Fractured

Chapter 3 - The Toma Team's New Assignment

One Week Earlier:

I got a call from Dr Roberts asking me to come in and meet with him; he had something he wanted to discuss. His tone suggested it wasn't something he wanted to talk about, but that he had to. I had a feeling I knew what the meeting would be about, but I really didn't want to ask.

We had been contacted a few times by the Academy since the she-devil left us, wanting us to take on more missions, as we had done only the bare minimum to get by. The truth was, we weren't ready to work as a team again. We had all lost so much when she left, but the biggest loss, the one that was the hardest to deal with, was the loss of our sense of purpose and family. As Academy Liaison, it was my responsibility to keep this family together and I was sure this meeting would be about my failure to do so.

When I got to Dr Roberts office, I prepared myself, mentally, to fight for my family and it's survival. I knocked on the door in the usual Academy pattern – random, before I entered the office.

"Axel" Dr Roberts offered by way of greeting. His face fraught with worry and despair, his brows furrowed as though lost in his own thoughts.

"Dr Roberts", I replied. "It has been a while". Truth be told, I couldn't remember the last time I had seen the good doctor. His position in the academy had kept him busy and no one in the family had been injured in months! No, that's a lie. Raven could have been in here several times, but he was just too damn stubborn to let us bring him in. He seemed to have a bit of a death wish lately.

"Thanks for coming in, I need your help." Dr Roberts said as he turned to look out one of the large windows on the far wall of the office.

That was not what I was expecting to hear.

"I wanted to ask you, personally, for a favour. Well, one from you, individually, and one from your family. If you were to accept, I would owe your family a favour each, and two to you."

"What exactly is the assignment?" I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I wasn't called in to try and salvage my family's career with the Academy; instead one of the most influential leaders of the Academy was asking me for a favour! Us, a favour!  I wanted more information before I committed myself, or my team, to something we weren't ready for, but I had a feeling that we would take the assignment anyway.

"I really would prefer you call it a favour, referring to my niece as an assignment feels too cold. I am sure that you have at least heard of her – Alexandria is one of our most prominent lawyers. Candy?" He offered, as he turned to face me with his signature bag of red crème candy in his hand.

"Thanks" I said, taking some candy. "I have heard of her, she is definitely one of the best. I haven't heard of her taking any cases in a while now though."

Dr Roberts nodded. "That's the problem, Axel. She hasn't taken anything more than bare minimum since New York. She refuses to go out into the world again and has made no real connections with anyone since moving back. I know she has an interest in Marine Biology. I was hoping you might be able to offer her an internship with you at the Aquarium, to help get her out into the world and with other people more? I was also hoping that your team might be able to befriend her and prove to her that not everyone is like he was; that there are still genuinely good people out there. He broke my poor Alexandria and I am not sure what more I can do to help her."

The man standing in front of me now was no longer the happy-go-lucky doctor that we had always known. He resembled more a parent who has lost their only child. I couldn't stand seeing him look so helpless, so lost. I had to know.  I didn't want to ask, but the words escaped my mouth before I could stop them.

"What exactly happened in New York, Phil?"

He didn't answer, instead he pointed to the file of documents that was on the table in front of us. It looked far thicker than it ought to.

I took a seat at the table with the folder in front of me; my hand hovered over the cover as I hesitated. I wanted to be prepared for what might lay inside.

It wouldn't have mattered how long I gave myself to prepare, I never would have expected this. The files contained numerous police reports, complete with photos and x-rays of the damage sustained in each incident. It showed the abuse that she suffered through. Looking at the dates on the report, they were never filed more than 2 weeks apart, and the damage in the photos didn't match with the reports provided. She gave passable excuses for injuries that might have explained for some of the damage, but there was always more evidence of injury than the reports offered explanation for. At first glance, it appeared to be over 12 months of abuse. 12 months of ruptured blood vessels, of bruises, of fractured and broken bones.

When I finally started deconstructing the reports, I found the name on them was different. Felicity Smith. He had caused her so much pain that she needed a new identity.

It was clear throughout the reports that she didn't want to be filing them, but due to her position as a lawyer, it needed to be reported.

"Please tell me something has been done about him?" I had to know that this putrid excuse for a man was not going to be able to hurt anyone like this again!

"We have a couple of teams already working on it Axel. They are keeping tabs on him and trying to find out what his end game is. He seems to be working toward something, but at this stage we don't know what it is. It doesn't appear that Alexandria is part of the bigger picture, but we will continue to monitor him, in case he does manage to track her down. At this stage, your mission would be to help her find her way again, and leave the aggression to the other teams. We will let you know if we need your help with the situation though."

Leaving the meeting, I knew the team and I would have a lot to discuss at our family meeting the next night, but I knew they would want to help her. I told Dr Roberts as much, but he insisted I wait a few days to think it over and make sure that this is something we want to be involved in before committing. Now that I knew about her, about what she had endured, there was no way I wasn't helping, and I knew my brothers would agree.

The trip from the hospital to the Sergeant Jasper passed with me making a mental checklist of things we would need to do. My top priorities were having Corey complete a full background check on Alexandria, and organising some time for her to train with Raven so if she ever found herself in that situation again, she would be able to take care of herself.

At our family meeting, the entire team was outraged that anyone could do this to another person. They instantly agreed to Phil's request. Raven started a training plan, Corey got his background checks started and Marc and Brandon were trying to work out what kind of activities they could get her out doing that she might enjoy. I was glad to see we could still pull together for the cause and had a feeling this girl might just end up saving our family.

Two days out from meeting Andy for her first day as my intern, Corey came to me about her background checks. He got nothing. Not nothing out of the ordinary, absolutely nothing. He had gone through several data bases and had even attempted to trace her through Phil. Our last effort to attempt to find her was through the Academy servers. It was a big risk to take, but it needed to be done, we needed to know something abut her so we weren't walking in blind and trying to do the wrong things to help.