Chasing Charlie

On the Run

Liam was sure that the phone had cracked in his hand now and he was having to hold it together so that he didn't lose the call. At least it was the office line and not his cell phone. If he did lose them, he could always call his brother back on his cell phone. 

The information that he'd just gotten about the petite, slender redhead that lived with his brother was bouncing around in his mind and he felt vaguely ill. He hadn't known any of those things although it sounded like his brother had. That didn't surprise him though.

Charlie and Luke were more or less best friends. The sappy nicknames he'd heard them call each other regularly when he was on the phone with his brother over the course of the last year more or less proved it.

"Liam?" Charlie's voice sounded softer as she took the phone off of speaker and pressed it against her ear.

"Yeah Charlie." he closed his eyes, as he stood before the window, picturing her face in his mind. "Don't get mad at your brother. It's not his fault. I always end up with douchebags. And that guy I've been dating is no exception." 

"I guess he forgot that I was supposed to come over after work and spend the weekend at his place. He'd been talking about taking me home to meet his parents, which is something that has never happened before. Anyways I walked in and he was fucking some cheerleader. He saw me. And so I just turned around and walked out. But not before I ripped off the necklace he'd gotten me a week earlier, some diamond thing with his stupid initals on it and put it on his dresser."

"I got on my bike and rode home and went to my room and took a long hot shower. When I walked back out of my room in a towel he was standing there. He tried saying he was sorry but I didn't want to hear it. I don't cheat and I don't take back cheaters. I asked him to leave." 

"I guess he remembered that our back sliding glass door that goes into the little backyard where Luke and I barbecue, that has that huge seven foot fence is usually not locked, so he had jumped over it and I'm pretty sure that's how he got in."

"I grabbed my pajamas and went to go into the bathroom to put them on after telling him to leave again but he caught me by the arm, and was squeezing really hard."

"Now I want you to understand. I'm telling you what happened next because I don't want you to be upset with Luke. My ex kept asking me to forgive him and telling me I just needed to remember how good we were together." 

"As if raping me would help me remember that. I wouldn't take him back, so he started to choke me, saying he remembered how I liked it rough. I did manage to kick him in the balls once, but he just smacked me hard across the face a couple times and kept choking me."

"He was just so strong and I couldn't get the breath to yell for help. Thankfully, since I was home alone he hadn't closed my door. He was so focused on choking me that he didn't even realize that Luke had gotten home. Luke was walking to his bedroom, not even expecting me to be home, when he saw Brendan on top of me, choking me."

"Luke launched himself at Brendan as I lay on the bed trying to breath. They were still fighting when I started to get enough oxygen to sit up. I grabbed a blanket and pulled it over myself to cover up, scrambling up to the top of my bed."

"You have to understand that Brendan was a big guy. He worked out constantly as a Division One baseball player. He was a senior this year. He's probably going to be playing the major leagues someday soon. At least that's what he kept telling me and anyone else who would listen. And Luke was kind of holding his own, but..." her voice trailed off. "Not really. There was a lot of blood and most of it wasn't Brendan's. And he started looking over at me with this glint in his eyes. Like just wait. I'm not done with you yet."