BrookLyn's Journey (43 page)

“Did any of you ever tell anyone about this?” Officer
Thomas
asked.

“
We suffered
alone
,
behind closed doors.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Officer Allyn added.

“Do y
ou really need to ask?”
She attacked
her
nails
with a vengeance
as
she
told the tale of the two monsters
,
as if they weren’t standing in the room
.

“Yes, I do,” Officer Allyn said.

BrookLyn was beyond not liking
him.
She
glanced at Gabby who was listening intently.
She looked like she was feeling
BrookLyn’s
pain. Her eyes
were
filled with tears as
BrookLyn
talked.

“
Well, for starters,
I didn’t want to die,”
she
said calmly.

“Did he ever try
to
or threaten
to kill you?”
Allyn again, of course.

“Every beating brought me
to close to death
,
si
r
.
He used his
hands and his
belt
—
mostly buckle.
Sometimes my
legs were swollen and
I couldn’t walk
. That
d
idn’t faze him.
Before I moved out
, he picked me up off of the floor by my neck and choked me. I almost lost consciousness.”

BrookLyn
wiped the sweat off
her
forehead
, looked at
her
mother, swallowed hard
then exhaled,
releasing the fear that remained in
her
chest
.
“Is that threatening enough, Officer?”

Officer Thomas turned to her father.
“Mr. Scott?”

The large man her father was, right now he resembled more of scared,
small
child,
as he stood not answering.
His eyes were directed toward
BrookLyn
. He was trying to pierce
her
soul with the
visual
daggers he was throwing.

I own it
now
and
you can’t
penetrate
it with your evil anymore.
BrookLyn glared back, for the first time in her life. She was terrified yet inspired all at the same time.

“
What about your mother?
Did
n’t
she
do anything?”

“
Yes, a
bsolutely
—s
he wrote each scene.”
BrookLyn’s
sarcasm
hung in the
air
. But she no longer cared. She had
decided that
she
was no longer going to be a spectator in
her own
life.
At this point, she
was all in.

“She’s lying. I don’t care. Let her stay here.”
H
er father’s
chest started
huffing
up and down
—his anger was close to the surface.

Her
mother’s mouth gaped open when
BrookLyn’s
courage blew
all
around them.

“She’s a troubled kid
,
always causing problems. Let’s go, Evelyn.”

Her
mother lowered her head
,
walking
obediently
toward
her
father
.

“
The only place anyone is going is
down to the station.
There are
still a lot of unanswered questions that I think you two know the answer to
.
” Officer
Thomas
blocked
her
parents from leaving
.

“
I need you to come down to the station and make a report. We aren’t going to
let them
take y
ou home. If your story is true,
I don’t want to be responsible for you getting
hurt any further
.
” Officer
Allyn
said.

BrookLyn
heard
Gabby
exhale at the same time that
she
did.
Did he really think I was making this up?

“Can I ride down to the station with Gabriella?”
she asked. She
didn’t trust
Officer Allyn
enough to want to go in the police car.

“
I need you
both
to come directly to the station without making any stops. If you don’t then we’ll have a problem. I’ll be left to believe I can’t trust what you’re saying.”
He put on his police cap
,
almost covering his eyes.

“We will follow your car
to the police station.
”

He nodded his head in agreement.

As
they
a
ll filed out of the house
, her
father turned
abruptly, moving
swiftly toward
BrookLyn
. He reached out to grab
her
, and
she
glared into his dark
,
soulless eyes,
“You will never put your hands on me again.
Never.”
She
spoke with
her
finger pointed
directly
in his angry face.
“Never
.
”

Officer Thomas looked in
her
direction
,
quickly
coming
between them.
“Really, Mr. Scott?”

He
r father
huffed as he was pulled away
and her
mother
, head hung low,
walked
dutifully
behind him.

BrookLyn was so revved up that
she couldn’t stop herself. She looked at the pathetic woman in front of her and said,
“Mother
.
T
hat was courage.”
She
didn’t mean to taunt her
,
but couldn’t stop it once the words entered
her
mind. She glanced back at
BrookLyn
over her
shoulder
,
but true to form, said
nothing.

BrookLyn and Gabby
walked to the car, hopped in and
followed
directly
behind Officer Thomas.
She
couldn’t believe
she
stood up to
him
, and was sure that he
r father
couldn’t either
.
I
nside the
car
, BrookLyn finally
started breathing normally
again.
She
didn’t see Officer Allyn
,
who
she
assumed was driving
her
parents to the station
.

“Gabby, please know that I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t respond. She
just
looked straight ahead.

BrookLyn
touched her right knee
.
“Please,
Gabby,
look at me.”

She did
this time
. Her
eyes were filled with tears. Gabby was heartbroken. She didn’t have to tell
BrookLyn
.
She
could see
it
and feel it.
She
had been there so many times that
she
knew exactly what it looked like.

“Gabby, I need you to know that I love you. I
made a decision sitting back at your house
. I want us to be together. I want to share my life with you.
Gabby?”

“I don’t have word
s to explain how I feel
. I can’t belie
ve they lied
about
me like that
. Trying to make me out to be some sort of crazy person who would kidnap somebody.
”
Gabby
screamed as she gripped the steering wheel tightly. She didn’t cry but
BrookLyn
saw the tears hanging on her eyelashes. She was angry but she was hurt even more.
“What did I
ever
do to them?”

BrookLyn’s
parents never needed a reason to do something. Gabby knew that but
BrookLyn
didn’t remind her of it.
She
said simply, trying to
ease her heart, “
You loved me, that’s what
.”
Then she
wiped the tears that had been trying to fall.

“I’m writing everything down
. I promise my parents will never have
the opportunity to bother me
again
. They’ll be too busy trying to keep themselves out of jail.”

Gabby
reached out and took
BrookLyn’s
hand
and they
cried together as
they
drove to the station. No more secrets w
ould
be in the Scott Family Haunted House after tonight.

She
went into the stati
on with
Gabby
at
her
side.
Gabby
wrote a statement too
,
since she had seen the bruises.
BrookLyn
gave the officers Ebonee’s phone number. Officer Thomas contacted her to verify
the
story.
She had
planned on calling her later
too, but she
would provide the numbers for the others.

Unless
they
had to go to court,
BrookLyn would
never
have to
see
her
parents again.
Her
mother would keep
her
cards and journal
thinking that she had the win
.
T
he t
hing is
,
I left
—
so I w
in, Mother.
She
wouldn’t be able to show Gabby the first things
she had written
about her
, but BrookLyn
took
her
life back tonight and would show
Gabby
through that.

BrookLyn
had never told anyone other than Gabby about what
she’d been
through.
Today was big.
Her
parents
forced
her
hand
, but she
couldn’t
allow them to blame Gabb
y for the years they abused
her
.
She
was free from their abuse
forever
.

Chapter
Eighteen

It was late when
they
got back to the house
and they
were both exhausted. Officer Allyn
was still with
BrookLyn’s
parents when
they
left the station.
She kind of
liked seeing
her
father squirm
for a change
.
She
was thrilled
she
wasn’t forced to go back to their house.

“I’m going to call Ebonee,”
BrookLyn
said to Gabby once
they
got home.