Our Bruised Bodies | Bradley Bradshaw

ACT FOUR - PART TWENTY-SIX

Cheers!

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"Lincoln." Grace said carefully, not taking a single step away from the door, her hands held out to show that she meant to harm, that she was safe, just as she always had been safe. "Maggie said you needed to see me. I'm here now." She promised him.

"Do you know what he did?" Lincoln asked, his voice sounding so sombre, it caused a cold shiver to ran down Grace's spine.

"I do." She admitted, while watching Lincoln closely. His back was turned towards her, his legs pulled up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs tightly. His head was bedded on his knees. Lincoln didn't move at all.

"I will sit down here at the door, is that okay?" Grace wondered and waited for Lincoln to nod, before she slowly allowed herself to slide down the door to sit. She won't make the mistake to rush over and confront him with any sudden body contact. Grace won't attempt to touch him at all, for right now, as the adrenaline was leaving her body and realisation crashed in on her, she didn't want anyone to touch her either and with her Cain hadn't even succeeded due to Bradley stepped in as he did.

"I'm here with you, and I promise I won't come any closer than you want me too. Do you understand? You are in charge of this situation. I will follow your lead." I will give you back the control Cain took from you. I will sit here and listen and if it takes the entire day. For you I will. For it is all my fault for not looking for you sooner.

"I'm not a real man." Lincoln said and this time, Grace could hear the tears, threatening to close up his throat completely. Suffocating him with his shame and sadness.

"Cain's actions don't define you, Lincoln. What he did is not tale telling about you. He doesn't even know you." She told him, hoped to make him see reason. To make him understand that what happened to him was awfully, yes, but that it was also nothing personal. It was nothing against his person, it was something cruel and sinister. It was revenge for something that hadn't even happened just yet. It was the first small battle in the war to come and Cain targeted him and Grace, because they were the next generation he never wanted to see to grow into their roles.

A terrible thought came to her that with Lincoln Cain might have succeeded. He might never want to climb the ranks and become someone in charge himself. He might have damaged Lincoln beyond repair, beyond all healing attempts. Grace wondered how a person could do such a thing and live with it. She wondered how Cain could sleep at night. She wondered why her father didn't do anything against that bastard.

"But my own do." He argued. "I consented. I allowed him to do all that to my body. I said all the things he wanted to hear. I let it all happen. I let him." Lincoln muttered, the form of him sitting a few feet away from Grace shrieked further into itself. Desiring to disappear and be gone.

"He manipulated you." Grace argued. "This is not your doing, and it's also not your fault. He made you believe you had no other choice." If Lincoln wondered why Grace knew such detail he had never told Maggie, he didn't ask. He didn't want to entertain the mere thought that Cain was walking around, mocking him, telling people what he did to Lincoln. The stupid boy of Andrew Peterson, who truly believed he could safe the man he loved by getting fucked by another man, and an Admiral at that. He was such a disgrace to his name.

"He will still punish Jon. He will take him apart. I did this and changed nothing with it." Lincoln mumbled, which had Grace swallow.

"I won't let Cain hurt us any more." She promised, even tough she had no idea how she would go about it. Cain could do so much to them and all Grace could do was try to hide way the people she loved and cared for deeply in the hope he would never again find them.