Healing Hearts: Elle’s Scars
Page 6
It had been a difficult journey coming to terms with my scars too. But if this man found them beautiful, who was I to write them off? The scars were me. The scars were part of my story. The scars made me who I was today. I now call them my most precious, and expensive piece of jewelry I own.
I headed over and opened my door, seeing the last person I ever expected to see standing there. My friend, Ali. We had been at the base when the attack came and both of us were “Forgotten Ones” as people called us. Ali had gotten it worse than me. She had caught the eye of one of the insurgents and he would often rape her along with the torture she had to endure. As a result, she was very messed up in her head. Her PTSD was off the charts and she was often living on the streets when she wasn't with her abusive junkie boyfriend. Tonight, she was covered in bruises and had blood going down the side of her mouth from a split lip and the right half of her face.
“Ali, come here sweetie,” I said.
I knew I should be yelling at her, lecturing her about her piece of crap boyfriend, but I also knew it wouldn’t work. She had to be the one to decide to leave him, otherwise there was no point. Ali walked in and I could see her trembling. Ever since our capture she’d always had a slight tremble to her hands. Her anxiety made it hard for her to be around people. She was a helicopter pilot, one of the best. When you had people in desperate need of rescue, they sent Ali out to get them. She had nerves of steel. She could fly her chopper into an active war zone, get her people and get out of there without batting an eye. Bad weather, RPGs, heat-seeking missiles, none of that affected her, but now she had a problem being around more than four people at one time.
“Der.” I called out as I guided Ali over to the couch. She wasn’t moving too well and I knew she must be injured under her shirt.
Derek came around the corner from the kitchen and instantly went into doctor mode. He headed into the bathroom to grab my extensive first aid kit and came back.
“Ali, this is my boyfriend Derek, he’s a doctor. Can you let him check you out?”
I knew being around people she didn’t know was hard for her, even more so having someone touch her that she didn’t know. But I was hoping she would be okay with Derek helping her. I had done it many times in the past, but I could tell her head wound needed stitches and Derek was very good at giving stitches and not leaving a scar. Ali gave a trembling nod and Derek spoke.
“I need you to remove your coat for me so I can check your ribs, Ali.”
I helped Ali to get her large coat undone and did my best to ignore how thin she had gotten. The second her coat was away from her side Derek and I both noticed the amount of blood covering her right side.
“Ali, what happened?” I asked, moving her shirt up to see what was causing the bleeding.
“He shot me,” Ali said with a shaky voice.
Derek took over now and I was relieved to see that it was a through and through and didn’t do any internal damage. It would be sore and bruise like no other, plus stitches, but she wouldn’t need surgery, which was good because I had no idea how I would even get her into a hospital.
“You should be in the hospital so we can get a scan of your head, to make sure there is no internal damage,” Derek said, as he went to work on patching up the bullet wound first.
“No, no hospitals,” Ali said, the panic in her voice increasing.
“It’s okay, no hospitals,” I told her. I leaned over to Derek and whispered into his ear. “She was there with me.”
Derek took a moment to look at me and then gave a slight nod before he whispered, “Call Q.”
I gave a nod and stepped back slightly to make the quick call to Quinn. I had gotten to know him a little over the time me and Derek had dated and I liked him. He was a good man and he would be able to handle Ali in a calm manner. It also helped that he knew about the Forgotten Ones and was an ex-Ranger. There wouldn’t be any judgements on his part. With that finished, I went back over and saw Derek was stitching up the bullet wound so I went over and just held Ali’s hand. I wanted to ask her questions, but I knew Quinn would and I didn’t want to put her through that twice.
“You got a man finally eh?” Ali asked.
“About a month now. Snagged me a heart doctor,” I said with a wink.
“You were always a sucker for a doctor,” Ali teased.
“Guilty as charged.”
“You treat her right?” Ali asked Derek.
“I do the best that I can. She’s one hell of a woman,” Derek said proudly.
Derek started chatting with Ali while stitching her up. It warmed my heart to hear him say how much he liked me. We were very close to reaching the love stage and though it should scare me, it only made me feel all warm inside. I never expected in a million years that I would meet a man that I could feel this way over, but I was very glad I had found him.
It was thirty minutes later when Quinn walked through my door. Ali was lying down on the couch, her wounds all stitched and patched up. With Quinn here, Ali seemed to be shaking more and I knew all the people around her were making her nervous. Derek had moved back so he was sitting on a dining room chair and I was glad to see that Quin had stayed back as he assessed the situation.
“Ali, sweetie, this is Quinn. He’s Der’s brother and a detective. Do you think you could tell us what happened?” I asked.
Ali had never reported her boyfriend before, but this time I knew it was different. This time around he had shot her, he could have killed her and I was hoping that would be her breaking point finally. Ali eyed Quinn and gave a slight nod. Quinn got closer, but he bent down so he was eye level with her and in a less intimidating pose.
“Can you tell me who hurt you, Ali?” Quinn asked gently.
Ali was quiet for a moment before she spoke softly. “Matt, my boyfriend.”
“Is this the first time he’s hurt you?” Quinn asked.
Ali just gave a slight shake of her head and Quinn moved on. He asked Ali everything that happened. Apparently, Matt was stoned out of his mind and accused her of cheating on him. He then grabbed the gun and the only thing that kept Ali alive was her army training. She was able to get the gun down, but not before he pulled the trigger. Still, it saved her life and she was able to knock him out and escape. I was proud of her. This was the first time she had defended herself against him. I knew it was a huge step in the right direction and I just prayed she would stay away from him now.
“Do you want to press charges against him?” Quinn asked.
I was praying that Ali would say yes. This was not something that you just walked away from. Matt could go after her again. He needed to be locked up. Ali just gave a nod and Quinn gave her a warm smile.
“I’m going to make the call and have him arrested. I’ll get your statement typed up and then you’ll need to sign it. You are doing the right thing Ali,” Quinn said.
“What if you can’t find him?” Ali asked.
“We will. No matter how long it takes. Do you have a safe place you could stay?” Quinn asked.
“She can stay here.” I offered instantly.
“El, are you sure?” Ali asked.
“Hell yeah I’m sure. You need a safe place to be where you can recover. There isn’t any place safer than here for you. I got that spare room for a reason you know.”
I wasn’t going to have Ali out there on her own, especially injured. She was going to be here where I could help her recover and get on the right path again. The next hour flew by fast. Quinn headed out to the station to deal with Ali’s ex-boyfriend. Derek helped me to get Ali settled into the guest bedroom and everything cleaned up. Before we knew it, it was almost ten o’clock at night and we were exhausted. We collapsed down into bed and Derek instantly pulled me to his chest.
“Do you think she'll be okay?” I asked.
“She’ll be fine. It’ll take time, but her injuries were superficial. The mental ones will take longer, but you already know that. We’ll help her and get her back to being heal
thy.”
“We?”
“Yes we. You both went through something horrible. That makes you family and any family of yours is my family. We’ll get her through this and she’ll come out stronger than ever. Just like you,” Derek said with love full in his voice.
It was lying here in this moment that I realized just how much I loved this man.
“I love you,” I said warmly.
“I love you babe.”
He pulled me in for a sweet kiss and in that moment, lying here in his arms with his lips on mine, I knew that everything I went through back in that cave had led me to this moment. And I wouldn’t change any of it. Now it was Ali’s turn to find her own path and find her way back to being the strong woman that she was. Only now she had me and two strong men to help get her through this. Based on the looks Quinn had been giving her, he was going to make sure her ex-boyfriend never laid a hand on her again. That he wanted to be the only man to ever touch her again and I was very interested in seeing how that would play out.
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Also by Kylar Wilde
Healing Heart Series
Elle’s Scars
Quinn’s Girl
Jeff’s Secret
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Copyright © 2020 by Kylar Wilde
About the Author
Kylar Wilde, not related to Oscar Wilde but secretly aspires to be a distinguished writer like him. She first began creating other worlds and characters in fourth grade.
Kylar found her love for writing when daydreaming in school led to her penning out the plots played in her head. Writing a novel has always been on her bucket list and she is currently working on her debut series – Healing Hearts.
She adores getting feedback from her readers.
This is Kylar’s first novella.