Them and Her

Chapter 28

Nevaeh's eyes snapped open upon hearing the anger in Eliot's voice. Her eyes slowly trialed to where he was looking and her eyes widened even more to where he was looking at.

She yanked her hand away and tried hugging it close to her chest but he wasn't having it. His eyes were blazing with uncontrollable rage and anger.

He kept a firm hold on her wrist and lifted her shirt more. Similar small scars like the one he found were staring right at him.

He gently ran his fingers over them, his jaw clenched tightly as he started at them more.

The others too were shocked by what they were seeing. It's like a fire has been lit inside them from how mad and angry they're feeling.

Thing is, they never saw or noticed this until now. She tried so hard to keep them hidden, but not seems like it wasn't hard enough.

Jonathan held Nevaeh's hand in his softly, after glaring at Eliot to let go, he clearly wasn't in the right headspace to think clearly from all this anger.

"What happened here, darling?" Jonathan asked, leaving a small peck at the scar, his British accent coming out heavy.

Nevaeh's heart spiked up, her eyes filled with unshed tears as she remembered the reason and cause of these small scars that litter some parts of her body.

Theodore wiped away the first tear that rolled down her soft cheek, the men feeling their hearts squeeze painfully at the sight of their girl crying.

The more Theodore wiped, the more tears fell down, Nevaeh completely broke down, her head falling on Angel's shoulder as heart wrenching sobs shook her body.

It was getting harder to breath with each passing second, seeing as it was getting hard to calm down and try to talk, feeling like someone was sitting on her chest, constricting her from getting any breaths in.

"Shh just calm down, breath." Angel muttered in her ear, rubbing her back up and down, while slowly breathing in and then out, making her look at him and trying to copy his actions.

After a while Nevaeh calmed down, her cries now turning into small sniffles.

"Good, just like that." Angle praised, pecking her now tear stained face softly.

Nevaeh stayed silent after that, the others too, the only sound in the room is the fire cackling and the occasional sniffing.

"It was my foster mother." Nevaeh suddenly spoke, her voice coming out so small they thought they didn't hear her, but they did, the room being too silent.

"What?" Eliot asked, his voice coming out surprised.

Nevaeh breathed in deeply before she began speaking once again, "It was on my tenth birthday, my foster mother asked me to wash the dishes, and I did but-" she took another breath before continuing, "While I was drying them one slipped from my hands, because one hour before I got beat for having dinner made late, the plate fell, it broke, she took my hands, turned on the stove and put my wrist, the one holding the plate I broke and put it on top of the stove."

The tears that were were long gone reappeared, rolling down her cheeks in rivers. Her body shook as she recalled that night.

"I begged and screamed at her to stop, but she didn't, she only forced my hand down on the fire more." She spoke, her voice cracking as she looked at Jonathan.

"She had her husband hold my hands tightly while she took the cigarette he was smoking and burned my forearms with them." She said, rolling her sleeves up to her elbow, exposing said burns and scarred tissue.