She thought she might have screamed, but she wasn’t sure. Sometimes the sound was only inside her mind and sometimes it was out loud. She’d stopped distinguishing the two long ago. But it was better not to scream.

When she thought the belt was flying towards her face, she did shriek out loud. Her arm flew up to protect her face and the wide leather slapped against her forearm with a loudCRACK. She didn’t care about the stinging sensation in her arm—all that mattered was that she wasn’t hit in the face. As long as that was prevented, she was safe. The rest she could cover with sweaters and long pants. But a mark on her face took more effort.

She finally managed to crawl away and get to a corner where she curled up into a tiny ball, shielding her face from the blows. She didn’t fight back anymore—fighting back only angered him more. The angrier he was, the longer it lasted and she didn’t think she could take much more.

He rained the blows over her vulnerable body, sometimes the buckle of the belt hit her skin and sometimes he used his hands to beat her. She could hear the delicate fabric of her Halloween costume tearing and she wondered how much of it would be left one he was finally done with her. Would she need to change before she snuck out?

Finally, she sensed it coming towards an end. His breathing was heavier, his movements weren’t as quick and the time in between the blows lengthened.
After a few more moments, he backed away from her—she could hear it in his footsteps. She heard her bedroom door open and when it slammed shut a second later, then and onlythen did she peek out from the cocoon her arms had formed over her head.

He was gone.

She stood shakily. She slid a few times—had to grip the edge of her bureau, but finally, she was on her feet. She limped towards the vanity table and nearly whimpered when she took in her appearance.

The long shift dress she’d worn as part of her angel costume earlier that night was torn in many places and there were parts where a cut from the belt was bleeding through. The peasant sleeves were torn.

But her face—her tiny elfin face—it was unmarried and she was relieved. He hadn’t been angry with her. When he was angry with her, he aimed for the face. But tonight, he’d been venting his frustration out on her. Those were the safe times. It was when something she’d done to infuriate him…those were the times she was genuinely frightened for her life.

She found a pair of tennis shoes and slipped her feet into them. She wouldn’t bother changing—she’d only need to take remove the clothing when she had to take care of the various scratches and cuts on her body.

She shuffled towards the window and took a deep breath, bracing herself for the trip down the trellis. It was a hard climb under the best of circumstances, but tonight when she could barely move anyway, it would be even more nightmarish.

She swung one leg over the window sill and took one last look into her bedroom. Elizabeth Webber’s eyes searched every corner, as if every shadow were her father…just waiting to jump out and finish the job.

Because if she was sure of anything in her life, it was that Jeff Webber would be the death of her. Whether from one of his beatings, whether she fell and broke her neck while climbing in and out of her window…or another reason, a reason she’d broached only once to one person and the expression he’d had on his face had silenced that voice in her head for good.

—

Across the lake, a boy only two years older than Elizabeth paced his room nervously. Every once in a while, his eyes darted to the digital clock on his nightstand. It was late. Too late, in his opinion. She wasn’t here yet.

Jason Quartermaine wasn’t a paranoid boy—not in the slightest. In fact, he was generally an optimist. Believed the best in everyone—including his alcoholic older brother, his chronically unfaithful parents and his overbearing grandfather. It was just the way he thought.

But on nights when he expected her, he became paranoid and irrational. If it was midnight and she still wasn’t there, he was convinced that she was dead. That her father had finally gone over the edge and killed her. He’d start imagining the grisly way her body would be discovered, bloody and bruised the next morning. He’d blame himself when that day became. Because if it was too late and he didn’t go looking for her, it was his fault. Because he hadn’t protected her like he’d always promised.

He looked at the clock again and swore when the numbers clicked from 11:59 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.

Just as he was pulling on a pair of sneakers to go looking, he heard the scrape of the ladder and let out a deep breath of relief. She was okay. She was still alive.

He’d known all night that she’d come. The Webbers had thrown their usual grandiose Halloween costume party and as good friends of the family, the Quartermaines had attended. Jason had managed to get Elizabeth away from her family almost immediately and they spent the entire night in the company of his siblings, AJ and Emily.

But he always kept an eye on Jeff and took in the tense set of the older man’s shoulders, the anger simmering beneath the surface in his eyes. Jeff Webber exuded violence and Jason often wondered how he was the only person who understood the man’s true nature.

It’d gotten to the point of the past year that Jason recognized the patterns in Jeff’s behavior. When he looked like that—when he got a certain expression on his face—Jason knew he’d be seeing her.

He saw her crown of her head appear in his window. He stepped forward and he blanched when he saw the way she struggled to get over the windowsill. The blood was seeping through the delicate fabric and with all the tears, Jason was surprised to see that the dress was still holding together more or less.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly. When she was safely over the sill and seated on the window seat, he kneeled in front of her. Like Elizabeth, he was relieved to see her face was clear. As crazy as it might seem to someone normal, he knew there was trouble when Jeff left a mark on her skin where anyone could see it.

She nodded. “I need…” she hesitated, her voice shaky and hoarse. “I need to change.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jason replied. He touched her face lightly, drew the back of his fingers over her smooth porcelain skin. “How bad do you feel?”

She tried to shrug, but found she couldn’t lift her shoulders that high. Still on his knees, Jason leaned back and tugged the first aid kit out from underneath his bed. There was a duffle bad there too, complete with a few sets of clothing and a nightgown. They always prepared for the worst.

He flipped it open and took out the bottle of peroxide and some gauze. He started on the cuts on her arms and legs. She didn’t even flinch from the sting of the liquid and it didn’t surprise him. At this point, Elizabeth was more accustomed to feel of peroxide against her skin than his brother AJ was to the taste of vodka slipping down his throat.

Jason probably could have cleaned it with some soap and water but as an aspiring doctor who’d grown up as the son of two doctors, he went for the better method. The deeper cuts, he wrapped some gauze around them and the lighter ones, he just cleaned and blotted.

When he’d reached all the cuts he could handle without removing the dress, he cleared his throat. “Can you do…the ones in the front?”

She nodded dully. “But not the ones on my back,” she said softly. “It hurts to reach out.”

Jason stood and pulled her to her feet. “Turn around,” he told her. When he was faced with her back, he swallowed hard. Her back was covered in lashes, there was almost no fabric left. He slowly pulled it away until her back was bare and she had one arm slung across her chest to keep the dress up.

When he was finished, he moved back and got the duffle bag from underneath the bed. He grabbed the first aid kit as well and Elizabeth followed him to his bathroom. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded.

Later, after she was tucked away in bed, Jason was sprawled out on the cot he had stashed in his closet. He listened to the sound of her breathing and was relieved to find it deep and even—he hoped the dreams wouldn’t plague her tonight.

Elizabeth had been coming to him for almost a year now, but Jason had been aware of the abuse for two years. She was thirteen at the time and they were sitting in the school library. He was a honors student in his sophomore year and had been assigned to tutor Elizabeth in all her subjects—he was surprised to find her failing most of them.

She’d been wearing a dark blue sweater and while they were working on math equation, she’d absently pushed the sleeve up and he’d seen the bruises.

“What’s that?” he asked, frowning. She looked up at him oddly.

“What’s what?” Elizabeth asked. She moved her hand to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear and her eyes widened when she realized her shirt sleeve was up. She hastily pulled it down. “Nothing. I fell.”

Jason shook his head and reached for her wrist. He was stronger than her and despite her protests, managed to keep her still long enough to push it back up and examine the bruises.

“These look like finger marks,” Jason decided. He met her eyes. “They are, aren’t they?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Elizabeth replied uncomfortably. “Can we just finish this?”

“Lizzie…who did this to you?” Without waiting for an answer, his other hand shot out and gripped the forearm of her other, shoving the sleeve up. On this arm there were a multitude of cuts mixed with the bruises.

Her eyes filled with tears. “Let me go,” she pleaded softly.

“Lizzie—“

“Stop calling me that,” Elizabeth said suddenly. A tear slipped past her lashes and streaked down her cheek. “I hate it.”

“Elizabeth, who did this to you?” Jason asked again, disturbed at the other distress of the younger teen. “Was it someone we know?”

“Please…don’t,” she said brokenly.

He narrowed his eyes. “Was it someone in your family? Steven?”

She shook her head rapidly and tried to tug her hands from his grasp but he kept his fingers wrapped around her wrists. “Jason, it doesn’t matter—“

“Is it the reason you’re failing?” he asked pointedly. “Why you have circles under your eyes?”

“Stop it.”

“You can trust me,” he told her intently. “You know you can. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”

She hesitated, chewed on her lower lip. “Not even AJ? Or Emily?”

“No one, I promise,” Jason replied. His grip loosened, she could have easily pulled her hands free but didn’t. “Tell me.”

“My father,” Elizabeth said after a moment. “It was my father.”

He shifted on the cot, trying to fit his long frame more comfortably. It’d taken a lot of coaxing and some time before Elizabeth finally confided the whole story. She’d been wary of telling him in the first place. Their friendship had been civil during the best of times—she was more Emily’s friend than his. But because their families were friends, they’d all grown up together.

But now…they were easily closer to each other then either of them was to Emily or AJ. A year passed as he watched her sink further and further into depression. Her grades continued to fall because she was too scared to sleep at tonight and often fell asleep in class. She barely passed eighth grade and her freshman year didn’t look any more promising.

It was after the first marking period last year that Jason had finally told her that he was going to set a ladder outside his window that night and if she got too scared to sleep, she could climb down her trellis and come to him. She shook her head vehemently and insisted she’d be fine.

But around one in the morning, he’d been jerked awake by the sound of the ladder scraping against the side of the house. A moment later, she appeared in the window, biting her lip nervously.

“You said if it got too much…”

From that night on, she’d barely spent a night in her own room. Her grades went back up and they fell into a routine. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to fall asleep without first making sure she was sleeping soundly.

One day, Jason decided, one day he was going to come face to face with Jeff Webber and he’d show the man exactly what he thought of him. With that thought in mind, he drifted off into a light sleep, his ears still tuned to the sound of her breathing, waiting for any sign that she was having a nightmare so that he could wake her up before the rest of his family heard.

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