“You might as well come too. This is something you should know.”
I walk up to the nurse’s station and the doctor that stitched up Zoe’s face is standing close; I choose to go to her instead of the nurse that yelled at us about family. She seemed to be happier to accommodate Zoe and the club, she might be more willing to work with what I am going to ask.
“I need a private room. Preferably away from any patients, should someone get mad and yell.” I feel the guy’s tense behind me and Tough curses. They know that whatever I have to say isn’t good if I am asking for somewhere that someone could lose their mind, and no one get hurt.
“Right this way.” She leads us to the other side of the floor and opens a door to an empty room, “most of this side of the hall is empty right now. Please try not to break anything.” She smiles at me, not scared at all that she is telling the MC what to do.
“Pyro, this door doesn’t open unless someone is dying, or I open it. I don’t care what you hear or how upset someone in here gets, don’t open the damn door.” He looks like he wants to argue but decides not to at the last minute. This is going to piss them off but they wont hurt me, at least not on purpose.
I pace back and forth in front of the windows; I hate what I am about to do. I understand why Zoe asked me to do it, and why she didn’t want to tell them herself but whatever pain these men are already feeling is about to get way worse. Someone sucks in a breath like they are about to speak, and I put my hand up. I am still trying to gather my thoughts. I need to get this out in the best way possible.
“Okay. No fucking talking. I have get this out as quickly as possible, it’s going to piss you off and probably make you slightly murderous, but I am the only person allowed to open that door; do you understand me?”
They all nod and I turn back around to face the window, if I have to look at their faces when they hear this it is going to kill me.
“Zoe might look all pretty and prissy now, but she didn’t grow up that way. She worked her ass off to get out of the crap town that she grew up in, and away from parents that didn’t love her the way that they should. She did beauty pageants to keep away from home, all sponsored by one person or another in her town, and she got smart—independent. She doesn’t go home, doesn’t see her family, I am her family. Now, you are her family.”
I circle the room and push the guys near the empty wall, not by the windows but now I am between them and the door, should they try to leave.
“Parents that didn’t love her the right way.” Tough whispers, he is already developing and idea for what I am getting to.
“Her mother never wanted kids. Having kids means that she would have had to stop drinking and doing drugs, and she wouldn’t have been able to have the life that she always wanted. Only, she didn’t stop the booze and the drugs. It made her violent. She beat Zoe, regularly, always keeping the marks under her clothes. Her father is the type of man that never should have been able to have kids. He started molesting Zoe when she was 5, by the time she was 13 he was raping her on a semi-regular basis. When her mother found out it only made her hate Zoe more, she hated that he would touch Zoe and not her anymore. Though I think he wouldn’t touch her because once he had Zoe the adult just didn’t do it for him anymore.” Hollow slams his already bloody knuckles into the heavy door that goes into the bathroom. The door dents but doesn’t break, he takes that as a sign to do it again. He hits it a few times, hit knuckles cracking back open and the door denting enough that it might creak when it opens, because of where he dented it.
“When she left for collage, she started seeing a therapist, and vowed to never go back.” Top is shaking, Hollow takes a breath and slams his other hand into the door a few times. Tough seem to be the only one that is keeping it together, but I can see the storm is brewing below the surface.
“This is going to be very hard for her to get past. It’s going to take longer than it would have anyone else. She is going to be jumpy and scared of your every move.”
“We would never hurt her.”
“She knows that. It took a year of therapy for her to try and date, and another year to be able to have a heathy sex life. When she made the breakthrough with her therapist, she was finally happy, but it took three years.”
“This is going to set her back to step one.”
“I thought I said no talking. She asked me to tell you. To help you understand. She cares about you—all of you—but I am going to ask you to refrain from trying to touch her. She is going to need each of you to get through this, but you cannot help her physically. Honesty if you try to touch her it might do more damage than good.”
I stand there staring at them, their chests are rising and falling quickly, I can see the urge to fight it and run to her in all of them. “You may speak now.”
“Is he still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“It wasn’t mine to tell.
“What’s his name?”
“I am not going to make that easy for you, she wanted me to tell you, not so that you could kill him but so you would be patient with her. Probably more patient than any of you have ever been before.”
“We will give her whatever she needs.”
They are all starting to thaw, more quickly than I had expected. Hollow still seems to be wound up pretty tight but I think his want to get back to Zoe is overpowering it. And luckily the only damage is to the door which will be easy enough to replace.
I open the door and Pyro has a terrible look on his face, I hadn’t thought about him being able to hear through the door, but I guess he could. “Far less yelling than I thought there would be.”
“Don’t let it slip to anyone else.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”