by T. N. King
Both detectives were looking back and forth from the three civilians in the room as if expecting something. “Do either of you recognize this young woman?” Detective Branson finally asked, Nicole’s head immediately beginning to shake in the negative, but Mason’s answer brought her up short.
“Yes,” the one word sounded terse and angry, the very syllable coated with disdain and
Nicole almost flinched back from it, going to look up at him again in question, and again being cut off by the detectives interrupting her.
“Where is it that you last saw this woman?” The question was odd, phrasing and tone.
Nicole didn’t know why it was being asked in that manner, or what relevance it would have on anything. Again, she wanted to know who this woman was, wanted to know why they were called in to be asked a question like this, out of all the questions they could have been asked. Mason didn’t seem surprised, and that made her question things as well. She had too many questions and she was already emotionally fraught as it was, her fingers almost shaking with the repressed verbiage that she was being forced to keep.
Mason finally spoke, “Tied up, in Aaron’s bed, on her back with his dick in her.”
The words were more caustic than she’d been prepared for, the imagery too bold, and stated so factually that she couldn’t begin to broker disagreement that it had been their bed, not just Aaron’s, that it had been her apartment. From what Mason was saying, this was the woman that he had seen Aaron cheating on her with, this was the one that had helped to set everything into motion. “Is that all I was called in for? I saw her fucking Aaron. While my girlfriend was still currently dating him. If you want more specific details, I imagine she would be a better person to ask for them than I.”
Again, Nicole started, her eyes moving to the girl curiously. She had imagined, if she ever saw her, that maybe she would feel hurt. Maybe that she would see her and suddenly feel all of the betrayal that she’d imagined she was supposed to feel when it was Mason who’d first informed her of it having happened. She had imagined a lot of things, but among them had not been her looking at her and feeling nothing but numb, worried disinterest. If she wanted Aaron, she was free to him, although she was more than a little bit sorry for the girl. There was no warning adequate enough for the type of person that Aaron was, and even if Nicole did manage to find the words… just like her, the girl would probably not believe them until it was too late and it had been proven to her by her own suffering.
“Do you mind repeating a condensed version of your story Ms. Theresa?” The detective cut through whatever other vitriol Mason was going to utter about the girl and the circumstances of him recognizing her.
The woman looked frightened, and more than a little chastened, glancing over at Mason, and then at Nicole, before finally landing again on the detective, obviously unsure.
“It’s already on record, but it might be better coming from your mouth for those that need to hear it first, and we would like to ensure that there are no other pieces that we are missing concerning your story.” The detective’s voice was still kind, even if it was brisk, his partner nodding along with what was being said.
“I-” Her voice was different than Nicole had expected, unsure and obviously self-conscious, eyes darting around the room at large before settling on the table in front of her, swallowing hard against whatever emotion she was struggling through. “I was seeing Aaron- I guess am seeing Aaron, I don’t know, I’m sorry.” She cut off again, swallowing hard and looking down more fully at the table and shrugging. “I knew he had a girlfriend, but he said that she wouldn’t let him leave, that she kept threatening to take his stuff, that she was threatening to hurt herself if he left… so I just… kept my mouth shut, operated under his rules I guess? He took me home to meet his family, I couldn’t imagine him doing that if it weren’t because it was serious…”
The detective clearing his throat made all of them jump.
Nicole so zoned in on this girl, Theresa that she’d almost forgotten they were in a room with other people. Aaron had taken her home? How was it that his parents hadn’t said anything? How was it that all of it had been so ignored by them?
“The condensed version Theresa,” Detective Branson reminded her, only just stopping from cutting her off entirely.
“Right I’m sorry, I don’t know how to-” Again the throat clearing interrupting her and her obvious discomfort forcing her face back down to the table.
Nicole kept watching familiar gestures, ones that she’d never utilized before dating Aaron appear on this random stranger…
“We were together, it was fine, he liked rougher sex but other than that we seemed fine, he had very defined rules… but I thought they came of his upbringing, his past… and then Mason caught us…” She trailed off, her eyes glazing over, and she didn’t need to finish, not for Nicole- she recognized that look, that looking inward to ask what she had done to cause it… “He left and Aaron came back angry… he beat the shit out of me. Left me in the hospital for two days, he said it was my fault, my fault that he’d gotten caught… I have the documents I have…” She cut off again. “He apologized you know, he was in the hospital every day, buying me flowers, bringing me teddy bears… He said he just lost it, that he thought for sure that this girl he was with was going to commit suicide then, that she’d been a friend of his, his only friend for as long as he’d been adopted… and I bought it. He was so convincing you know…”
Nicole knew, she knew every word coming out of this girl’s mouth, like she was hearing herself speak through a different body, like she was seeing a totally different life in which she had never had to meet Aaron in the first place and it had all been visited upon someone else.
“I thought that I loved him… but then he kept hitting me. It wasn’t often, it wasn’t like it was every single time, but it happened…” She trailed off again, her fingers twisting against one another atop the table.
Nicole’s heart skipped, her own fingers closing more tightly around their hold on Mason.
“It kept happening, and then he called me from the hospital, I was so worried I rushed over, I thought for sure that something had happened because he had finally tried leaving his girlfriend like he promised that he would. I thought for sure… well. When I got to the hospital, I heard the nurses talking. About the girl that he’d beaten and the bruises she wore… but then I had to ask and … I knew he was lying… so I came here,” she finished lamely, shrugging like she wasn’t sure it was enough.
Nicole hadn’t even realized she was crying until Theresa stopped talking, the hot tears still pouring down her face and Nicole’s whole body almost seizing.
He’d done it to someone else. He’d pulled the same shit…
“Did you already talk to his adoptive parents?” Mason’s voice cut through fog like a knife,
Nicole’s teary gaze swinging to Detective Branson and stilling at his minute nod. They had…
“And they corroborated this story?” Again, Mason spoke before she could, his voice tightly controlled, and again the detective nodded minutely.
“We thought that you would want to hear it before it became an official statement, and we wanted to be sure that it was all… new information to the lot of you.”
Nicole couldn’t even be offended that they were double checking that, that they were ensuring that it wasn’t some wild story they had all concocted together… but she knew that later she would be. That later she would be furious by the implication. But for now she just… was numb, watching the other detective help Theresa stand from her chair, leading her out of that room and away from them- the girl grabbing at Nicole’s arm as she passed and all of Nicole’s body reorienting to look her more fully in the eye.
She was pretty. She was more than pretty, and those tears leaking down her face matched those that Nicole could feel leaking down her own. “I’m sorry,” Theresa stated, baldly crying the words out like they were physically painful for her to admit. “I�
�m so sorry.”
Nicole didn’t know if she was apologizing for helping Aaron cheat, or maybe she was apologizing for waiting so long to come forward. She didn’t know if she was apologizing for the pain she knew so intimately herself… she didn’t know, but she nodded slightly, leaning into that hand for a whole half of a moment. “I’m sorry too,” was all that she got out before the detective pulled Theresa away, Nicole falling more heavily into Mason’s side. She… wasn’t the only one. She hadn’t been the only one… and just that quickly her whole world spun. Mason’s words above her head all mushed together until they made no sense, black overtaking her vision and her arms twitching. It was too much.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mason had never been that scared in his life as he watched Nicole fall against his side, her twitching limbs the only indication of anything at all before her eyes rolled back and her body went limp. Both of the detectives had already left the room, leaving them to their own devices inside, and he couldn’t have formed the words to yell for one of them if he’d tried. It was like having been hit over the head with a boulder, walking into the station like they had only to see that girl who’d been such a catalyst for all of these other events. She was different, obviously clothed, and not writhing and moaning in a bed as she’d been the last time he’d seen her, but her face had been clear, and he’d known just who was sitting there across from the detectives when he had seen her.
He’d been furious, thinking it was another trick of Aaron’s that they were going to have to navigate, thinking maybe it was a girl pressing charges against him for more things he had never done to better support Aaron’s case. Then she had started speaking… and he wanted to feel sympathetic for her, he knew he should have, but he just couldn’t bring himself to feel anything other than surprised at what was being said… and vaguely thankful it had been her Aaron had hospitalized and not Nicole. If it had been Nicole, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to stop when he had Aaron under his hands. He would have been forced to react much more strongly even than he had in the first place… and then he would have been facing a first degree murder charge no matter how that had fallen.
“Nicole?” His voice was soft, having only minutes before determined she had knocked out due to shock and nothing more sinister, all of her vitals even and no detective making their way back in the room even while he lifted her onto the table. “Come on Nicole, give me something.” Anything other than the flicker of her irises behind her eyelids. He knew she was alive, he knew she was at least physically stable… but she wasn’t opening her eyes, and it concerned him. A very large part of him wanted to rush her to the nearest hospital and get her seen… only they hadn’t been released, and her breathing was slowly evening out.
“I’m awake,” she mumbled, nearly making him jump out of his skin, his hands pushing her hair back even as she attempted to sit up, hands only too eager to help in what she was attempting to do. “I’m here,” she continued, swinging her legs over the side of the table and nearly kicking Mason in the process. Not that he was complaining. “I think I passed out…” Even her voice was groggy, each syllable drawn out and enunciated oddly. “Which is weird, because I swear Aaron’s mistress, can I even call her his mistress when we weren’t married? I swear, she was here, and she was saying things that… made too much sense. Is that possible? Did I dream that? You were arrested weren’t you? I made something up to cover—”
Just like before his fingers lifted to cover her lips, eyes closing and his forehead falling forward into hers. She was fine. She was awake, like she’d said, and she’d passed out, like he had assumed from shock…. “Nicole…” Her name felt like a prayer, though whether it was for deliverance or for patience he didn’t know, slowly scooting her forward on that table until he didn’t have to lean quite so far in in order to rest his head against hers. “Theresa was here, and she… made more sense than I was originally expecting her to make, yes.” Wherein, she didn’t try to pull some elaborate scheme to help Aaron out… but had rather helped seal the case against him, at least Mason hoped…
“Theresa… it sounds like he cheated on me with a nun… a nun. Ha. Shouldn’t I care more or…” She halted looking down at the way she had all but crawled into his lap and laughing again.
He was half tempted to check and see if she had a fever, knowing it was the shock of it all or not… she was acting half insane, tilting her head back and locking her ankles behind him in the chair. He really hoped she was still sane enough to remember just where they were and how one was supposed to act appropriately while there. “Nicole—?” Now it was his turn to be cut off, the door opening again and Detective Branson letting himself in, looking over the both of them and their odd seating arrangement before being followed in by the one Mason wasn’t as familiar with.
Neither of them looked too worried, just like neither of them looked too intimidating. No one was holding cuffs, no one was being backed up by a bevy of officers as this precinct now tended to do when they were wanting to subdue him… they just looked… haggard, the lines about their facial features more pronounced than they had been the day before, the bags beneath their eyes all the darker.
“Listen, we called you in to hear it, and have already spoken with Aaron and his attorney… and they’re willing to cut a plea bargain…”
Mason could feel Nicole’s relief through the way she sagged into him, but he wasn’t so sure that was a good idea, staring at the detective and the way that he was giving them a moment to process, or in Nicole’s case celebrate, before outlining what this bargain would be. Plea deals very rarely benefitted anyone involved, at least to his knowledge, which meant that it was very likely they were all about to be fucked with the pointed end of a spear absent whatever lube that could make that even the slightest more bearable.
“Mason would need to agree to attend twice weekly counseling…” Which would mean he was only court mandated to include what he was already doing, waiting for them to tack on the community service or shortened time served amount, but they didn’t. Turning to Nicole fully and dismissing his just as easily as that… two weekly meetings, no different than he’d been doing in recent months, that would afford him all time to stay out of jail…. “In return,” but of course, there was a catch, “Nicole promises to only press charges that would ensure Aaron incur up to ten years while attending counseling from the physician in charge of such at whatever correctional facility he is processed into.”
Only ten years… with the corroborating statements and evidence now being stacked against the boy? Mason snorted, shaking his head even as Nicole placed her hand on his forearm as if to stop him. “Ten years?” That was the same sentence that Mason had been looking at facing for much less and with much smaller a pool of evidence. He could feel the tension creeping up his spine, his head shaking as if to disagree with the plea before Nicole had even had a chance to voice her own opinion.
Again, the detective he wasn’t as familiar with cut him off before he even got the chance to begin his rant pertaining to such. “If you don’t agree to this you could still serve time yourself, whether it was in defense of Ms. Carter or not, you do have a violent history yourself, and you did land Aaron in the hospital for several days, that’s not something the court can just choose to overlook.”
He was being reasonable, and Mason could recognize that, but even still, his first reaction was not to thank him, or even agree with him, his steely gaze rotating between the two detectives. “So we’re supposed to agree to let him serve a shortened sentence just because what? I responded to him physically abusing someone half his size in what you deem an improper manner? Because he might, when he is finally released, have hospital bills? Please explain to me which part is supposed to garner my sympathy when my girlfriend is still carrying the cracked fucking ribs from that psychopath beating her, nevermind the emotional and mental trauma that he has also put her under for months. First, you didn’t believe us, and now that there’s someone corrobora
ting what we said, with physical evidence of their own, you want us to be sympathetic of his history?!”
He was outraged, so much so that he didn’t even bother attempting to disguise so in his words, even with Nicole tugging on him like she was. She didn’t have to like him bringing up her injuries, if this went on much longer he was more than likely going to display them for the imbeciles that had thought bringing this plea offer forward was a good idea. He had battered Nicole, and for more than just the five to ten minutes before Mason had arrived on the scene of the most recent interaction- for months. He had altered her reality, altered her reactions, he had stripped her of her natural reactions and empathy… and they thought that ten years was adequate time for him to be serving? Mason didn’t care about his history, he didn’t care about his upbringing- Aaron would have been a psychopath no matter what parents he’d been born to, no matter what quality of life he had been offered- and if the adoptive parents were talking it was only a matter of time before that too, came out.
“Mason…” Nicole’s voice was more insistent, pulling at his arm like she’d done when they were much, much younger. “It’s ten years, and its instant, we wouldn’t have to sit through trials and hope that a jury agrees, he wouldn’t be able to work his charm on anyone else…” Except for the parole board when it came up, but Mason couldn’t even get those words out, his eyes on Nicole and the fear still in her face.
“Theresa is also pressing charges,” Detective Branson offered, looking between the two of them carefully. “Aaron doesn’t know as much yet, he only knows she’s testifying, but between the two cases…”
He would be looking at twenty five or more…the words weren’t spoken but they hung heavy in the air between them. Mason’s hand scrubbing down his face before turning down to look at Nicole, who was practically raising onto the tip of her toes to catch his attention, nodding emphatically her agreement that she was fine with it, that it was the course she wanted to take…