Deception

12: Battered.

Omniscient

"Miyah, I can't wait to get my hands on this nigga." Ciera fumed into the phone. She was currently at the hospital with Lauren's brother Khalil, sitting in the waiting room of the unit she had been admitted to.

"I'm sure Khalil will get to you before him. You don't even worry. Don't worry, I'm catching the next flight back to Chicago."

After the altercation between Lauren and Paul, Khalil noticed he had missed Lauren's call and attempted to call her back. He checked her location and noticed that she was back home, confused. Shortly after, he called Ciera to see if she knew she was back home.

The both of them made their way to Lauren's house, where they found her unconscious on the floor of her closet.

"Don't worry about any of that, let me handle that shit." He said as he gripped her thigh, making her grab onto his hand.

"Are you going to tell your parents about this?" Ciera questioned.

"I need to, but I don't need moms worrying about anything right now. But I know the longer I keep it away from either one of them, it'll just make the situation worse than it needs to be." Khalil sighed.

"Wait until I find this nigga. I'ma kill him."

Ciera knew that nothing she could say would change his mind, so she just let it be.

"Whatever you do, Khalil, be careful. I can't lose you too."

°°°

Within the next few hours, Lauren was awake and alert in bed, staring back at her parents, brother, and best friend, who were looking back at her.

By the grace of God, she only had a grade 3 concussion due to her being unconscious for longer than 5 minutes. Luckily, she didn't have any major side effects besides a little short-term memory loss.

However, her face said otherwise. Paul left her face completely bruised and battered, to the point where she didn't want to look at herself.

Never in a million years would she have ever thought that Paul would put his hands on her the way that he did. And it made her sick to the stomach.

"We need to get the police involved, Lauren." Her mother stressed.

"Mom I am the police," Lauren said trying to make light of the situation, but no one laughed. "Okay, not the time for jokes I see."

"No, I am not joking, Lauren."

"Man fuck all that, we don't need to cops involved. I told y'all that I'ma handle him. The feds don't take this shit serious enough, and they gon' move slow. I'm not with that," Khalil said, feeling upset again.

"Aye, watch your mouth. You're not getting involved with this shit," their father's voice boomed.

Lauren closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, feeling the tears begin to collect at the brim of her eyelids. Everything was becoming overwhelming.

"I should've just stayed in New York like I was supposed to."

"No Lo, don't blame yourself for someone else's actions. None of this was in your control," Ciera lightly said as she ran her hands through Lauren's hair. "Fuck him."

So many thoughts were running through Lauren's head. She had to contact her job to let them know that she would have to take a break from the case, she needed to contact her lawyer to begin the divorce process, and now she had to find a way to properly deal with Paul and make sure that she was safe through it all.