One Hope {A Lachlan Fanfic}

Three

She gives me a shaky smile as the officers roughly push Alex out the door. But not before he stares me down.

"I'll come back for you again, you bitch." He cruelly says, no remorse in his voice.

He's gone.

I stare him down as he is pushed through the door and I wipe my eyes, still on the floor.

"You okay?" Autumn asks, coming towards me.

My voice cracks. "I-I don't know. I mean my boyfriend tried to kill me and then he got arrested so..." I trail off.

She sighs. "Sorry."

I hear a cough next to me, and remember that the officer from before was still by my side. I turn my head in his direction.

"Miss... A word please?" The officer asks, and I nod, relieved. He looks a couple years older than me with blonde hair and brown eyes. I follow him to the living room and sit down on a couch as I see out of the corner of my eyes that Autumn took a seat in the kitchen. "Explain everything." He says, and I am taken aback.

"W-what? Like, everything, everything?" I ask, and he nods his head.

"We need all the information we can to prove Mr. Leiby guilty." The officer says, and I sigh.

I love Alex. What do I do?

"No harm will come to you. We will protect you." The officer says, and I just now notice his name tag.

Officer Henry.

I take a deep sigh and put my head in my hands. "Alright." I agree. "It started probably a year and a half ago...."
----------------------------------------
"I see." Officer Henry nods in understanding. "Thank you very much for answering my questions. We'll notify you if anything serious comes up. Have a nice rest of your day, Ms Davis." He says, saluting and walking out the door.

How ironic. I'm not gonna have a good rest of the day.

Autumn walks over to me. "We should go now, Caitlin." She says, serious. I can tell because she dropped my nickname.

"Am I in trouble?" I ask, lowering my head like a puppy that did something wrong.

"Yes; you are." She says. "How dare you leave in the middle of the night?! I was worried sick!" She scolds, and I wince. "You can't keep loving him, Caitlin. You have to face the fact that he doesn't love you!"

Ouch. That was a major slap.

"Sorry." I reply, looking down.

Autumn notices and crouched down to my level. "I'm sorry, Cait. I'm just worried; I care about you." She says, patting my head.

"I understand." I reply, standing up, only to fall to the ground again.

"Woah, easy. You okay?" She asks, and my eyes trail down to my right leg, the blood soaking through the bandage.

When did that happen? And how did nobody notice?

"Oh god, Caitlin." Autumn says, eyes widening. She runs to the kitchen cabinet and pulls out bandages and antiseptic. I lay down on the couch as she hustles over and drops to my side.

"Must've got it when I got rammed into the chair or something." I say as she finishes cleaning and rebandaging the wound.

"All done." Autumn says, moving to put away the items. She plops down next to me and we sit in silence for a few minutes.

How should I feel?

Happy that Autumn and the police arrived, Sad that Alex got taken away, Betrayed by both Alex and Autumn, or Relieved that Alex is gone?

"Caitlin, let's go." Autumn says, jarring me out of my confused thoughts.

I sigh and run a hand through my hair; an obvious sign that I'm stressed. "Alright." I respond, slowly and carefully standing up. We both walk down the stairs and out of the condos and back to our place.

"Settle on the couch; I have to do a few things." Autumn says, and I nod, walking to the couch and putting Netflix on. I scroll through the movies and put on San Andreas. A few minutes into the film, I get bored, which is quite odd. I really love San Andreas.

I slowly get up and walk to Autumn's room, pausing outside the door.

"Yeah. She can't deal with it by herself. I think you need to talk some sense into her or something." Autumn says, and I immediately know who she's talking to.

My father.

I gulp as memories resurface.

"You're not my father! You abandoned me years ago!"

"Mom is dead! Leave me alone!"

"You don't have any custody over me!"
~
Why the hell would Autumn be talking with the very person I told her to never talk to?