“Shh,” I whispered, wiping the tears from her cheeks. I didn’t know how I managed to stay so calm and not jump up and go look for them. I didn’t feel calm, but she came first and I needed to make sure she was safe before I did anything. “What about your mum?”
“It’ll break her heart. I can’t. I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want her to hate me.”
“Is that what he told you? That she would hate you?” I spat angrily. Shit, I was going to be sick. I took a deep breath and swallowed hard.
She nodded weakly, her head barely moving.
“I wanted to tell her. I tried to when it first started, but Dad walked in. He shouted at me when she left. I was so scared. I didn’t want to hurt Mum, and he said it would kill her.” She coughed cleared her throat. “He told me not to talk.”
I froze. “That’s why you didn’t speak for almost eleven years?” Her dad was the reason. There are no words to describe just how much I hated him, how much I wanted him to suffer.
“Oakley, where is he?” I asked again.
Her eyes widened in panic. “You can’t. Please, Cole.”
She begged me not to go after them. As much as I wanted to go and rip both their heads off, I just couldn’t leave her alone. She was so broken and vulnerable. I hated seeing her like that. I sighed and lifted her chin but again, but like before she refused to look me in the eye. I hated that she felt ashamed. None of this was her fault.
After ten minutes of just sitting on the ground holding her, crying together and trying not to throw up, I finally came to a decision. If she didn’t want me to go find them, we were reporting them.
“We’re going to the police.” They were not getting away with what they’d done to her.
She gasped and pulled back. “No. Mum will-”
I pressed my finger to her lips and shook my head. I had to get it though to her that he had to pay and it wasn’t her fault. No one was going to blame her.
“Oakley, your mum is not going to hate you. What happened wasn’t your fault. You’re her daughter, and she loves you. She won’t hate you,” I said fiercely, begging her with my eyes to believe me. She had to believe it.
“Look at me, please.” She raised her head slightly but still wouldn’t look directly into my eyes. “Everything’s gonna be okay, I promise. We just need to go to the police.”
She shook her head defiantly. It took almost half an hour to convince her, by which time we’d got in the car and driven away from that hellhole. I was going to the police whether she agreed to it or not though. There was no way either of them were getting away with it.
I knelt down in front of her in the police station reception area.
“Someone’s going to be out soon.”
They were arranging for a female officer to interview her. She hadn’t said one word since agreeing to this, and she still hadn’t looked at me. However she felt about me at the minute wasn’t as important as putting those sick bastards in prison.
“Hi. I’m Marie. Do you want to follow me through to the interview room?” Marie said, smiling warmly at Oakley. She nodded.
I stood up too, but she shook her head at me.
“I want to do this alone.”
What the hell? I didn’t want to leave her alone for a second. How was she going to cope going through it all when she completely broke down while telling me before?
“Please, Cole, I don’t want you to hear it all,” she whispered, a tear trickled down her cheek and she walked away from me without another word.
I sat down in a daze. Was that what she was worried about? I knew I didn’t want to hear it. It made me sick, but I wanted to be there for her.
As I waited for her, so many things passed through my mind. I tried to think of something, any little clue that I’d missed, but there was nothing. She never seemed scared of Max. He didn’t act any differently towards her. He was the perfect, concerned, protective father. Of course he was, you prat, that was how he got away with it!
When the door finally opened, I jumped up and rushed to her side. She looked exhausted and slumped against my chest.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We’ll arrest her Mr Farrell and Mr Glosser, and bring them in for questioning,” Marie told me. I gritted my teeth when she mentioned them. Glosser. That was his surname.
“I want to go now,” Oakley whispered, gripping hold of my shirt. I nodded reluctantly. There were thousands more questions that I wanted to ask Marie, but Oakley just looked so defeated. I knew I needed to take her home, where she was going to have to go through it all again.
As soon as we got close enough to her house, I tensed up. Max’s car was in the drive, along with a police car. Oakley looked at me with a horrified expression. Her eyes were wide with fear.
“It’s fine, baby.” I stopped the car at the end of the road so we could wait until they had left.
“Are you okay?” I stupidly asked. Are you okay? Of course she wasn’t. She shrugged, her eyes dazed. Everything had happened so quickly.