The cop seems to notice this at the same time as I go to reach for her arm. “Don’t,” he demands, catching my wrist and thrusting my hand back at my side. “You’ll contaminate it. We can swab her arm and find out what she was given.”
I nod my head, close to breaking point. “Just… get her help,” I beg, not even giving a shit about getting at Josh right now. All that matters is getting her help. I’ll worry about Josh later.
“We will,” the cop says. “The ambulance is on the way.”
I nod again as I distantly notice cops coming out the front door, each with a student in handcuffs being led towards the cop cars. I watch for a second, hoping none of them are my boys. As for the football players who came to help, I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to recognize them, but if they’re in trouble for helping, you bet your ass I’m going to get them out.
I remember the camera. I search around for it and find it in the grass at my knee. I instantly hand it over, not wanting to see it. Not if it’s anything like the last one video I saw of her. “What’s this?” the cop asks, taking it from me.
“They were recording it,” I say, looking back down at Tora as her body begins to shiver. “What they did to her.”
I run my hands up and down her arms, trying to keep her warm. It’s killing me that I can’t pull her into me and hold her, but this is what she needs. So instead of dwelling on it and making the thoughts inside my head worse, I distract myself by talking to the cop. I let him know exactly what went down tonight. I tell him about our past. I tell him every tiny little thing Josh has done over the past year to hurt my girl, and then I make sure he knows that with or without their help, Josh is going down.
With that, the cops around me go to check over the camera and I don’t doubt they’re going to find some pretty incriminating evidence. I can only guess what else is on that thing. A moment later, some woman comes over and takes a swab of Tora’s arm before doing some bullshit science crap that I don’t bother paying attention to.
“Hey,” a familiar voice calls out. I look up to see Maxen being carted off by a cop. My eyes naturally rake over his body from head to toe, making sure he wasn’t hurt during the fight. Confident he’s fine, I focus back on his face. “She ok?” he asks.
I shake my head and his eyes close for the briefest second, most likely with a ton of guilt coursing through his body. After all, he was there. This happened on the other side of the fucking door to him and I don’t doubt it will take a while for me to be able to forgive him. Hell, he won’t be forgiving himself anytime soon. Same goes for Brooke.
“You find Josh?” I call across the yard.
“No. He wasn’t in there,” he says, trying to pull against the guy leading him away. “We’ll get him,” he promises. The next second, he’s forced into a cop car and the door is slammed closed behind him, but I’m not worried. We have the camera that shows our innocence in all this. Sure, we might get charged for assault, but if it means getting Tora safe, I’m sure each of us will cop it on the chin.
Next out the door is Jackson and Tyson, both being carted off in the same way Maxen was. Again, I rake my eyes over them. Both are good. They nod my way and each adopts shattered expressions at Tora’s passed out body in the grass.
I hear more sirens in the distance and let out a breath. That’s definitely more than one ambulance coming and I don’t doubt they’ve called a few for the losers with the broken bones inside.
Jesse and Puck appear from behind the cop cars and stroll over as though they’re innocent bystanders. Jesse drops down on Tora’s other side and instantly runs his eyes over her body, taking in the blood on her arm. “What did he give her?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. They took a swab to find out. They haven’t given me an answer yet.”
He nods and looks up at me with a cringe. “We, um… Josh wasn’t there.”
“I know,” I murmur.
Pucks hand comes down on my shoulder. “We’ll get him.”
The ambulance comes to a stop and the cop directs them to Tora first. I give a brief rundown of what happened and before I know it, we’re closed in the back of an ambulance with Jesse promising he’ll get the boys out and meet us there.
We get to the hospital in a record-breaking three minutes and half an hour later, Tora is safe in bed with a drip keeping her hydrated. The doctor told me that all we can do is keep her under observation and wait for the drug to work its way out of her system.
He then lets me know that when she wakes up, she’ll be asked to give consent to do a rape kit and I want to punch the doctor in the face for suggesting it. I know it’s a legal obligation for them to ask, but I know Tora, and the last thing she is going to want is to allow someone to perform those kinds of tests on her after being touched by those bastards.
But also knowing Tora, I know she’s going to give her consent anyway. She will want to know for sure just how far it went before I got there, despite me telling her that she was still wearing underwear when I took her away.
It’s her body though, and I’ll support any decision she makes. One hundred percent.
Fuck, I hope she doesn’t recall it all. I want nothing more for her to wake up and not have a single memory of the attack. I’ll tell her the need to know shit and she can go about her days, not having flashbacks of strangers’ hands between her legs.
I take her hand in mine and give it a squeeze, hoping that in her unconscious state, she’ll be able to feel me here. With my other hand, I feel my jeans pocket for my phone. I should call her parents to let them know what’s going on, but then I recall throwing my phone down in my car and realize they’ll have to wait.
Tora would hate me for worrying them. I’d probably get my head bitten off by her father, accusing me of not taking good enough care of her. He’d be right too. I should have been there. I knew Josh was going to try something at some point, but after a few months, I’d figured he had given up. How fucking wrong was I?
This is on me.
The bruises and tears on her face. They’re on me.
Torn clothes. The hands on her body.
It’s all on me.
I should have been there. I should have been watching her, making sure she was safe. Instead, I dropped the ball and because of that, she’s been hurt.
I’ll never be able to forgive myself for this and even though she shouldn’t either, I hope she can find it somewhere deep within herself to still love me.
Chapter 23
My eyelids softly flutter open to a white room. Beep. Beep. Beep. A hospital room, it seems. My head hurts. Something happened, but…
The darkness takes over me and I fall into unconsciousness again.
----------
A soft squeeze of my leg has the fogginess slipping away. I open my eyes. It’s dark in here. Quiet.
I glance around and the pain behind my eyes instantly lets itself be known. Why do I hurt so bad?
Nate is asleep beside the bed, his hand held firmly in mine while his head rests on the bed. If only I had the strength to squeeze his hand, let him know I’m alright.
I should let him sleep. I’m sure whatever put us here has had him in his own personal hell. But it’s ok, Jesse is here looking over us.
I allow the darkness to claim me again.
----------
Quiet voices fill the room and have consciousness coming back to me. I peel my eyes open to a bright light and wonder how long I’ve been here for.
I look around the room, trying to make sense of the voices. Nate is here, just as I knew he would be. Jesse. Jackson. Brooke.
Thank god. I’m sure the rest of the boys are here somewhere, probably along with Courtney and Elle.
I squeeze the warm hand in mine and distantly become aware of the pain circling my whole body, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was during the night. I feel like I can breathe now.
“Tora?” Nate gasps as the room falls into silence, all eyes suddenly on me. “How are you f
eeling? Do you need anything?”
I scrunch up my face. His loud, insistent voice, pierces into my skull. “I’m ok,” I tell him, tugging on his hand to draw him closer. I look around the faces before coming back to Nate. “What are they all…? What happened?”
The look of complete heartbreak on his face has me desperately trying to think back to what the hell put me here, only I don’t need to think too hard. It comes back like a ton of bricks falling from the sky. My eyes widen and a gasp comes sailing out as I focus my entire being on Nate’s eyes.
Pain flashes in those deep, dark eyes and has me wanting to curse myself for allowing this to happen. The memories hit me like a freight train. Josh’s arm around my neck, pulling tighter and tighter until I couldn’t breathe. Passing out and feeling completely helpless as I had no choice but to surrender myself to that monster. The sharp pinprick as he injected me with something that took away my will to keep fighting.
My breath comes in hard as the more memories that come back to me, the more I want to break down and cry. “It’s ok,” Nate soothes, pushing up and squishing himself down on the bed beside me. I curl into his chest, needing every ounce of closeness I can possibly take from him. “You’re safe. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
“He… They…”
“I know,” he tells me, running his hand down my hair.
I try to breathe through it, but he couldn’t possibly know. He wasn’t there. He didn’t see the way they touched me. He didn’t see the way they ground themselves against me, using my body to get off while I could hardly hold myself up. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t stop them. I had no choice but to wait until it was over.
But I don’t remember it being over. One minute I was in that smoky room with a blur of hands reaching out and stroking my body, grabbing my breasts, my legs, my ass. The next thing I know, I woke up here.
Tears begin cascading down my cheeks and soak into his shirt. “How… how far did it go?”
A voice clears and we both look up at Jesse. “We’ll wait outside while you guys talk,” he murmurs into the too quiet room before locking eyes on me with a heartbroken smile. “It’s good to see you awake,” he tells me. “You had me worried.”
I give him a small smile, not really feeling like giving away anything bigger than that. I watch as he leads the way out the door with Jackson falling in behind him. Brooke looks at me. “I’ll be just outside if you need to… you know, talk about it.”
I nod as she slips out the door before gently closing it behind her, leaving me in the arms of the man who looks like he wants nothing more than to drown in a pool of his own sorrows. “I’m so sorry,” he tells me with his heart on his sleeve.
My tears don’t dry up for even a second. “Nate,” I beg as the unknown becomes too much for me to bear. “Tell me. How far did it go?”
He lets out a sigh and I swear, it’s the closest I’ve ever seen him to breaking down. “I got there in time, but had I been even a few minutes later… I don’t know.”
“They didn’t…?”
“No, but they were going to. They would have if we didn’t get there.”
“I know.”
“You remember it?” he questions.
“Bits and pieces,” I tell him. “I remember being in that room. There was a lot of smoke and it was hard to breathe. I don’t know, I thought there were maybe fifteen guys, but everything was blurry. I couldn’t stand and I couldn’t scream, and then Josh just…” I bring my hands up and cover my face, completely ashamed with myself. “He… he pushed me into that room and told them I wanted it. I couldn’t make them stop.”
“It’s ok,” he tells me, holding me tighter. “It’s not your fault. He drugged you. He gave you GHB and overdosed you with it.”
“What?” I mumble into his shirt.
“It’s a date rape drug, usually guys slip it into your drink, but he injected it straight into your system. You didn’t stand a chance. This isn’t your fault. It’s on Josh and he’s going to pay for what he did. I promise you that.” I nod my head, fully trusting him to do whatever it is he needs to do to make that happen. “After I got you out,” he tells me, “Jesse and the boys stayed up all night searching for him.”
“He was there.”
Nate shakes his head. “No, we searched the whole house. He was gone. The boys found him a few streets away. He was living in his car, watching the whole thing on his phone.”
“Watching?” I question as that part comes back to me. “The camera.”
“Yeah, the camera,” he sighs. “I took it with me. There was enough evidence on that thing to put all of them away.”
“What do you mean?”
“This wasn’t the first time they’ve done this,” he tells me, making my stomach roll. “There were three other recordings. Each girl had been drugged and eventually gang raped. We just got you in time before it got to that point.”
Before that point? What does that even mean? What point was it that they did get up to? Was I touched? Was I violated by someone or someones? How many people were there? What are their names? What kind of torture did I narrowly escape?
But most of all, who were these girls and are they ok now?
“I want to see it,” I tell him.
Nate shakes his head.
“Damn it, Nate. I want to see what they did to me. I need to remember. I can’t have all these unanswered questions in my head. I need to know so I can forget about it and move on.”
“No,” he says. “It’s… just no. The police have it now. I’ll tell you anything you need to know, just don’t. Please. I don’t want you watching it.”
“Why?” I cry. “What did they do to me that’s so awful?”
Nate hangs his head and I can tell the images passing through his mind are hard for him to cope with, but I need this. I need to know what was done to me. He lets out a pained sigh. “When I walked in there, your clothes were ripped from your body. You were in your bra and undies and they were ripped too. You have hickey’s covering you from head to toe. You were at the point of passing out with guys rubbing their dicks up against you… Do I need to keep going?”
“Yes,” I tell him.
“Someone had his hand between your legs while someone else was digging his fingers under your bra. You were stumbling. Your eyes were closed. Breathing erratically. Yet not one of them gave a shit if you were ok. You were a tool used to get them off,” he lets out a deep sigh. “The guy with his hands between your legs got a broken nose while the other one is down the hall with three broken ribs.”
I nod my head against his chest, letting him know it’s ok to stop. I get his point. He’s willing to answer my questions but the fact of the matter is, I’m not going to like a single answer. “I don’t need to hear anymore,” I tell him.
He squeezes my hand and I want to hate myself for putting him through that. “What happened when the boys found Josh?”
“What do you think happened?”
"They beat the shit out of him."
"Mmhmm," he murmurs. "It was more than that, though. They found Heroin and GHB in his car, so they handed him in and he's being charged with possession. With the amount he had, I'm sure they can get him on intent to sell."
"He told me the guys pay big money for the shit he gave me."
"Of course, he did," Nate scoffs, rolling his eyes. "He's so fucking cocky, he thinks he can get away with it."
"He won't. Not this time."
"Will you give the police a statement?" he asks.
I nod my head. “You know I will.”
He holds me tighter. "We have Josh good already, but your statement will help. The guys that touched you are going down for rape and possession, but you could link Josh to the rapes. He took you off the street, drugged you without consent, and gave you up to them knowing what they were going to do. We will destroy him."
His use of words has a certain conversation coming back to me. Destroy. That's what Josh had said to me and he wasn’t
wrong. What he did to me did destroy Nate, I can see it in the defeated way he holds himself. He’s crushed that this happened, but I won’t dare tell him that Josh did all this just to get back at him. I couldn’t do that to him. Knowing that I got hurt because of a vendetta someone had against him really would destroy him, in every sense of the word.
I won’t tell him any of the details of how Josh took me off the street either. That’s also something I couldn’t stand him knowing. Hell, I’m sure if he did, he’d barge his way into Josh’s holding cell and beat him until he takes his final breath.
I run my thumb over his bloodied knuckles, knowing that they’re only this way because of his desperate attempt to save me from their clutches. “Did you get in trouble?” I ask, overwhelmed with just how far this man would go to protect me.
He shakes his head. “No, I slipped out the side door before the cops could arrest me. Maxen, Ty, and Jackson weren’t so lucky.”
“But Jackson is here. He’s fine now.”
“Yeah, the boys are fine. They were taken in and let off considering the circumstances. Jesse went and picked them up a few hours ago. They think they’re pretty badass for being thrown in jail for the night.”
I nod my head and let out a sigh as I relax back into Nate. “I bet they do,” I tell him. “Though, they haven’t done as much time as you have.”
His eyes widen as his body goes rigid. “How’d you know about that?”
“Oh, come on. Everyone knew when you got done for picking up that prostitute.”
“I swear,” he defends. “I didn’t fucking know.”
“Uh huh,” I smile. “That’s what they all say. Though I have to admit, I was surprised. If anyone was going to be charged for something stupid like that, I always thought it would have been Jesse.”
Nate smiles and just when I think his mind has been taken off the past twelve hours, he sighs. He runs his fingers up and down my back before shuffling around to look at me face on. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I should never have let him get that close.”
Broken Hill Havoc: The Broken Hill High Series (Book 5) Page 20