Crash ~Justin Bieber~

Chapter 86 ~ The Walrus And The Carpenter, Part 3

(Rachel's POV)

It was the only rule I didn't like. The only rule I questioned.

"If someone hurts your family, then you kick them, you shove them, you do anything and everything you can to hurt them back. There are no limits,"

Kick and shove. William's rule. I told myself I didn't like it when I was four. And now, at fifteen, I still told myself no.

Nobody has the right to kick or shove. Nobody. Not even him.

Matt had kicked me. And now Justin was shoving him. Torturing him as he dragged him through the snow. Beating him up when he stopped. And it was the most horrible of pain I'd ever heard before; the type of pain that made you hurt too, and it didn't matter where I looked or what I did to try and ignore it, in my mind I saw it. I saw Matt on the ground, withering in the snow.

"So you think you can just take my girl into the woods,"

"No!"

A scream.

"Beat her up,"

Then another.

"Scare her,"

I dug my nails into my neck.

"And then just walk away?"

I heard a punch that was much too quick, and the choking of someone who wasn't breathing.

"Your type just never really get it, do you? No matter what I do, you just keep coming back for more?"

More choking.

"You keep making the same old fucking mistakes,"

And more.

"When - will - you fucking - learn!!"

And then I heard the frustration. I heard the sadness that Justin so desperately tried to hide. I heard the threat of paranoia. The one that whispered in his ear.

"I keep her safe, I keep her away from you, but the second I turn my back, you do this! Somebody always does this!"

A punch.

Another kick. Another throw.

"Huh?!! Tell me - tell me what I have to do to get rid of you?!!"

And then I heard it again, a second time. The sadness, not the anger. The fear, not the confidence. I could feel it. I could taste it. I could understand it like it was the second half of me, because maybe it was.

Loneliness.

Abandonment.

The loss of everything he ever knew.

Tanner took it from him the first time, and now in Justin's mind, Matt was trying to take it away from him too. That's all Justin understood these days. Threats. Threats that wanted to take him back to the bad days, back to the start when he was alone.

"I kill you - then it's someone else. I kill them - and then it's someone else again,"

"Why don't you ever just get it?I can't do this anymore!"

So I did something that made no sense. I did something that questioned both Justin and William. I called the 'kick and shove' rule a load of crap, and I stood up to go and put a stop it.

Nobody has the right to hurt another person. Nobody. I was right the first time.

I thought about what Justin had said in the car. About how Samantha hadn't taken care of Ben, and I decided that I was going to take care of Justin. But not in the way that they wanted me to. I was going to take care of him the way that I knew that was best. I was going to take him away from here, and away from the hurt, because hurting Matt wasn't going to change anything that he was feeling. It wasn't going to change anything at all.