Twelve Days - The Beginning

by Reyner, Jade

  The worst part though was when she needed to go into the adjoining bathroom and it happened to be on either Cole or Vaughn’s shift. They both insisted that they come in with her but there were just some things that a girl needed to do on her own. Reluctantly, they had both finally agreed to wait outside the door, providing that she took no longer than five minutes. Initially that had been an issue when she had wanted to take a bath but she had worked out that she could do that on Celeste’s shift as the other girl would come into the bathroom with her and Elise found that she didn’t mind.

  Dr Edwards visited daily and usually stayed for about an hour. He was a private doctor - a friend of Vaughn’s parent’s - and Vaughn had called him the second he had heard about Elise’s injuries. On the one occasion, Dr Edwards brought a young woman called Rachel with him, who was a physiotherapist and she had begun to work on the nerve damage that Elise had sustained to her left wrist. Rachel had arrived during one of Cole’s shifts and Elise had not missed the look of appreciation that he gave when she walked in. His eyes had been pretty much glued to her during the whole of Elise’s treatment and she was amazed that the girl had managed to keep her cool and continue with the programme whilst under such intense scrutiny.

  Elise had teased Cole about it afterwards but he had denied it all, merely saying that it made a change to see another female other than her and Celeste. She had just smiled and filed the information away, ready for another day.

  Vaughn’s visits were the best and she looked forward to those the most. He had made sure that he had all of the night shifts and after the first night, when he had slept on the airbed on the floor, she had insisted that he sleep in the bed beside her. At first he was reluctant as he didn’t want to make her any more sore or uncomfortable but they arranged the duvet in such a way as to provide her with a protective cocoon and still allow him to be near enough to cuddle her carefully. He also visited numerous times during the day and Elise began to wonder how on earth he, or either of the others for that matter, were getting any work done.

  To begin with, none of them spoke about Dale and what had happened but over the coming days, Elise’s memory started to return in bits and so it was inevitable that the subject should be raised.

  She had questioned Dr Edwards initially as she still couldn’t remember how she had come to be in Celeste’s flat. The doctor had explained that they had found her car parked downstairs so had assumed that she must have driven here herself although how on earth she had managed that, given the extent of her injuries, seemed to be in question. He had concluded that she had been functioning purely on adrenalin and was amazed that she had not passed out before she did. It was ridiculously fortunate that she had made it safely to her friend’s house and not passed out whilst she was driving. He didn’t know any other details though and so she knew that she was eventually going to have to speak to Cole or Vaughn.

  By Saturday she was feeling a lot better and persuaded Celeste to let her go into the lounge and watch some television. She didn’t need to sleep anywhere near as much now and she was getting bored with looking at the same awful wallpaper. On that subject, when Elise had taken it up with her, Celeste had vigorously defended her decorating choice, which had lead to a very spirited debate between the two girls. It was totally beyond Elise how her friend could consider the look of the bedroom to be anything other than terrible but in the end they had had to agree to disagree and Elise realised that she would probably never completely understand this girl with her unusual tastes.

  As she exited the bedroom accompanied by Celeste, Elise immediately noticed the large man standing just outside the door dressed in a security type uniform. He was a typical butch bodybuilder type with a shaved head and a big bulky body. He was tall as well - well over six feet.

  “Hi Sean,” Celeste said as they walked past, “I’ll be putting the kettle on in a minute if you fancy one?”

  “Oh thank you Miss Brown – that would be great.” ‘Sean’ replied, “Do you need any help there, Miss?”

  “Oh, no thanks, we’re fine.” Celeste replied as she continued to help Elise wobble on slightly unsteady legs towards the lounge and onto the sofa.

  ‘Sean’ immediately moved from his position outside of the bedroom and took up a post on a chair that was adjacent to the front door thereby allowing him to still see into the lounge.

  “OK, Celeste – who the hell is that?” Elise hissed, keeping her voice low in case ‘Sean’ heard her.

  “Oh – that’s Sean.” replied Celeste. “There’s Stan as well but he usually does the night shift. If you’re still out of bed later on then you’ll meet him as well.” Celeste imparted the information as if it was perfectly normal for her to have two security-type people in her house. Perhaps it was.

  “That’s not exactly helpful, Celeste. I kind of got that he was ‘Sean’; what I meant was what is he doing here dressed up like some kind of security guy?”

  “You mean Vaughn didn’t tell you?” Celeste asked and then added almost to herself, “I can probably imagine why though.”

  “What?” Elise asked impatiently, “What didn’t Vaughn tell me?”

  Celeste sighed. “Sean and Stan are security men, private security men, paid for and employed by Vaughn to watch over you at all times and keep you safe. After the beating that your so-called husband gave you, he didn’t want to take any chances with yours or any of our safety so he got them here that first night. One or the other of them has been here ever since.”

  “And you don’t mind?” asked Elise, amazed that her friend seemed so calm about having her flat invaded by all of these people.

  Celeste gave her a withering look. “Seriously? You are seriously asking if I mind having two beefy men in my house twenty-four hours a day? Christ, Elise, that knock to your head did more damage than any of us thought!”

  Elise laughed and then immediately regretted it as the pain started to shoot through her chest again. All of her injuries were healing well but according to Dr Edwards, it was still going to be a good few days before she was up and about properly. The only area of concern was her wrist which was still a little numb but Rachel had been back a couple of times since and they had managed to get some of the feeling back. She had all of the feeling in her hand and fingers; it was just a small section of her wrist that was damaged. Rachel and Dr Edwards were confident that it would heal itself eventually.

  “Doesn’t Roger mind though?” Elise asked, referring again to the presence of Sean and the as yet-unmet Stan.

  “Mind?” screeched Celeste, “He’s as mad as hell! It’s made for the best sex of my life over the past few days – maybe you could get beaten up more often!”

  Despite herself, Elise laughed - only Celeste could put such a positive spin on a situation that was otherwise fairly grim.

  “Not funny, ‘Leste.” replied Elise still laughing as much as her injured body would allow. She was really pleased that her friend and Roger were still going strong - even if it was being rather bizarrely fired up by a large man with a bald head wearing a security uniform.

  Celeste left her to go and sort out the drinks and, for the first time, Elise thought about what had happened and began to consider how she felt about it all. The fact that Vaughn had employed security guards seemed a little over the top as she felt sure that Dale had no idea where she was and even if he did, he’d have trouble getting to her as she was never on her own. She appreciated that maybe Dale didn’t want her to talk and perhaps he was worried that she might press charges against him but as far as she knew, no one had heard from him at all so maybe he was just lying low until they could sort this out amicably.

  Elise recognised that she would need to contact him at some point though, and that thought filled her with absolute dread. She would need to tell him that they were officially over and that she wanted to divorce him because until she did that, there would be no way forward for either of them. Hopefully his behaviour on Christmas day would have frightened him and El
ise really wanted to think that maybe he too had recognised that their relationship was now toxic. On that fateful day, she had finally come to realise that he enjoyed both pain and inflicting pain on others and there was no way she was ever going to be the woman to accommodate that side of his personality. They both needed to make a clean break and get on with their lives separately.

  Celeste returned with the drinks and she passed Elise the remote control as she headed off to the front door to give Sean his cup of coffee. When they had first come out here, Elise had wanted to watch television. She had wanted to be distracted, to watch some mindless junk that would make her forget but now she realised that she didn’t want that at all. She wanted to know everything and now was as good a time as any to fill in the blanks.

  “You not watching anything?” Celeste said as she came back into the room.

  “No,” Elise paused, “if it’s OK with you, I’d like to talk for a while.”

  “Sure,” said Celeste and curled up on the sofa next to Elise, a steaming cup of coffee in her hands. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Christmas Day.” said Elise and she watched as her friend stilled and then very carefully placed her cup down on the coffee table.

  “What about Christmas Day?” asked Celeste cautiously.

  “I want to know it all, Celeste. Everything that happened – everything that you know happened.”

  Celeste shuddered and blew out a long breath, “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

  Elise nodded. “I need to know.”

  There was a short pause, the minutes ticking through the silence as Elise waited for her friend to respond.

  “Okay then,” Celeste said finally and after taking a deep breath, she began speaking at length.

  “You turned up here at about 5pm on Christmas Day and when I opened the door I couldn’t believe it – you were in a bad way, a really bad way. You passed out in my arms but I managed to get you to tell me who had done this to you before you lost consciousness completely; that’s how we knew that it was Dale.”

  “My first instinct was to call an ambulance but Roger stopped me as he said that that would be the first place that Dale would look for you and I realised that he was right. I panicked then as I didn’t know what to do, so once we had got you to the bed I called Cole, hoping that he would know what we should do. He came blazing in here a few minutes later and you should have seen him Elise - it was like he was completely broken when he saw you. You needed a doctor but it was Christmas, and we had no idea where we could find someone who would come out and see you.” Her friend paused, reaching down to take a sip of her drink.

  “Whilst Cole and I were debating what to do, Roger phoned Vaughn and I could hear him roaring down the phone. He was seriously mad. He immediately arranged for Dr Edwards to come over and shortly afterwards, the doctor arrived and we all began to relax a little. Less than an hour later, Vaughn came tearing through the door and I do not want to know how fast he must have driven to get here. I remember thinking it was weird that neither he nor Cole had had a drink, especially since it was Christmas day. It was almost like they both knew you were going to need them.” Celeste’s gaze became wistful as she seemed to consider the romance and beauty of that idea.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “Dr Edwards tried to take care of you but Vaughn wouldn’t leave your side so he ended up having to ask him to leave the room whilst he examined you. Vaughn kept going on and on about that ‘bastard’ and how he should have known that this would happen and he kept blaming himself for not being here. He was saying he never should have gone to his sister’s. Cole was also doing a pretty good job of guilt-tripping himself so in the end, Roger sat them both down and threatened to knock their heads together if they didn’t give it a rest. I don’t know exactly what he said but whatever it was it worked and they both calmed down and focused on what was important – you.”

  Celeste stopped for a moment and took another sip of her drink. “I don’t know how much else you want to know, Elise.” she said and Elise could hear the hesitancy in her voice. There was clearly something else.

  “Please Celeste,” she said, “Just tell me everything.”

  “Okay...” her friend said almost reluctantly, “If you’re sure you want to hear this?”

  Elise nodded and then watched as Celeste drank some more before finally placing the cup back on the table and reaching out to hold Elise’s hand.

  “Dr Edwards needed to examine you and so he asked if I would help him, me being the only female present I guess. He started by looking at your head injuries and he could tell from checking your eyes that you were concussed although he said he didn’t think it was anything more serious than that. The fact that you had passed out was likely a combination of all of the injuries plus the stress that you had been under and so he was happy for us to just monitor you for 48 hours. Your wrist was in a pretty bad way and had swollen up, so he applied a cold compress bandage, which we had to keep changing so that it gave your wrist the best chance of healing. He knew that it wasn’t broken but he was almost certain there would be some nerve damage which is why you still have a little bit of numbness there.” She paused, absently rubbing Elise’s wrist.

  “That was all fine and I was happy helping out and then Dr Edwards asked me to help undress you. He needed to check you for any other injuries and so we began by cutting off your sweater, which is when he found the damage to your ribs. After that we slowly removed your jeans and Christ Elise, I will never forget what I saw. Your legs were bleeding, there were scratches all over them and when we got to your feet, we found the ripped remains of your stockings. The thought of what you must have gone through made me feel ill and then the doctor said that he needed to examine you internally so he asked me to help move your legs a little. As soon as he said that, I looked up and I realised that you didn’t have any underwear on and there was blood. Elise....” Celeste stopped and she was now breathing heavily, as if reliving a nightmare. “The blood. It wasn’t coming from the scratches on your legs, Elise. I couldn’t cope anymore and I dashed from the room and was violently sick.”

  “As soon as Vaughn saw me leave the room in that state he charged in and the next thing I knew, the flat was filled with the most heart-wrenching and anguished sobs I have ever heard as he realised exactly what Dale had done to you. The doctor banned anyone else from coming in after that and from that moment until you woke up, Vaughn never once voluntarily left your side.”

  Celeste finished speaking, her voice now wobbling with emotion, and rubbed at Elise’s hand again. She cleared her throat.

  “That’s pretty much it really. It was just a case of waiting after that and so Cole and I took it in turns to sit with Vaughn and talk to you. You woke a few times but you were really disorientated and pretty much went straight back to sleep. The doctor had told us it could take a few hours so we just made sure there was someone with you all the time.”

  “It was scary, Elise – proper, proper scary, I can’t tell you how relieved we all were when you finally woke up.”

  Tears started to form in Elise’s eyes and she dashed them away with her hand, overwhelmed at what her friends had done for her over the last few days. She couldn’t believe that they had all put their lives on hold - over Christmas no less - to look after her and keep her safe and she knew that she would never forget this for as long as she lived.

  “Thank you, Celeste. You don’t know how much it means to me to know that you are here for me and I’m so sorry that I turned up on your doorstep like that and that you had to see...what you saw. I just didn’t know where to go that Dale couldn’t find me and yours was the only place I could come up with.”

  “I’m glad you came to me Elise – really I am. We are friends and friends are there when life sucks. I’m glad that you felt that you could come to me and I only hope that you can sort things out and finally get that bastard out of your life. You are worth a million Dale’s, Elise, you know that.” Suddenly her fr
iend’s eyes began to twinkle mischievously. “Besides which, I get the added bonus of two hot hunks twenty four hours a day. I would have been majorly pissed off if you’d gone anywhere else!”

  Oh yes, Sean and Stan, the security men. Or Bill and Ben as she was thinking of calling them. Bill and Ben the security men. She giggled at her own joke and then as the laughter began to give way to hysteria, she clued Celeste in on what she had found so funny. Soon they were both laughing; laughing so hard it felt like it would never end and Elise feared another one of her ribs was going to pop.

  It was a release. A release of tension and anxiety and fear and worry and when they had finally finished their seemingly endless, pointless laughter, they huddled on the sofa together and watched terrible reality TV until Vaughn arrived for his ‘shift’.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The following morning Elise woke relatively early and stretched out gently, testing all her muscles and sore limbs to gauge how much they hurt today. Having completed a full body stretch with minimal pain she was finally pleased to realise that she did in fact feel a lot better. Her ribs were the main thing that still hurt but that was bearable now and she felt much more like her old self, ready to get up and take on the world.

  Turning carefully to her side so as not to aggravate her injuries, she looked across at Vaughn who was still sleeping soundly behind her. She loved that she got to see him like this. When he was awake, he was the epitome of alpha male; full of testosterone and always in control. She had a feeling that few people got to witness the gentle man behind the ‘mask’ and she loved these unguarded moments that she got to share with him.

  He was lying on his back with one arm flung above his head and the other to his side, reaching across to where he had been anchored to her. His hair was a little longer now than when she had first met him and it suited him, the length of it curling just below his neckline and brushing the top of his shoulders. His fringe was flopped adorably over his eyes and she resisted the urge to push it back like he did during the day. In sleep, he was completely relaxed and there was an air of serene calmness about him. She felt totally safe here lying beside him and it was at times like this, in the peace and tranquillity of the morning when it was just the two of them that she realised that she never, ever wanted to be anywhere else.