I was terrified to turn around. In my head I’m screaming out no rather than saying the words. It’s too painful to even say it. I had no idea who had been shot, and I’m afraid to know the answer. I zip up my pants and force myself to turn around. Everything is silent and I don’t see James or his dad anywhere.
A lump formed in my throat. “James?”
He doesn’t answer me. I call out again and there’s still no response.
No. James can’t be dead. Oh God, please don’t let him be dead.
I headed back to the way I came searching for James. Both of them have to be here. They can’t just disappear like that. I tried not to think about the worse as my mind came up with all of these different scenarios about what might have happened.
Suddenly I’m grabbed from behind. I scream, but it becomes a mumble has a hand clenches over my mouth. I can taste the salty blood from the person’s hand. I’m not sure whose blood it is, but I knew it was Mr Waters. His grip around me felt like he was going to break every single bone in my body just so I couldn’t run no more.
“You listen here, Ellie,” he says, “we’re going to do this my way, okay? No more playing games, you hear me?”
He pushes me down on the ground. He places his foot on my stomach, so I can’t move as he removes his pants. The weight of him crushes my stomach and I found it difficult to breathe. I took a deep breath when he took his foot off me and quickly let it out as he put his body on me.
I could feel his manhood pressing against my stomach as he holds me down. All that was going through my mind was to scream, but I couldn’t. I was going to end up dead if I struggle to fight back, like James. Any minute now he was going to enter me.
“If you try and fight back, Ellie, I swear I will kill you right here.”
“Just like you killed your own son?”
He laughs. He reaches for the waist band of my jeans. Before he could pull them down, sirens were heard in the distance. He curses softly to himself and then pulls me off the ground, pulling up his pants. He puts me over my shoulder and began running, hiding somewhere so the cops couldn’t find us.
Mr Waters places me back on the ground in a darker spot away from the road. Hopefully the police will find us soon. As soon as my feet are on the ground, he stands there staring at me. After a few seconds, he punches me in the face. The side of my face burns and I’m sure it red, maybe even swollen a little.
“You little bitch!” he screams at me. “Who said you could call the cops on me?”
“Why do you think I called them? I did it to lock you away in jail where you belong. I’m not letting you get away this time.”
“Yeah? Well, let’s see about that.”
He places his hands around my neck, strangling me. I tried to push him off me, but he was much too strong for me to push.
I hear someone scream from behind Mr Waters as they lift up something heavy. Mr Waters is knocked in the back with something. He lets go of me, screaming out in pain. He pushes me to the ground. I gasp for air, rubbing my neck where he has tried to choke me. I look up to see James, still alive, wracking his father in the back with a piece of wood that he must have found lying around. He hits his father multiply times, demanding he stays away from me.
After a few minutes, Mr Waters collapses on the ground in front of us. For a moment James and I didn’t move, staring at father. I wasn’t sure if he was dead, but when I looked closely, I could see him still breathing and I was glad because I didn’t want James to be in trouble for killing is own father. I wasn’t even sure if they would look at it by saying he killed him with self-defence, would they?
James and I look at each other. As soon as our eyes lock together, James collapses beside his father. I hurry over to him. He had blood all over his shirt and I wasn’t sure where he had been shot. He had lost a lot of blood and I could see how weary he was.
“James, stay with me,” I tell him.
The sirens are close now and I see the red and blue lights approaching. Within seconds they pull up. Officers got out of their cars. I get up, leaving James on the ground and ran over to them, telling them where James and his dad were. I also told them that an ambulance was needed.
“Oh thank goodness, Officers.” We look up to see Mr Waters limping over to us. “My son tried to rape Ellie and then he tried to kill me.”
As soon as I hear the words coming out of his mouth, I scream. I ran over to him and began banging my fist against his chest. He stops me, acting so innocent and wonders why I was mad at him. A police officer comes to pull me away.
“You liar!” I scream. “You’re trying to frame, James!”
“What are you talking about, Ellie?”
“Don’t try and act innocent. You have been acting like that for the past two years. It’s about time people should know the truth.”
Mr Waters shoots me a warning look. I ignore it. I didn’t give a damn about his threats anymore. I needed to save James from a crime he never committed. It was my fault he ended up in jail. I could have stopped him if I have just spoken up, but everything just seemed to stop around me when I had post-traumatic stress. No one seemed to take notice of me. They went around assuming everything that happened rather than knowing the truth. I could have said something, but it was like my brain just decided to stop working and I couldn’t speak.
“Sir, can you put your hands behind your back please?” a young officer who looked like he was in his late twenties says.
“What for?” Mr Waters asks. “Hey, I’m not the criminal here!”
“I don’t care what you are, sir, but I need to take you down to the station for questioning. We will probably get you to stop by at the hospital to make sure you’re alright.”
Mr Waters is taken to the back of the police car while they waited for an ambulance. He protests about his rights, but the officers ignore him. I tell the officers where James is and they locate him, staying with him until the paramedics arrive. I wanted to go and see if he was alright, but I wasn’t allow to go anywhere near him. Instead they send me to a car and drive me down to the station to question me out what was happening. The ambulance arrives just as we pull away from the kerb. As soon as I see the paramedics hurried out of the van, I pray silently to myself that everything with James will be okay.
Once at the station I ask if I’m able to make a quick phone call. I’m allowed to and I dial Aunt Zoe’s number from the phone near the reception. I could imagine how she is going to react when I tell her what happened. But it wasn’t her who I was worried the most. It was mostly how Daniel was going to react.
Aunt Zoe panics when I tell her and she said she will meet me down at the station. I hang up and then I’m taken into an interview room where I’m asked to fill out an incident report and then being asked questions. I hated recalling everything again. It was bad enough the last time I was here was two years ago and I couldn’t even tell the police what happened. Now I’m back here again, forcing myself to tell them what had happened tonight, not leaving out any details. I can imagine the lies Mr Waters was going to come up with to try and get out of this mess. This time I don’t think he will be able to get out of it.
I’m let go as soon as I’m finished being interview. Aunt Zoe is waiting for me out in the lobby. Daniel is with her. The two of them hurry over to me, hugging me tightly. My aunt has tears in her eyes.
“Oh Ellie, my gosh,” she says.
I pull away from them. “I’m okay. Um, can we please not talk about this because I know what you’re going to say. And if it’s okay, I would like to go see James in hospital.”
Aunt Zoe agrees to go. Daniel, on the other hand, I could see it in his face that he disapproved me from seeing him. If he had a chance he would go off at me for being a complete fool. But he doesn’t. Maybe it was because my aunt was here and he knew that she wouldn’t approve him to say anything unlike my parents would. Dad would let him bad mouth James, while Mom will be telling him not to speak like he was around me.
The car ride to the hospital was quiet. No one spoke. Not even the radio was playing. I sneak a peek of my aunt where I was sitting in the backseat. Through the review mirror I could see tears in her eyes. She wasn’t here the first time the incident happened. I didn’t have to ask her what was going through her mind right now. I knew what she was thinking. Through her eyes I could see how could this happen? She thought she was protecting me, giving me a little bit of freedom and letting me have a break from my city life.
But I guess even if you protect yourself from something, one way or another the protection doesn’t last long.
My aunt arrives at the hospital. I tell her and my brother and I wanted to be alone with James. I didn’t want to cause any tension. Daniel would jump to conclusions. He wouldn’t want to know the truth at all.
The hospital is slow and quiet when I walk in. I ask the receptionist for directions to James’ ward and she gives it to me. I find his room. A nurse told me I could only stay for a short time since James was recovering from surgery and was drowsy. Also visiting hours were over, but she allowed me to see him.
James has the room to himself. He has a drip attach to him and an arm sling for his right arm. He had a few cuts on his face that had been cleaned up. He loves my way with sleepy eyes and smiles.
“Hey, how did everything go at the station?” he asks me.
I grab a chair and moved it over to his bed, sitting down beside him. “It went okay. I told them everything.”
“That’s good.”
“The nurse told me you had surgery.”
He nods. “Yeah, they remove the bullet from my shoulder. The doctor said I was fortunate because the bullet just narrowly missed an artery near my neck. They put my arm in a sling so I could rest my shoulder.”
I smile at him, glad he was alright. “Have you seen your dad yet?”
James shook his head. “No, I haven’t. I know he was taken here to be checked out. I think his back is bruised after I hit him with the piece of wood repeatedly. I was in surgery when they were checking him out.”
“Thanks so much for helping me, James.”
“It’s no problem, Ellie. I promised you I will make sure he won’t do the same thing again. I hate myself for not being able to help the best I could when he first hurt you. I could have stopped him, but I just let him do what he did.”
I reach over and patted his arm softly without hurting it. “Hey, forget it, James.”
“It’s not something I can easily forget, Ellie.”
“I know.”
“I just couldn’t let him do it again to you. So, um, did the cops say anything with what might happen to me?”
I shook my head. “No. They haven’t said anything yet. I just hope they believe everything I say.”
“They will. They have to believe you. If they don’t, his voice is recorded on the phone call. He can’t get away this time.”
I stayed with James for a little while longer until the nurse told me I had to go. I told him I will come visit him in the morning and kiss him goodnight.
Aunt Zoe drove us home. I thought Daniel might head back to the motel he and Clara were staying at, but he doesn’t. Instead he comes home with us. He and Clara were spending the night with us.
We pull into the driveway and Clara came running out of the house. She hugs me.
“Oh God, Ellie, are you okay?” she asks me.
I nodded. “I’m okay.”
“Let’s all just get inside and get some sleep,” Aunt Zoe tells us.
“Ellie, can I please talk to you?” Daniel asks me.
I turn to him. “That’s depending if you aren’t going to bad mouth about James.”
“I promise I won’t.”
My aunt and Clara walked into the house while Daniel and I stayed outside near the car.
“Tell me, did James hurt you? I know you keep telling saying he never raped you in the first place, but I really want to know what happened tonight.”
I didn’t want to recall anything about tonight, but I tell my brother. Surprisingly he listens to me. He doesn’t yell, he doesn’t say anything. He just stands there listening to every word I say. It’s something he hasn’t done for a long time. He used to listen to me with whatever problems I may have when I was growing up, whether it was with bullying or just anything. He stopped listening after the incident, like he wanted to be the big controlling elder brother who makes sure no one touches his baby sister.
After I finished telling him everything, he pulls me into a hug, burying his face on top of my head, sobbing.