He pulled her shorts down, knocked her legs apart with his knee, and she started to cry. Suddenly, his weight was gone. She got to her knees, then managed to get to her feet. The blood was everywhere.
Tyler was screaming at Roger. “I’ll kill you, motherfucker! She’s twelve. She’s fucking twelve, and you come over here, try to use her like she’s some party favor? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Fuck you, you little shit. She asked for it.” Roger smacked Tyler, knocked his head sideways. Tyler exploded.
Roger was bigger, but Tyler was quick. He danced around Roger’s body, fists flying. It didn’t take long for Roger to go down. Tyler straddled his chest, pummeling his face. Over and over and over.
“Tyler!”
He glanced up at her, his face a mask of fury, tears streaming down his cheeks. The sight of her did something to him. He stopped hitting Roger. He stood, panting, covered in blood, his fists red and slick, and advanced on Aubrey. She cringed, but he pulled her into his arms and held her.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.” He said it over and over and over again, into her hair, and they cried together like that, sitting on the floor next to Roger’s unconscious body, until Sandy came home, and screamed and screamed and screamed.
? ? ?
The police came. The detectives had them separated. Aubrey didn’t want Tyler to get in trouble, so she told them she had hit Roger herself. Again and again and again. They stopped the bleeding and gave her ice for her nose and asked her why she hit him. She didn’t want to tell them. What happened was private, for her and Tyler alone. She didn’t want people to know and look at her with pity—she got enough of that already from her teachers, from Josh.
Josh.
Oh, God, Josh.
How would she ever be able to face him again? Josh was good. Josh was hope.
And now Aubrey was dirt, just a scraping off a shoe.
She didn’t deserve him. She was spoiled, tainted, like an apple left in the refrigerator too long, soft and mushy and rotten inside. She didn’t deserve him, the golden boy, the one who always believed in her. Going to jail would be easier than facing him.
So she lied to the police.
“He was . . . bothering me, so I hit him. Tyler came home and saw me and tried to stop me. That’s what happened. Just send me away.”
And with that, she shut her mouth firmly against the world and let them do with her what they would.
They didn’t believe her, of course. How could a small girl, barely five feet tall, with long legs and skinny arms, a colt, knock a full-grown man twice her size unconscious?
On the other side of the police station, Tyler was telling a different story. The truth, for once in his life. How he came home to find his foster sister being attacked by his foster mother’s boyfriend. How they had words, how Roger punched Tyler in the mouth and told him to fuck off. How Tyler was forced to hit him in self--defense.
“What would you do?” Tyler asked the detective. “What would you do if you walked in on a man trying to hurt your twelve-year-old sister?”
Roger spent a month in the hospital, healing. He was arrested for attacking Aubrey, but Aubrey refused to testify, so he got away with probation. Tyler, on the other hand, pled down to aggravated assault. He and Aubrey were taken from Sandy’s home—that was inevitable, of course—and while Tyler went in for his first stint behind bars, Aubrey’s fate was much worse.
She was sent to therapy at the rape and abuse crisis center, and became the newest resident of an independent group home on Division Street. One for troubled teens. She was the youngest girl there, the smallest, the quietest.
And Monday morning, she would have to face Josh and explain why she’d moved.
She decided to lie. He mustn’t ever know.
No one could ever know.
CHAPTER 51
Aubrey
Today
Aubrey went to her small office and looked up the number to the district attorney’s office. Arlo had gone into criminal prosecution after Josh’s disappearance, eschewing his previous path of contract law. She liked that about him, that he’d decided to try to make a difference.
And she really liked that he was always on her side. He never treated her like she was crazy, or breakable. Even when she was.
The secretary put her through, and she heard Arlo’s deep voice answer, “Tonturian.”
“Arlo? It’s Aubrey.”
“Aubs!” He sounded genuinely pleased to hear from her. “How are you? I was just thinking about you. Janie and Sulman were talking about a beach trip next month. You up for it?”
“Maybe. I need to talk to you, Arlo. It’s important. Can you come to the house? Now?”
“Now? Can it wait until tonight? I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes.”
“Cancel it, Arlo. It’s about Josh. And a man named Derek Allen.”
She heard flipping papers, a muttered curse. “All right. Give me fifteen minutes. I’ll be right there.”
“Before you come, I need you to find out everything you can on Allen. He should be in the system.”