Haven from the Storm (Storms of Life #1) (26 page)

I finished my text to Dean, letting him know where we would be. “Okay, I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.” He nodded and jogged to his truck a few feet away.

I hurried back into the school to drop my bag off at my locker. I wasn’t worried about seeing any teachers because if they saw my face I knew they wouldn’t stop me. Mindi was standing in the hall when I passed the office. My feet wanted to turn around and avoid this added drama, but I knew I’d have to face her sooner or later and maybe the marks on my face would teach her a lesson. We made eye contact, but she quickly looked away. I stopped in front of her and waited for her to look at me. I wouldn’t leave until she saw what she’d caused. She took a deep breath and lifted her eyes to mine. I clearly saw them filling with tears, but I didn’t feel any remorse.

“I’m so sorry, Lily. I shouldn’t have called him. I thought he’d put an end to it, but I didn’t know he’d do this to you…or at least I tried to tell myself that.” A single tear rolled down her cheek as she rushed to wipe it away.

“No, you knew this would happen, but you didn’t care. You had one goal in mind and you didn’t care who got destroyed in the process.” She looked down at the ground and wrapped her arms around herself. “
Don’t
look away. Take a good look at what your spitefulness caused so maybe next time you’ll do the right thing instead of only thinking of yourself.” I waited for a reply that never came. I wasn’t going to waste another breath on her, so I left her standing alone in the hallway as I walked out the school doors.

I thought I would be nervous trying to learn how to defend myself, but I could feel my heart pumping with excitement. I felt alive for the first time in years. Chills ran up and down my spine and danced across every surface of my body. This is what I should have done long ago. I finally knew that for the past four years I wasn’t living, I was merely surviving each beating and waiting for the next.

By the time I got to my car, Dean was leaning against the hood waiting for me. “You sure you want to do this?” I fiercely nodded my head. “Then I’m coming with you.” I opened my mouth to tell him that I’d actually like that, but he stopped me. “No, don’t argue with me. I’ll stay out of the way if you want me to, but I’m coming whether you like it or not.”

I laughed at his insistence. “I was going to say that I’d very much like you to come. But if you want to be all alpha male about it, then be my guest.”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “Sorry, I thought you were gonna fight me on it.”

“Nope. Feel free to come, but no laughing at me when Derek whoops my butt.”

I saw him slightly cringe. “Laughing is the last thing I’ll be doing.”

“How can you think this is funny?” I yelled as they laughed so hard that Lily snorted. She was lying on the ground after about the tenth time Derek body slammed her. At least they’d been smart enough to come to the karate studio for their self-defense lesson, if you could call it that.

“I’m fine, Dean. It’s actually kind of fun being thrown halfway across the room when it doesn’t hurt at all.” She crawled off the mat and gave me a hug. “I promise. If it hurt, do you think I’d be laughing? No, I would be telling you to kick Derek’s butt.” She reached up, smoothing the frown lines on my face caused by my sulking. “You don’t have to be here. I understand if you want to leave.”

“I’m definitely not leaving. If he body slams you over and over again with me sitting right here, I don’t want to know what he’d do if I wasn’t here.” I gave Derek the meanest look I could. He laughed.

“Hey man, talk to your girl. She’s the one that asked me for help. If you don’t like me doing it, why don’t you get out here and try?”

Lily stopped me before I could answer. “No, I need someone that isn’t afraid of possibly hurting me. I need this to be as real as possible. I’m sorry Dean, but you know why we’re doing this and that it’s for the best.”

I exhaled a long, tired breath. “I know, but it’s zero fun to watch.”

Lily jumped up and planted a kiss on my cheek, followed by a light slap. “I know, but suck it up big boy.” She turned to walk away as I reached out and slapped her on the butt.

“Now this game I don’t mind,” I added as she rolled her eyes at me.

It was hard watching Derek try to attack her over and over, but Lily was right. I knew this was something that needed to be done and probably should have been done a long time ago. Even if her dad left her alone, being able to defend herself was something she’d always need.

I sat back down in my hard, plastic chair while Derek repositioned both of them for whatever torture he had planned next.

“Okay, let’s go on to the next move which doesn’t involve possible body slamming.” He winked at me and I flipped him off.

“Boys, do I need to separate the two of you?” Lily snapped. I just shook my head. “Good. Make my life a little easier and don’t even look at each other if you can’t behave, okay?” She pointed her finger at both of us and gave her most serious look. Derek laughed, but continued.

“You need to learn how to leverage your weight. You’re small, but you could possibly overpower me if you learned how to defend yourself strategically, it’s really just simple physics.”

I burst out laughing. Exactly what did Derek know about physics? Lily raised her eyebrows at me so I finally shut up, for good this time. She could be scary.

“As I was saying, you know how to -well, sort of know how to - break out of an attack from behind, so let’s practice if I just grab your arm. Lily, stand there and I’m going to grab your arm. You lean your body away from me while also kicking the side of my knee to knock me off balance.”

Lily did as Derek instructed and I was happy when he was the one that ended up on the mat this time. Lily jumped up and down, squealing at her first real victory. She could barely stand she was so excited.

Next, Derek wanted Lily to practice using her elbow to strike him in various entertaining locations. Well, entertaining for me. That didn’t work out very well for her. Apparently five foot tall girls have short arms with tiny elbows that can barely hurt a fly, so Derek quickly decided to move on. He wanted her to grab the top of his head and slam her knee into his face. During the explanation I knew there wasn’t a chance Lily could reach the top of Derek’s head, much less force him to bend over far enough to almost touch the floor, which was about where her knee resided. She was just too short. I decided it was finally time to speak up after she started jumping up and down, trying to grab his head.

“Not gonna happen, Derek. She’s too short. You need to teach her things she could actually accomplish.” They both whipped their heads around to stare at me. I raised my hands defensively. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed. You’ve done a much better job than I thought you would, but she’s too short and therefore her arms are short. You’re gonna have to move on to other moves where she uses her hands or legs.”

Derek nodded his head. “I’m starting to agree. Exactly what did you have in mind? She isn’t going to be very successful with just old fashioned punching and kicking.”

“I agree. She would need more power behind any punch and there’s only so much kicking she can do without getting knocked to the ground.”

Before I knew it, the three of us were taking turns swinging at each other and trying to find new ways for Lily to use her small body to her advantage. We discovered she was great at escaping any type of hold and that she had missed her calling on the wrestling team. Her best defensive move was to strike with the heel of her hand or her foot. This gave her a lot to work with.

After hours of practicing, Lily dropped to the mat dramatically. “I’m exhausted. Is it time to practice napping? I know I’m just the right size for that move.” We all laughed.

“I agree. We’ve been going since first thing this morning and I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Derek added.

I ignored Derek’s last comment because I seriously didn’t want to know. “Lily, do you feel comfortable with what you’ve learned today? We can stop, but I want to make sure that you’ve learned enough that you feel safer. If you don’t, then I’ll keep going all night.”

She scrunched up her face, thinking back on the day. “You know, I really do feel safer. I didn’t know how much I was really gonna get out of today, but I do feel like I can do a lot more to protect myself. I feel more confident in myself...stronger.”

“As long as you’re okay with us stopping then I’m good because I’m tired and I think I’m getting too old to be play fighting with teenagers. My back hurts.” They both laughed at me while I slowly lowered myself to the ground. I really
was
getting too old for this.

A few minutes later, Adley came strolling into the karate studio. “What happened to you guys? You’re all sweaty and worn out looking.”

All three of us groaned in unison, then started laughing, but the laughing was quickly followed by more tired and sore groans. I think it even hurt to breathe.

“So what’s the plan for tonight? Who’s staying where because I’m not sleeping at Violet’s by myself again,” Adley asked.

Lily was the first to answer. “Everyone is staying at their own houses, in their own beds, like they should. I’m staying at my house by myself.” She turned to look at me. “And before anyone gives me any lip about it, I’ll point out that I just spent all afternoon learning how to better defend myself and I’m not afraid to use it on anyone in this room.”

“We can talk about this later,” I suggested, knowing full well that if I was going to convince her to stay at my house, I’d have to wait until we were alone.

“No, we won’t talk about it later because there’s nothing to talk about. I’ve made my mind up. I’ve done it my father’s way for years. We’ve tried it your way and that didn’t work out very well either, so now I’m going to do what I think is right. If there are consequences for that, I’ll take them when the time comes. Now, are there any questions?”

Derek, being the idiot that he is, raised his hand. “Can we go get something to eat?”

“Thanks for helping today. I know you probably don’t like this, so it means even more that you’re willing to help.” Lily snuggled up to my side as we sat on Violet’s porch swing. It was a hot night with an occasional cool breeze. The only sounds were the crickets chirping and the porch swing squeaking. The moon was full and it was just starting to shine as the sun finished sinking behind the horizon. This was my favorite time of day. The sky would light up with streaks of gold, orange, and red as the sun said its goodbyes.

“You’re right. I don’t really like this idea, Lily. I want you safe and I want to be there to help keep you safe.”

“I know. And I also know that I’m not really giving you much of a choice. I’m sorry, but I’m scared of what my father will do and so this is best for all of us. If he thinks things are back to the way they used to be, maybe he’ll calm down long enough for both of us to get done with school.”

“And then what, Lily?” I turned her so that we faced each other. The moonlight made her blue eyes shine. “After school is out, will you leave? Leave this entire town and go somewhere that you don’t have to worry about your dad? Somewhere you won’t have to learn to protect yourself in your own home?”

“Dean, that’s what I want. I don’t want to stay here. I want to leave this whole place behind, but I can’t leave until I’m done with school, until you’re done with your student teaching. And I won’t leave Adley and Derek without knowing they’re safe from my father. I’ve never seen my him act like this, he’s more angry than I’ve ever seen.”