After the Storm (Gifted and Special Adolescents Hospital Book 1)

by Cheryllynn Dyess

  Nan patted her friend, “I wouldn’t steer you wrong. She’s the best I know that can help.”

  Charlie gave a quick glance to Bec, nodding to her customer than raising a brow. Bec shook her head. “Looks like you two are our last customers of the night. Why not let us give you a little extra treat? My surprise.”

  Nan looked up at the woman washing her hair, “What ya go in mind Bec?”

  “Oh, just a little somethin, somethin,” Bec smiled as she continued washing out the color from the woman’s hair. Turning the water off, Bec wrapped a towel around Nan’s head and helped her sit up. “Come on, let’s get you a new cut to go with this gorgeous new look.”

  Nan watched in the mirror as Bec removed the towel and her, now plum colored hair, fell over her shoulders, “Oh I like that color Bec.” Nan was always one willing to try new shades and gave Bec creative control over her hair trusting completely in the woman.

  Turning Nan so that Jules couldn’t see her, Bec asked as she combed through the woman’s hair, “Want to tell me what is going on?”

  Looking into the mirror, Nan scowled, “Her ex-husband was abusive. She moved out two years ago and ran. She moved here and somehow he found her. She saw him last night watching her from across the street from her apartment. This guy is bad, Bec. He beat her really bad. She was pregnant when he beat her up last time. She lost it.”

  Bec froze. She was a true advocate for helping women, but when a man harmed a child, it seemed to take her to a whole new level of angry. Trying to tone down her anger, Bec took several deep breaths. “Don’t leave here tonight. I need to get all his information, a photo of him and an idea of where he is.”

  “Alright Bec. My station is all clean, see ya tomorrow. Ladies have a great evening,” called out the newest member of the salon, Wendy.

  “Be safe out there Wen, see ya tomorrow,” Charlie replied back.

  “See ya Wen. Be safe,” Bec waved her comb at her, “Hey, lock that door when you go. These are the last two tonight. Thanks.”

  Nan looked at her friend in the mirror who was now looking at her, “Jules. Bec can help.”

  Jules tensed up under Charlie's hands. Charlie noticed and rubbed one of her shoulders to let her know she was safe. “Jules, Bec here is the one person in the world I’d go to if I needed help. Believe me, when she is done with that ex of yours...he won’t bother another woman.”

  Jules glanced between all the women, as Bec had turned Nan in her chair so she was now facing her friend. “Robbie. Well, Robert Anthony Holsmith,” she stuttered out nervously.

  “Do you got a pic of him darlin,” Bec asked as she mentally repeated the man’s name so she wouldn’t forget.

  “Yes,” Jules looked at her purse, “in my bag, on my phone.”

  “Okay, once Charlie is done with your hair you can send it to me. Do you have any idea where he is?” Bec snipped at Nan’s hair as if they were having a normal everyday conversation.

  “Outside and down the road. I saw him parked by the Dry Bottle when we drove in.”

  Bec looked up at Charlie and smiled, “Call Kyle for me will ya Charlie. Tell him we are definitely going out tonight.”

  An hour later the three friends sat at the back table of the Dry Bottle watching Robert toss back shots and chase them beers. Kyle looked at Bec’s phone to make sure this was the guy, nodding at Bec that he was definitely the one when he was confident there was no mistake.

  Bec took two shots of Tequila then made her way to the pool table. Dressed in tight black leather pants and a halter, Bec’s knee-high boots clanked with each step. Picking out a pool stick, Bec racked the balls and nodded to Charlie to join her. She knew the bait for this guy was beautiful women, he just didn’t know how bad getting caught would be for him that night. As the game began, Charlie noticed that they had gotten Robbie’s attention, so both women took it up a notch until he couldn’t resist any longer and made his move.

  “Ladies, how ‘bout I play the winner?” The blonde-haired blue-eyed man offered as both women smiled up at him.

  “If you think you can handle a game with one of us, sure why not?” Bec teased him as she regarded him, she was wondered if he was related to Robbie.

  He watched Charlie lean over the table to make her next shot, taking in her long legs and a very short skirt. Her black hair fell over her shoulders as she leaned forward and revealed an intricate back tattoo, “Oh now that is a piece of art!” He remarked as he admired the ink.

  Charlie winked at Bec. Every move they made was intentional including him seeing her that sort of thing. Jules told them he had a thing for ink. So, when it was Bec’s turn to put the eight ball in, she motioned to the corner pocket and twisted her arm just enough that her forearm ink showed. The man leaned on the side of the table trying to decipher the ink that ran up the woman’s arm, “What does that say?”

  “No man shall rule me,” Bec replied as the black ball hit its mark. “Looks like you get to play me, you ready?”

  He smiled and nodded, “Oh yes. I got this game for sure.” His overconfidence cost him more than three hundred dollars over the next few hours, but that didn’t stop him from trying to touch Bec at the end of the night when the bar shut down.

  “Don’t touch me, no one touches me,” Bec stood eye to eye with the man. “Not a good idea.”

  She didn’t know if it was because he was drunk or cocky, but Robert grabbed her arm and pulled her into him. She bit her lip, knowing she needed to make sure he understood exactly why she was about to hurt him. “I can touch any woman I want, baby. We’re going back to my place for a while,” his words slurred as alcohol lurched from every pore.

  “Are we?” Bec played along but held out a hand to stop Kyle from reacting. With a quick signal, she let Kyle know to follow her.

  Robert and Bec drove back to his hotel room where Charlie was already there waiting. “Come on in,” the man slurred as he unlocked his room.

  Freezing in the doorway, Robert was pushed in the rest of the way by Bec. The man looked at his room, where Charlie was already inside sitting casually watching television, then looked at Bec. “What the hell is going on? Why are you here? Oooohhh you want to get in on the fun?” The man’s cockiness drove the two women crazy, but they let him be as Bec locked the door.

  “Oh, I’m here for the fun but not sure it's the same fun you’re thinking of,” Charlie teased as she rolled a lollipop around in her mouth and pulled it out quickly causing it to make a pop sound.

  Thinking he was about to get the pleasure of two women’s company, Robert smiled and said as he made his way to the bed and started undressing, “Oh this is going to be great.”

  Charlie stood at the edge of the bed and watched the eager man strip down to his boxers then plop on the bed. “Now, Bec?”

  “Yep, he’s right where we want him.”

  The women on either side of the bed walked to the head of the bed. Simultaneously, the women reached down and took one hand of Robert’s, pulling handcuffs from behind their backs they quickly latched the man’s arms to the posts on the headboard. Leaning in close to him, Bec smiled and ran a finger down his arm, “Don’t go anywhere. We have a surprise for you.”

  The drunk man was clueless to what was going on and thought he was getting lucky. “Mmhmmm, you ladies are sure a treat for me,” he replied as the two women left the room. Ten minutes later, they could hear him yelling from inside the room. “Where the hell did you go. You can’t leave me in here.” The threats when on and on.

  Bec and Charlie sat on the hood of Kyles car as he finished off his cigar. Flicking the remainder of the sweet-smelling smoke, Kyle glanced at the hotel room, “You ladies ready to have some fun.”

  When Charlie came to work for Bec, she revealed that she also was a resident of GASAH, a mind reader. So, between the three of them they could put whispers in his mind, know what he was thinking and move things around to drive him crazy. By the time the three was done, Robbie was sobbing like a baby. He had
wet himself on the bed and begged for death. Death never came, but the police did come when the hotel staff found him huddled in a corner of the room rocking back and forth lost in his own insanity.

  Chapter 10

  Eight months into her stent at the hospital Bec found herself in a conundrum. Dr. Wilson had offered her a safe haven from her mother but Bec was still confined to her room for twenty-two hours a day. Two hours out of the day Bec saw the doctor and got her fresh air. It wasn’t enough for Bec. She missed school and wanted to eat meals with other people.

  It was a Tuesday when Dr. Wilson finally asked her, “Bec. You have to give me an answer. Do you want my help?”

  Bec stood staring at one of the bookshelves where the glass dragon sat looking back at her. Never turning toward the doctor, Bec replied, “I’ve yet to be in school or eat a meal with anyone else. Why?”

  Georgia, with a predictable behavior, sat her pen and paper down on the table next to her. “You haven’t made enough progress to earn that privilege.”

  Bec turned towards her, “Earned. Privilege. I’m locked up,” she waved her arms around, “in here because my mom doesn’t want to deal with me anymore and I,” she patted her chest for emphasis, “have to prove myself. What the actual fuck!” She yelled out with her arms by her side and clenched fists so tightly they turned white.

  “Bec,” Georgia stood and held a hand up trying to calm her patient, “you have destroyed some things since you arrived. We have to make sure you are safe for others and yourself.”

  Bec’s lip twitched as one side rose up in a devious smile, “Oh you’re worried I’m going to hurt someone.” Her tone was calm, and this alarmed the doctor. Her instinct was right. Bec threw up her hands then pushed them outward causing every item on every shelf to be thrown outward into the room, but nothing landed. Everything levitated in the air right where Bec threw them. Slowly Bec twisted one hand in the air with a finger pointing to the ceiling. The items in the room slowly circled them both like an upside-down tornado in the room. Each item floating in a perfect circle slowly at first then gaining speed. Bec jutted her chin out daring the doctor to come closer than within a second everything stopped and flew back to their original places. The wind from the movements made Georgia’s hair fly into her face.

  “You shouldn’t have done that Bec,” Georgia threatened.

  “You should know that at any moment I can wreak havoc on you and this hospital, but I don’t. I control myself very well. At no point were you ever in danger, as long as I’m not touched...everything is fine.”

  Georgia motioned for the young woman to sit in her regular chair as she made her way to her own. Grabbing her pen and paper, Georgia waited for Bec to take her seat before saying, “Bec, why can’t people touch you?”

  “I don’t like it,” the teen growled.

  “Tell me something new and I’ll see what I can do to get you in school.”

  Bec sat back in the chair, tossed a leg over one edge and stared at the ceiling for a while before speaking again, “I had a friend who invited me to stay overnight once. Her family was in this weird religion where the women couldn’t wear makeup, jewelry and only wore those ankle-length dresses but the girl was fun, so I went. That evening we were in her living room laying on the floor and she rolls over to look at me. She says, her uncle likes to play with her at night and would I like to play his special game too. I shrugged and replied, sure why not? I figure an uncle is safe right,” Bec glanced at the doctor quickly.

  “So, when her parents when to bed the uncle opens his room door and she gets up and pulls me along. We go in and I’m thinking there is a game or something. There wasn’t’. It was just him sitting on the bed waiting for us. He motioned us in, and she closed the door softly. He pats the bed and she hops up on the bed and lays down and pulls up her nightgown. He was giant and scary a little, so I just stand there. He tugs on my arm to get me in the bed. He lays between us and starts to touch us both, and I’m not saying he held our hands. This girl reached over and starts stroking off her uncle while he molests us. I was ten.” Bec closed her eyes trying to get the vision of her past to fade away. “Just five years ago. My mother moved into that same trailer the next year,” Bec sat up with her elbows on her knees looking at Georgia, “my mom gave me his room.”

  With the last words the teen spoke, Georgia laid her pen gently on her notepad and looked at Bec, “We’ll get you in school tomorrow. Is that okay?”

  “Can I go outside now?” Bec’s mind was reeling from retelling the memory and she needed to run off some of the steam built up inside her. At this point in her life, running in the small courtyard was her only release and she needed it badly.

  “Can I ask you one thing first?”

  “Sure,” Bec rolled her eyes.

  “So far you’ve told me of three men molesting you. Are there more?”

  Bec had made it to the door when the doctor’s question was asked. Bec froze, “yeah, there’s more.”

  “Have fun outside Bec,” Georgia replied softly with sadness.

  Jack waited silently outside the door for Bec, following her everywhere she went like always and never saying a word. Jack knew Bec struggled with problems from her life outside of the hospital but never knew what they were. As a former resident of GASAH, he knew that struggle was accentuated with fear of the gifts each person inside the walls managed. Today, he decided to try to talk to the young teen, “So when did your gift manifest?”

  Bec was nearly blown away that he had even spoke, stuttering to answer, she said, “Which one? I have two. I’ve had one since I was ten and the other when I turned twelve. Not that it's really done me any good.” She always felt safe with Jake so it only surprised her a little that she was sharing so much.

  “None?”

  Bec shook her head, “Not a bit.”

  “Ya know, with a gift like that you could right some wrongs when you get out of here. No one would dare believe that a baseball just flew through someone’s window and hit them in the head.”

  Bec stopped in her tracks, turned, and looked up at Jack. “You might be on to something there.”

  Jack smirked, glancing down at her, “Just don’t get caught.”

  She patted his chest, turned, and continued her path to the outside. Once in the courtyard, Bec ran. She didn’t talk to Kyle that day or anyone else that evening. She was fighting her own demons and had to figure out the best way to do that, Jack gave her inspiration. It was that night when Bec realized that she could get even with or get rid of every demon in her life. She made a personal vow to herself to help others in the same situations she had once found herself in. Not another person would be a victim if she could help it. That night, her entire life’s focus had changed.

  Chapter 11

  The rain fell from the sky in a light drizzle that was hard enough to mess up any hairstyle but light enough to feel refreshing. It was Saturday and Bec was up early getting dressed. Kyle heard her rummaging around in the bathroom, picked up his phone to see the time... eight in the morning. Calling out he said, “Bec what are you up so early for? We’ve only been home two hours.”

  Pushing the door open, making it hit the wall, Bec stood in the doorway dressed in a long black dress with blood red lace on the bodice. “I got a funeral to go to, you coming?”

  Kyle sat straight up, “Give me three minutes!” Kyle knew that if Bec was saying anything to him about going to the funeral, then she wanted him to go, otherwise she’d have yelled some snippy remark back and left the house.

  Moments later, both Bec and Kyle were in her car driving to her mother’s funeral. As they pulled in, Bec groaned. Her aunt was having a service for her mom in a church. Parking the car, Bec hits the steering wheel, “Fuck. Would be this damn church.”

  “Want to enlighten me?” Kyle looked at her from the passenger side of the car. “What’s with this church?”

  Bec stared silently at the building before her, “This is the one she made me attend with
him. I hate this place.”

  He knew the him in which she spoke of. The man who started the abuse that damaged her the worst. The one man she has yet to locate and get even with. He shrugged, “Well, I guess you could let them both go today,” he paused and leaned forward, “you don’t think he’ll be here, today do you?”

  Bec whipped her head around at him, “He better not show his face!”

  Hands up in a surrender fashion, “Don’t shoot the man asking... I’m just concerned.”

  Bec responded by getting out of the car and heading inside, Kyle jogged to catch up. He was concerned. He knew how much the demons ate at his friend and there was nothing he or anyone else could do to ease her soul, no matter how hard he tried. As they approached the doors, Kyle placed a supportive hand around her waist before pulling the door open and them going inside.

  Inside the church, it smelled the same... old and musty. Bec hated that smell. It haunted her. In the foyer was a stack of programs. Grabbing one, Bec flipped it over and saw her mother’s face looking back at her. She had gotten old and thin. She skimmed over the words and put it back down. Kyle guided her into the nave to find a seat. Bec was in a mood because she walked all the way to the front and took the first two chairs that said reserved. An elderly man walked over, leaned in close and whispered, “I’m sorry. These seats are reserved for family ma’am. I’ll have to ask you to move.”

  Bec with dark eyeliner, facial piercings and numerous tattoos rolled her eyes, looked at the man and snipped, “I am her family and I’m not moving.”

  Taken aback by the tone the young woman showed, he quickly apologized, “My dear, I didn’t mean to offend you. I was informed her only family was her sister.”

  That made the woman laugh, Kyle patted her back and replied to the man to save him some dignity because he knew Bec was about to lose her shit. “Sir, this is Bec. Jessie’s daughter.”

  The man stood, covered his mouth and looked towards the back of the giant room. Waved at someone and waited till they came up, “Patty, you didn’t tell me Jessie’s daughter was still living.”