by Laura Sutton
Ella was lounging on the bed with her clothes sticking out of her bag. She had changed into her pajama shorts and a tank top. “Hey, you have to see this.” She smiled as she turned her laptop around, and it was a picture of her and Claire laughing at the gallery that night. He stared at it. He didn't know that Ella had gone. “You should have seen her. She was in her element. The place was packed with people tonight. I wonder if everything sold. She was bringing out more paintings from the back. I didn't realize that she had so many.” Ella smiled. She finally noticed the plate. “Is that grilled cheese?”
“Guilty. Thought you'd be hungry.” He handed her the plate, sitting on the bed, as she bit into the sandwich.
“Spill, Aidan. You only make these when things are bad.”
“I'm protecting you. That's all you need to know.”
“A?" Ella took a breath, sitting the sandwich down on the plate. "Is Claire dead?”
“Why would you think that?”
“You look like you've seen a ghost.”
“No, she's not dead,” he said quietly. He heard the door buzzer sound, looking at his watch, he knew it would be Alyssa.
“Stay here.” He got up and left the room.
Aidan was tired, one look at Alyssa he saw that she was worse. “How bad?” Aidan asked as he looked to her.
“He didn't touch her. She knocked him out with the roses that you gave her.” Alyssa smiled a bit. “Good thing you buy expensive glass vases.” Aidan glared at her she was trying to make light of what had happened. He found nothing about this amusing.
“Aidan, she's hurting. She's completely retreated. Doctor Gordon is there trying to do as much damage control as she can. Claire... she isn't responding.”
“She moved away from me. God, the fear in her eyes.” Aidan ran his hand through his hair. A part of him felt dead inside, broken, as he saw her pain.
“Aidan, I promise, she wasn't seeing you. Hell, she only knew me and my father from our voices.”
“She told you to get me out of there.”
“Of course, she did. She could feel you there. Aidan, Claire gravitates towards you. She knew I was with you and that you would follow. She didn't want you to see her like that. Broken... damaged, as she sees herself.” Alyssa sat down on the couch, exhausted. “Aidan, she loves you to the moon and back. Hearing that Ella was one of those girls. I felt her. She completely broke in my arms. All the fight drained from her.” Alyssa shook her head.
“Tell me everything from the top. I need to know.”
“Aidan.”
“Tell me, Alyssa. I can't protect her at your house, and I can't protect Ella unless I know what I'm dealing with.” Alyssa nodded.
Alyssa had spoken to Claire and knew that Aidan would have to know. She was with Claire when Aidan had called her. Claire had touched her arm and whispered two words to her, “Save Ella,” before she laid down. As Doctor Gordon, continued to pull the glass from her.
“Clayton Gregston. Many know him as The Shadow. He would stalk families, kill the parents and siblings and abduct the youngest girl. They looked for him for years. Every time they would get close, he would kill the girls and leave their mutilated bodies in a gutter.” Aidan started to speak, but Alyssa held up her hand. “This is hard enough to speak of. Just let me get it out.” He nodded as she closed her eyes. “We were living in Virginia at the time. I was eleven when my dad brought Claire home. She looked starved to the point she could barely stand. We played Barbies under the dining room table. She was so weak, so fragile. She had a cast on her arm, and she wouldn't let anyone near her. I was the only one that could get close. Anytime someone knocked on the door she would hide and curl into a ball. I can't tell you how many times it opened stitches on her back and the Doctor had to redo them. It wasn't until months later that she finally spoke to me. She said my name and told me her name was Claire. The cops called her Sydney, it's what one of the girls called her. Since she would only speak to me, I had to ask her what had happened, and they recorded it with a nanny cam teddy bear in my room. She talked about the abuse her father would do to her. He always kept Claire locked in her room to a radiator, but one night she was thrown into the house’s cellar with others. Claire escaped. She doesn't remember much after that; she was told they were dead. The families, the media, everyone blamed Claire for not speaking up.”
“It. Wasn't. Her. Fault.” Ella almost screamed.
“I'm not...” Alyssa said with wide eyes. She hadn't noticed that she had come into the room. She did not know when the young woman had come into the room.
“Of course, she doesn't remember what happened that night. She screamed at us to run as her father came into the cellar. He hit her, hard. She fought him and barely escaped. Sarah had taken off, but I was too little. Too weak.”
Aidan stood up, to go to her, but Ella held up her hand. “No. Sit.”
He sat down. He saw the fire, the rage, inside his sister as she remembered the details. He didn't want this for her. He never should have called Alyssa.
“She could have run, but she didn't, she stayed. She helped me run.” Ella sat down looking at the table. “I called her Angel. I could hear her singing sometimes after he was... done with her. He caught up to us. She pulled me to the ground and wrapped herself around me, protecting me. I could hear his belt, the echo of it biting into her. She stayed silent against the pain. She just kept whispering, promising, that it would be ok.” Ella sat on the couch's armrest near Alyssa, playing with her hands.
“The sirens were deafening. Sarah must have made it to a nearby house and called 911. I never knew how they found us. I was crying so hard. Claire's arms were locked around me. I could barely feel her breathe on my shoulder. She had stopped speaking. She wasn't trying to calm me. I heard the belt drop and he took off. Soon, there was an officer there. He ordered his partner to stay with us. It was a woman, she kept saying that we would be ok. That was were finally safe. Everything was blurred, I couldn't stop crying. The man was gone. I had been told about the police being the good guys and I was happy that they were there. The paramedics kept trying to get Claire to release me, but they couldn't get her grasp loosened. They had to break her arm to get me out. I still remember the crunch of her bones as I was carried away and they moved Claire. She was still frozen in that cocoon that she put me in. She kept me safe that night. I know I would have been killed if it wasn't for her.”
Aidan wanted to move towards his sister. To remind her that he would protect her. He respected the distance she needed as they all sat there. Tears dripping down their faces.
Ella looked up. “Tell me the truth. What's going on? I'm not some little kid anymore. I don't need to be in a cocoon.”
“He escaped from prison. He killed Sarah tonight and attacked Claire in the gallery after closing.”
“I was supposed to be there.”
“What?” Fear gripped deep inside Aidan.
“I was supposed to be at the gallery. Claire told me she wasn't feeling well, and I told her I'd go to the drug store. She said that she still wanted to celebrate. We were going to meet up after she locked up. I was running late because I couldn't find the apple juice I wanted.” Ella shrugged, “whenever I was sick, you'd always give me apple juice and it made me feel better.”
Aidan pulled her onto his lap, tightening his grasp.
“Claire's ok. She's in the panic room at my house.”
“She's not ok,” Ella said looking at Alyssa. “I endured the abuse for a year in his captivity. Claire was in it for eleven years. She never made a sound. She took the punishment for us all. She never let him mark any of us permanently.” Ella showed her arm. “This is the only outward scar I have, and it was when she wrapped herself around me. The belt cut into my arm.”
“She never told me,” Alyssa said quietly. She thought she knew everything about Claire, but she knew that Claire still protected her from the memories. Her phone vibrated she looked at the number. “Agent Roher. Yes. Not another one...
she can't do that. Can we forget this all happened? I see. You're with her now? I'm at Aidan's. Yes, I will inform him.”
“What's wrong?” Aidan asked looking to Alyssa. “Inform me of what?”
“Claire's remembered... stuff... that she's blocked out. They've reopened the case and they are going to court. They are aiming for the death penalty.” She held her hand out. “Sarah's killer has also been found. They killed him in a firefight. Ella is safe.”
“When does the trial start?”
“Aidan, I don't know if I can...” fear instantly jumped into Ella's voice.
“You don't need to,” Alyssa said quickly, hoping to calm the girl. “Claire signed the confession. Her agreement stated that you 'aren't named, called to testify, or have to give a statement.'”
“She's protecting me, again.”
“Yes." Alyssa sighed, deeply, "I should get back to her. She'll need me.”
“Alyssa, will you give her something?”
She nods as Aidan moves towards the back of the house. He hands her a small duffle bag. “I'll be at the hearing. Let me know when it is.”
“She won't like that.”
“Tough. She needs people on her side. I will hire a lawyer.”
“She doesn't need a lawyer. She has one that has been retained for her.”
“All her money is locked into her gallery. She shouldn't waste it.”
“Aidan, Claire is an heiress in her own right. She has more money than you have.”
“I've seen her starve herself because she couldn't afford food,” Aidan said clenching his fists.
“She doesn't like to touch her family money, but she does at some points as she did with the remodel of the gallery. It's only the interest that she touches. She says the interest is not tainted, though she'd rather give it all away and she does that a lot. It's one of the reasons I took over her finances so she wouldn't have to deal with it. Money makes her nervous.”
“Family money?”
“Her father was the only heir to a media company. His father disowned him after he married Claire’s mother, who was a whore. When Claire was born, he wrote him back into his will. He died soon after and her father used that money to build and hide his little fantasy world from everyone.”
“I have to do something.” He ran his hand through his hair. The more he heard about her past, the more he needed to protect her. She was his, and he was hers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Claire had on her suit as she looked into the mirror. Alyssa and the doctor had been trying to get her to eat but she could not bring herself to keep anything down. The bags under her eyes were darkening. She was too scared to sleep, knowing the dreams that would plague her. Her mind had open. No memories were blocked anymore. Her mind thought that she was strong enough to handle the memories, but she did not feel that way. She moved out of the bathroom and looked to the bed that she had shared with Aidan. He would be in court today like he had been every day since it started. She could see the worry in his eyes but today was the day. The day that would end his worry, and his love for her. The truth was going to be brutal, and she would be labeled an accessory to thirty-three murders. Thirty-Four. Claire could still see Sarah's brown hair as she disappeared into the trees, running for her life that night. She opened her eyes as tears fell to the bed. She left his t-shirt folded, the stuffed teddy bear that he had won her at the fair, and the other expensive presents that he had bought her over the months that they had been together, on the bed.
Claire put her iPod in her ears as she pressed play. Demi Lovato's "Warrior" played in her ears as she walked through the penthouse. She knew the place would be empty. She had packed all her belongings. All traces of her cleared from his life. Her heart was breaking, as she glanced into the guest room that she had dreamed of turning into a nursery for their child that they would have at some point. She closed the door and walked out of the private back entrance that was only for family. Family. She was completely alone, now, and she had to protect the ones that she had been too weak to keep out.
Claire got into the SUV, her bodyguard started the engine, as they left Ashby Enterprises.
The courthouse should have been named the “madhouse” in Claire's opinion. The stairs were littered with every news station and blogger imaginable. Protesters shouted cruel things. They blamed her. They blamed the monster that had smirked the entire case from his seat next to the lawyer, and why wouldn't they? Claire blamed herself. Claire had asked her guards to not allow anyone to get to her, not even Alyssa before they had left the safe house that she had moved herself to, they agreed. With all four of them surrounded her, as she exited the SUV.
Halfway up the stairs, the vulture press pushed in, and the protesters screamed vile things at her. Suddenly, she was hit with something. The guards swarmed closer to Claire, and soon more guards joined them. Claire ran her hand over her suit, brushing away the stuff that was thrown at her. One person had even spit on her. She wiped it away as she refused to let any tears fall.
Once inside the courthouse, Alyssa stepped forward as the guard moved her back. Claire kept her head low. She lost the strength to fight the moment that she had laid the note on Aidan's bed. He would hate her. He would want her dead, as well, for her part in his sister’s kidnapping.
“Claire.” She heard Alyssa whisper as they walked towards the courtroom. She could feel Aidan behind her. His presence always made her heart feel lighter as if she was flying. Today it made her sick. She barely made it to the trash can before she was sick. Her guards hovered around her, almost smothering her. She grabbed the water and poured a glass at the lawyer's table. She could feel Aidan's eyes on her, but she refused to turn around. She did not dare look into his deep green eyes. She stared at the chair that she would occupy all too soon. The noose tightening around her throat, tears stung her eyes. She blinked away the tears as she sat tall.
Claire sat on the stand as she swore to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. For the first time, she looked up. Not only was Aidan there but so was Ella and the whole Hawkins family. 'How could he be this stupid to objectify her to this?' Claire took a breath as she looked to the wall, over everyone's head, to focus on the wall. Her father was right. She was trash. The lawyer started asking questions, and Claire answered every one of them without emotion in her voice. She wouldn't break. She couldn't break, not on the stand.
“Do you feel responsible for the deaths of these families, the girls?”
“Yes.” Claire swallowed. “If I was enough, he would not have looked for other girls.”
A laugh made Claire freeze. Fear slid past her emotional blank stare. The laugh that terrorized her in her sleep for years. Claire started to shake, fear gripping her.
“Mr. Saunders silence your client, or I shall have him removed,” the judge barked.
“Yes, your honor.” The lawyer whispered in Clayton's ear.
Claire closed her eyes, trying to bring the calm back. To clear the emotions that were coursing through every fiber of her being. A hand touched her's, and she lost it; grabbing the throat of the lawyer.
Claire's eyes were wide in fear. Pure terror. Everyone gasped, as a few people inched back in fear that the girl would attack them next. Alyssa moved quickly to the stand as the lawyer stared at Claire. The guards moved quick, but Alyssa put her hand out to stop them. “Claire, it's the lawyer. It's not him. It's not the monster. You’re safe. You’re safe, sis. Let him go.” Alyssa kept repeating, slowly prying the fingers back enough so the lawyer could breathe a little. Claire's eyes drained to normal, letting the lawyer go immediately, “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Claire whispered, "please, don't touch me.” She was visibly shaking. Aidan's hand fisted in his lap, his knuckles turning to white. Ella laid her hand over his fist.
“I apologize, Claire. I knew better.” The lawyer said quietly. The laughter filled the room again.
The judge was standing, staring at Claire. She was still shaking. There was no stoppin
g the emotions, that was drowning her. Claire knew that she would have to finish soon, get it all out, or it would never come out. Alyssa moved back as did the lawyer. “He used to beat me, rape me. If I was quiet, if I was good, then he would take me to a park. Never the same one twice. I craved a friend. I would play with the children. I did not learn until later that the girls I would play with became his victims.” Claire took a breath. Looking at the ground, to avoid Aidan's hard glare. “It was summertime when I went to Stoneybrooke Park. There was a little girl that kept trying to get me to go down the slide, but I didn't. She thought I was scared, but I had cuts all over. I remember feeling the blood soaking through my pants. I knew if I sat down the blood would show on the slide, and he would beat me even more. So, we played hide and seek. A few months later I, I, was bad. He threw me into the cellar. I blacked out from the pain. When I woke up, four girls were sitting around me. I saw the girl that I had played with at the park. She was so tiny,” Claire's lip trembled, “so little. The youngest girl down there. It was my fault that she was taken.”
The courtroom ruptured in talking and “strike from the record.” “Monster.” The words were so loud as Claire looked to the ground.
“Did you take her from the park? From her home?”
“Of course not.” Claire looked up at the lawyer's eyes. “I was kept locked in my room, chained around the neck to an old radiator.”
“You had nothing to do with her kidnapping?”
Claire was shaking, her calm completely collapsed. “Don't you get it?” Claire stood up gripping the wood in front of her, her breathing labored. “I played with her,” Claire shouted, collapsing into her chair, tears breaking through her defenses. She kept her head bowed to her chest as she barely whispered, “I chose her.” Claire looked up through her lashes enough to see Aidan clutching Ella tightly in his arms. Tears, running down her face in his chest. She could see his eyes filled with anger, pure anger. He never should have brought Ella with him.
