Deep Burn: (Asher & Elodie: Easton Family Saga) (Burned Duet Book 2)

by Abigail Davies

  “Only superhot?” I asked, turning my machine off and spraying her skin to get rid of the errant ink left behind.

  “Fine.” She chuckled and slid forward on the chair as I wrapped the tattoo in clear wrap. “Super, superhot.”

  “That’s a more accurate view.” I smirked, wanting nothing more than to pounce on her there and now, but I couldn’t. She’d sat there for longer than I thought she realized, and I was afraid doing anything else would push her over the edge.

  Her stomach rumbled right next to my ear as I packed my kit away, and I paused. “Hungry?”

  “Starving.” She grasped her stomach. “For waffles.”

  “Waffles specifically?”

  “Yep.” She grabbed her tennis shoe and sock, then slid them both on. “I haven’t had waffles for breakfast since I was a kid.” She groaned. “Oh, man, I can already taste them in my mouth.”

  I laughed as I stood. “Then we must feed you waffles.” I used the stiffest tone I could. “What the lady wants, the lady gets.”

  “A milkshake too, then?”

  “Milkshake with breakfast?” I fake gagged. “That’s—”

  “Genius,” she interrupted, flashing a smile over her shoulder as she skipped toward the door. “Strawberry with whipped cream on top.” She licked her lips. “I need it, Asher. Need it.”

  “Well then, guess we’re going to get waffles and…milkshakes.”

  “Yes!” She fist-bumped the air, her smile turning into a grin, and my stomach dipped at the sight of her. She didn’t want expensive things and to be lavished with compliments. Elodie was a simple girl at heart. A simple girl who’d wrapped herself so tightly around every single part of me that I wasn’t sure where she ended and where I began. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  ELODIE

  I kept my attention on anything but the table to the right. I tried to imagine it was a random person sitting behind it, but I knew it wasn’t. It was evil personified. Evil that I could feel staring me down.

  He wanted me to break.

  He always had.

  But today wasn’t about him. Today, I severed the last grip he held on me. Today was the day I looked him directly in the eye and told him I was done.

  “Please place your right hand on the Bible and your left hand in the air,” the man in a police uniform told me. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do.”

  “Please take a seat.”

  I pulled my hand off the Bible, then sat down on the bland gray chair inside the wooden box attached to the bench the judge sat behind. I tried not to focus on all of the gazes directed toward me, but it was harder than I’d realized. The rows were packed with people, most of whom I didn’t recognize, but I knew exactly where Asher and everyone else from the family sat: directly behind the prosecutor’s desk. Only last month we had sat on the opposite side.

  “Good morning, Elodie,” the woman from the prosecutor’s office—Mylee—greeted. I’d met her once last week when she’d prepared me for what was going to happen today. She’d been brutally honest with me and told me the hardest part wouldn’t be answering her questions but answering the defense.

  “Morning,” I replied, trying to keep my voice even, but it was more difficult than I’d realized.

  “I know this is difficult for you.” She halted in front of me and placed her hand on the wooden lip of the stand. “So, if at any time you need to take a break, you just say and we’ll do that, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She smiled, the kind of smile that said I had no idea what was about to happen, and she was right. This was completely new to me, and no matter how much I’d researched, nothing compared to the feelings I was having right then. My stomach churned, my hands shook, and my neck ached from trying to look anywhere but at him.

  “Let’s start at the beginning of the day in question, shall we?” Mylee took a few steps backward to the desk she was sitting behind and picked up a folder. “You attended your boyfriend’s parents’ house for a gathering, is that correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you stayed there until after it got dark? Do you remember the approximate time?”

  I clasped my hands tighter together in my lap. “Around ten p.m.”

  Mylee crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the edge of the desk, her eyes focused only on me now. “Can you walk me through what happened when you left their house?”

  “I…” I cleared my throat and took a calming breath. “Me and Asher—my boyfriend—drove to the apartment I was renting above his tattoo shop.” I paused, not sure if I needed to continue, but when Mylee simply stared back, I carried on. “We…erm, we pulled around the back of the shop because that was the entrance to the apartment. But Asher got a call from his friend who needed his help, so I went into the apartment before he left.”

  “You went inside alone?” Mylee asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And when you entered the building, was there anyone else inside?”

  “Not that I recall.” I frowned, wondering if Knox had already been inside. I hadn’t thought about it, but he had to have been, right? I hadn’t heard anything until the point he walked up the stairs, so did that mean he’d been waiting for me? Part of me had wondered if he’d let his rage consume him, but I was doubting that now. Maybe he’d planned to do what he did. Maybe he thought it would put me under his control again.

  “Then what happened?”

  I shook my head to try and dispel my thoughts. I had to concentrate on what was happening right now. “I went up to my apartment and…I’m not sure what I did when I got inside.” I rolled my lips and tried to find Asher in the crowd of people attending. I needed him to anchor myself. I needed one simple look from him to know I wasn’t getting lost inside my own head.

  “That’s okay,” Mylee said, standing fully. “Tell us what you do remember.”

  “I was only inside for a few minutes and then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.”

  “And did you think the footsteps were your boyfriend's?”

  “Objection,” a deep voice boomed.

  “Sustained,” the judge said from beside me.

  “I’ll rephrase,” Mylee countered. “Who did you think was walking up the stairs?”

  “Asher,” I answered.

  “And who was it?”

  I took two breaths, closed my eyes, and whispered, “Knox.” I couldn’t get the image of his face out of my mind. The way his lips had lifted as if he had me exactly where he wanted me: alone and afraid.

  “Take your time, Elodie,” Mylee said, her voice closer now. “And tell us what happened next.”

  “He…” I opened my eyes back up and kept my gaze fixated on my hands. “He came inside, and I asked what he was doing there.”

  “Did he tell you why he was there?”

  I nodded and looked up at Mylee. “He said he wanted to check out my new place.”

  “It’s normal for friends to want to do that,” she said to the jury. “But why wasn’t this normal, Elodie?”

  “We’d broken up weeks beforehand.”

  “And was there a reason you broke up?”

  “Objection,” the deep voice said again, making me jump. I heard a snigger, the same snigger that had echoed in my mind for months. He thought this was funny. He thought being on trial was a joke. “Relevance.”

  “It has to do with the background of their relationship,” Mylee told the judge. “To gain a perspective of what happened previous to the night in question.”

  “I’ll allow it,” the judge said, his voice almost bored.

  “You may answer the question, Elodie,” Mylee told me.

  “It was an abusive relationship,” I murmured, hating the words coming out of my mouth. I’d been stuck inside the hell he’d created for so long that it wasn’t until I was completely out of it I could see how bad it actually was. I’d let him take wh
at he wanted from me. I’d let him use me in any way he saw fit because I’d been scared.

  “Could you give me an example of when Knox was abusive?”

  I could have listed off several times, but I knew what she wanted me to say. “He beat me up in front of the dance studio where I had lessons.”

  “The bitch deserved it,” I heard Knox murmur, and my heart raced in the kind of way it hadn’t since I’d last seen him. It was as if it was trying to escape my body—escape him.

  “Counselor, please keep the defendant under control or I’ll hold him in contempt of the court,” the judge ground out, and it was the first time I’d heard any kind of emotion in his voice. Maybe he had to sound bored, so he stayed neutral and didn’t sway the jury, but Knox’s comment didn’t affect me. It was hearing his voice again after so long that messed with my head.

  “Your Honor, I’d like to submit evidence of this incident into evidence,” Mylee said, walking back to her table. “This particular incident was witnessed by several people, whose statements I have here. I also have a photo taken a couple of days following the assault.” She passed the judge a stack of papers and he filed through them, nodded his head, then passed them to the guard who gave them to the first person on the jury.

  “Back to that night, Elodie.” Mylee halted in front of me again. “What happened when he told you he wanted to check out your new apartment?”

  “I told him to leave.”

  Mylee nodded and placed her hands in front of her. “And did he?”

  “No.” I glanced over at Asher, his nod of encouragement fueling me forward. “I told him Asher would be back any minute, but he still wouldn’t leave.” My fingers trailed up to my throat as I remembered the way he’d—

  “Then he grabbed me around the throat.”

  “Had he done this to you before?”

  “Yes. But…there was something different about this time.” I tried to keep my mind focused on what had happened that night. “His eyes…there was a darkness to his eyes.”

  “And how did that make you feel?”

  “Scared.”

  “What happened after he grabbed you around the throat?”

  “He…” I felt a sob bubbling up and pushed it down as far as I could. “He spat on me.” I paused and winced as I remembered. “Then he slapped me.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “He wrestled me to the ground.” The sob couldn’t be contained any longer, and I let it out, needing to find some relief in the memories coming back to me piece by painful piece. “I tried to fight but he kept telling me I was his.”

  Mylee passed me a tissue and I wiped at my face, needing to get control of my emotions. I wasn’t going to satisfy Knox for a moment longer, but it was hard to keep them contained. I hadn’t had to tell anyone what happened that night since I’d given a statement. “Then what happened?”

  “He pulled my hair so hard it felt like my scalp was on fire.” I remembered the white-hot pain burning over my skin. “I dug my nails into his arm, trying to get him off me.” I balled the tissue up and held it between my palms. “Then he threw me to the floor and my head smacked off the edge of my coffee table.”

  “And how did this affect the way you acted?”

  “I couldn’t get my bearings. Everything was blurry and happening so fast. I knew I had to get out of there, so I turned around but…but I wasn’t quick enough. He slammed his shoulder into my chest and knocked my breath out of me.”

  Mylee nodded. “So, there was no way out?”

  “Objection,” the same deep voice said, but his tone was softer this time.

  “Sustained.”

  “Did you feel like there was a way out?” Mylee asked, her gaze meeting mine.

  “No. He trapped me and then…then he pulled my jeans down.” A tear ran down my face as my skin crawled. I could still feel the weight of him on top of me. “I begged him to stop, but he…he liked it. He told me to keep begging him, but every time I did, he just carried on.”

  “You’re almost done now, Elodie,” Mylee said, her lips pulling into the faintest of smiles. “What happened next?”

  “He…pushed himself inside of me.” I took another breath, determined not to shed another tear. “I told him no again, but he didn’t listen. He carried on, and I realized…I realized nothing was going to stop him.”

  “Thank you, Elodie.” Mylee placed her hand on the edge of the stand again and gave me a slight nod, then turned around. “Your witness,” she said to the other table, but still I didn’t turn to look at them. I kept my gaze forward, waiting for the man who had objected several times to come into my view.

  “Elodie,” he said, his voice deceptively soft. “You knew Knox from attending the same school as him, correct?”

  “Yes,” I answered, keeping my gaze firmly fixed on the lawyer. His gray hair was receding and from the way his suit fit him, it had to be designer.

  “And you’d been friends with Knox for a long time?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded and took a couple of steps away from me. “But you didn’t live near each other?”

  My stomach dipped at his question. “We did not.”

  “Where did you live, Elodie?”

  I wet my lips and swallowed, trying not to let him affect me. “With my mother.”

  “No father?”

  “No.” I shook my head and held my hands tighter in my lap.

  “And why is that?”

  My nostrils flared at the sight of his lips quirking on one side. “He left when I was a kid.”

  “Is it not true that he left because your mother abuses both alcohol and drugs?” He raised a brow, waiting for me to answer, and when I gave a small nod of agreement, he gritted out, “Vocalize your answer.”

  “Yes,” I croaked, feeling like I wanted to run away. I hadn’t expected him to bring my mom into it, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Knox never played anything but dirty.

  “So when the opportunity came to be away from your mother, you snapped it up.” His voice got louder. “You were offered an apartment by another man and dropped Knox just like your dad had done to you.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Because that’s the pattern you’ve learned growing up, isn’t it Elodie? You take what you want and don’t care about the consequences.”

  “No—”

  “You used Knox.” He paced the small area in front of me. “You used him because he was popular in school. His family is rich. You lured him, promising him things that you were never willing to give.”

  “That’s not true!” I blurted out, feeling frazzled.

  “The truth is that you liked rough sex. You took a straight A student who was on the path to attend an Ivy League college and twisted him to your ways. You didn’t want the plain high school guy, you wanted the rough-and-tumble kind.” He paused and halted in front of me. “You wanted the kind of guy you’d grown up around, but they didn’t suit your needs to get out of the trailer park you were trapped in did they?”

  “You’re spouting fiction,” I told him, narrowing my eyes. “That’s not what happened, and it’s not what Knox is like.”

  “What I think happened, Elodie, is that the moment you dropped Knox, you realized your mistake and you asked him to come to your apartment.” I shook my head and opened my mouth to answer, but he continued, not letting me talk. “I think you engaged in the rough kind of sex you were used to, but you hadn’t expected your latest boyfriend to walk in, had you?”

  I heard murmurings in the room, but I tried my best to ignore them. He was attempting to rattle me, trying to get me to have an outburst, but I’d spent years learning how to stay calm in the face of uncertainty.

  “You’re wrong,” I told him simply.

  “Did you engage in rough sex with Knox previous to this event?” he asked, raising his brow.

  “I did not.”

  The lawyer stared down at me, his bright blue eyes drilling into me. “That�
�s your word against his, though, isn’t it, Elodie?”

  “I suppose it is.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but I didn’t give him the chance this time. “But this isn’t my word against his. There were witnesses to how he treated me throughout our relationship. I’m haunted every day by what he did to me. I have physical and emotional scars that he left behind.” I paused. “And the evidence from the rape kit proves what he did to me.”

  “Or it proves you like rough sex,” he quipped back, pursing his lips

  “Do you know what it’s like to have your choices taken away from you, sir?” I asked, pushing forward in my seat.

  “I think you’ll find it’s my job to ask the questions here, young lady.”

  “That’s a no, then.” I shook my head, feeling all of my emotions bubbling to the surface. “Because if you did know, then you wouldn’t be asking me these questions. I’ll live with what he did to me for the rest of my life. This wasn’t an event that will pass on by. This is something that will stay with me until the day I die.”

  “Stick to only answering questions I ask,” he ground out, his warning clear.

  I tried to take a calming breath, but it was really hard when I was faced with a man representing such evil. “Okay, then.”

  He walked back to his desk and I felt my shoulders slump. It was over, finally ov—

  “One last question.” He held his finger up in the air and spun on his heels to face me. “How long did you work as an exotic dancer at the strip club Pink Feather?”

  My breath whooshed out of me, my face paling. I’d thought I’d kept what I did a secret, but if Knox’s lawyer knew, then so did Knox. Had he known all along?

  “I…” I didn’t know what to say because the truth made me look a certain way; the truth meant people would made a judgement about me and what I was like. It wouldn’t matter if they were right or wrong.

  “According to my records, you’d worked there for around nine months.” He held up a piece of paper. “Would an eighteen-year-old high school student take her clothes off and flaunt her naked body in front of men if she wasn’t experienced?” My breaths were ragged as I stared at him, not able to say a single word. I’d worked there because I didn’t have a choice. “I think you felt trapped and thought this was your only way out: to accuse an innocent young man of something so vile.”