smelling my scent and knows in her mind she is safe. She calms down and is soon sound asleep when I try to lay her down to leave but she won't let go of me.
The moment I try to move she grips onto me hard and starts to whimper. I don't want it to move this fast but I want her to feel safe. So against my better judgment I climbed into the bed next to her. I laid on my back and she snuggled against my chest and soon we were both asleep.