An FBI Archive

Chapter Five

Nia sat at her desk, hey eyes unmoving from the picture of her, Leah, Nora and Jade. It had been taken years ago now when they were lastly altogether, she missed them at times like this, when it all came rushing back to her.
"Are you okay?" Elliot asked, taking a seat on the edge of her desk beside her.
"Yeah, I'm- I'm good" She smiled, remembering their conversation from earlier.
"I have a seventeen year old daughter so seeing a kid with a gun about to ruin his life was hard for me too but I can't imagine why today was difficult for you"
"I was diddled as a kid, I got over it a long time ago" She shrugged.
"You don't just get over child abuse like that especially not rape" Wesley cut in.
"I did. I did the therapy, I went to a rape crisis counsellor, my nightmares stopped, I even have a healthy sex life"
"I did not need to hear that" Nadia spoke up as she moved through the squad room into her office.
"Do you still go to therapy?" Wesley asked and Nia scoffed.
"I'm good, pinkie promise" She teased, holding up her littlest finger "I want to hear more about Elliot's kids though, how many have you got?"
"Four. Maddy is seventeen, James and Livvie are fourteen and Chloe is nine"
"Wow, your wife must be a saint" Nia laughed lightly before she felt the air go tense around her.
"She was" He smiled fondly.
"I'm sorry for your loss"
"I'm sorry for yours. Your dad might not be dead but I bet its hard knowing that he's out there and you can't talk to him" She nodded.
"I tried but it just felt fake. Nothing was the same because when he looked at me he saw now that I was a grown up in a child's body, he didn't know how to deal with me and I didn't know what to say to him" She shrugged.
"What about your mom?" Harper spoke up.
"With mom it was worse. She was the only who held me through my nightmares, the only one I let touch me. She knew the worst of it and still it felt like there was a giant wedge between us"
"And your sisters? I can't live without mine" Wesley spoke up.
"They held me together and I try to do the same for them"
"You're a good sister" Elliot assured her.
"I try to be" Nadia poked her head out of her office and called over to them.
"Sutton, Caleb wants to see you"
"Duty calls" Nia smiled, heading over to the interrogation rooms she headed inside.
"Hey"
"Hey, my boss said that you wanted to talk"
"Yeah, I wanted to say thank you"
"Its okay, I understand why you did it. We all snap"
"Yeah but shooting an army vet in the leg is pretty dumb"
"He's not pressing charges because he knows what you're going through. It's tough enough being a kid but dealing with something like this can also push a kid over the edge"
"I'm sorry about what happened to you"
"The real story is much worse" She admitted without thinking.
"What's the real story? Were you really molested?"
"I was kidnapped when I was eight. I was playing in the front yard, I didn't even see who took me. I was raped by I don't even know how many men. There were three other girls kidnapped a few months after, they were all older than me by two years but they still called me their big sister because I protected them. Lacie came the year after I was taken. She was five. We were kept for five years and we went through hell. Rape doesn't even come close to what they did to us and I tried to take everything that I could but I couldn't take everything"
"You tried though, I think that's all that matters"
"I didn't try hard enough" Her eyes welled with tears but she fought to keep them from falling.
"What happened to Lacie?" She smiled.
"She went away, to a better place"
"After going through all of that I would've killed myself" Nia scoffed.
"Believe me, we've all tried" She muttered "Are you going to be okay?"
"I will" He nodded.
"And you'll go to the councillor? Even if you hate them? Even if it sucks?"
"Even if it sucks, I'll go" He promised.
"Be good Caleb. Call me if you need me" She smiled, handing him her contact info card.
"Only if you tell me what really happened to Lacie"
"You don't need that stuff in your head. You're a good kid Caleb, show the world how good you can be" She smiled before she left the room. Her phone started ringing in her pocket and Nia answered it, quickly putting it against her ear "Hello?"
"This is Sibley memorial hospital, we have you listed as the emergency contact for a Jade-"
"Yes, yes that's my sister. Did she overdose?"
"Yes ma'am, I'm very sorry. She's currently in the I.C.U under sedation to keep her calm whilst she comes down. It's obviously important-"
"I'll be right there" Nia hung up quickly and rushed back into the squad room looking for Nadia "I need the rest of the day off"
"Why?" Nadia's puzzled expression told her that she was shocked by the request.
"My sister overdosed on who knows what" Nadia nodded, still in shock.
"Go" Nia grabbed her bag from her desk and rushed out to her car, driving as fast as she could to the hospital, not caring about how many speed laws that she was breaking in the process.

Nia moved along the halls until she finally found Jade's room where her other sisters had gathered.
"Hey sis" Leah gave a small smile as she hugged her.
"What was she on this time?"
"Heroin, she's injecting it" Nora told her as they hugged.
"Fuck. That shit is going to kill her. We'll have to try a psyc hold next"
"She won't do it" Leah reminded her.
"She'll have to. Lacie killed herself because she couldn't take it, I'm going to help Jade. I don't want to bury anyone else" She frowned deeply. Nora and Leah knew that there were things that happened to Nia before they'd met her, before they were taken. She never talked about it, and they never made her.
"She won't like it" Nora muttered.
"Tell me again" Leah asked and it reminded her of when they were kids and she would beg for another story before they went to sleep.
"Lacie had a wild mess of blonde hair and eyes that shined like stars, and wide green eyes. She was beautiful"
"She's a rotting corpse in the ground because they took us" A groggy mumble caught them all by suprise "Lacie hung herself from her own fucking treehouse at ten years old. That's how the world remembers her" Jade bit.
"And the world won't remember another junkie ODing in the street, but I'll always remember my sister"
"Until you kill yourself too"
"I won't" Jade scoffed.
"I take drugs, Leah fucks whoever looks her way and Nora is drinking her liver to death. We're all killing ourselves, maybe slowly but we're still doing it. We're not hanging ourselves from trees but death is still coming for us all. You can't stop death from getting us"
"I stopped the rest of them didn't I?" Tears fell from Jade's eyes, soaking her cheeks.
"You tried as hard as you could"
"So now you need to, because if I lose another one of you I'll give up and if we all give up then what hope is there in this shitty world?"
"You want me to go to rehab again?" Nia nodded.
"One that you can't check yourself out of" Jade nodded "What was it this time?"
"George" That was all Jade needed to say for Nia to understand why she started her heroin binge again. Nia climbed into bed beside her, wrapping her arms around her sister "He had you more than me"
"He did"
"Don't you have nightmares?"
"Not anymore" Nia muttered. Her sisters liked believing her small lie, but they knew it was that, a lie. She did have nightmares about George, they were the worst ones because afterwards she would go days without sleeping. George liked to cut. He'd cut so much that you couldn't even see skin under all of the blood. George had Jade first but when Nia saw her afterwards she never let George touch her again.
"I refuse to let them win"