I left while I still could under my own steam.
Walking to her quarters, I joined quite a few others that were trying to figure out why.Chapter 5Don’t ask me for relationship advice. I’ll have you knocking on windows with a bat.
-Katy’s secret thoughts
Katy
My heart was pounding. My ears were ringing, and I was fairly sure that if I couldn’t get my heart rate under control in the next twenty seconds, I might very well die of tachycardia.
“You’re sure?” I croaked.
The haggard-looking man, Detective Hastings, nodded. “I’m sure. I double-checked myself. You have roughly a few days until his sentence is completed. I left your dad a memo about it this morning.”
Hastings looked like he’d have rathered swallow fire than tell my father, the chief of police, that a man that he’d put away for only two years was getting out. A man that had threatened me, and gone away, for the smallest possible offense because not enough evidence could be found to send him away for everything.
By the time I got up and walked into the sunshine, I was freezing cold.
Everything in me, everything I felt and worked for over the last two years, was now about to be taken away from me.
My new job? Likely gone.
People didn’t like to work with other people that brought drama to the workplace. They also didn’t like to put their employees in danger.
My new place? Likely about to be taken away from me.
The moment that Jakobe got out, he’d find me. I knew that from the deepest part of my heart.
Those words that he’d said all those years ago were at the forefront of my mind.
I won’t forget, baby. When I get out of here in two years, and I will, don’t think I won’t, I’ll find you. And when I find you, I’ll rip that carefully constructed life right out from under you. Everything you ever wanted? It’ll be gone.
My hands shook as I took the first step that led down to the parking lot.
The second step my knees were wobbling.
By the fourth step, tears were streaming down my face.
My hospital scrubs, soiled by a day’s worth of work, ripped when I hit my knees.
“Katy?”
I couldn’t catch my breath.
The panic attack hit me so fast and hard that I didn’t have time to prepare.
One second, I was in the here and now, and the next I was flashed back to the day that would forever be the worst day of my life.
***
“Babe, can you answer the door?”
Woodenly I got up and walked to the door, just as he’d ordered—and it was an order. I wasn’t fooling myself to think he’d request anything of me.
If I didn’t obey, I’d have the shit beaten out of me.
Had the shit beaten out of me on a regular basis.
“Hello,” I said, staring at the man on my front porch.
It was the detective again.
He was staring at me, taking in my multitude of bruises, and not missing a single thing.
“You ready yet?”
I gave him a blank stare.
“You ever get ready, you know where to find me.”
At the police station.
A place I would never, ever visit.
One, because if I visited, my father would find out what I looked like in about half a second. Two, because my father and I had a falling out when I’d decided to stay with Jakobe instead of taking his advice to stay far, far away from him.
“Who was that?” Jakobe finally exited the bathroom.
He’d been in there for an hour now.
Probably jacking off on the toilet like he did all the time now.
“The detective,” I answered honestly.
I’d learned the hard way to always answer honestly. He always found out when I lied, and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of doing that this time.
If I didn’t lie, I gave him fewer reasons to hurt me.
Except, this time, he didn’t follow the same pattern.
Before I could even flinch, I felt his fist hit my face.
Before I could fall all the way to my knees, I felt his foot come out, and slam down so hard on my leg that I heard the audible snap of my thigh breaking.
The next thing I knew, I had a boot coming to the face, and it was lights-out-Katy.
The next time I woke up, it was to find the detective standing over me. Lights illuminated the area behind him, making him look like he had a weird aura that was playing over him. Blue. Red. Blue. Red.
Over and over again, the lights changed.
“You okay?” he repeated.
I blinked. “Alive?”
He frowned. “Yes, you’re alive. I came back to ask you if you knew who that black car belonged to across the street, and found your boyfriend beating the shit out of you. Do you remember that?”
I shook my head, though it didn’t surprise me.
Jakobe beat me a lot.
Though he was usually a little more careful about who he did it in front of.