The Badass Behind The Girl: The Choice of Love

Chapter Sixteen

“I didn’t think that she would pass out…”

“But she did.”

“You’re not helping.”

“Who said that I am?”

“Don’t talk to your mother like that!”

“You’re supposed to be dead! Do you know how much we went through after your, now fake, death? If it wasn’t for me Avita would be dead right now!” I heard a voice shout and growls followed. I slowly opened my eyes and found myself looking at the underneath of Jake’s jaw. “Jake?” I said and he immediately snapped his attention to me. His brown eyes were wide with worry and his hand slowly came up and cupped my face. “Hey, how do you feel?” he asked and I shrugged. “I’ll be able to answer that if I can stand.” I replied and slowly got to my feet, Jake stood behind me just to make sure that I didn’t fall. It took me a couple seconds to get my bearing right and the world finally stopped spinning.

“I’m okay.” I told him and added a smile to ease his worry. I really hate it when he worries so much. It’s not good for him. He nodded and came to stand at my side. “So,” I said and fixed my gaze on my mom, “either you’re an angel that everyone can see or you weren’t actually dead after that accident.” Crossing my arms she looked at me with so much emotion in her eyes that it almost erased any trace of anger I had inside of me. The operative word being “almost”.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” she cried out, “I truly am but I had to do it. You were in danger-”

“In danger from what?” I screamed at her, “I was in more danger with Jason than what I’ve would have been in if I walked into a gang war! Before Jake could fight back Jason would lock him in his room and then let his wrath fall upon me…” tears started pouring out of my eyes and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stop until I let everything come out. “I have been beaten with everything he could get his hands on; sometimes it’s his own hands. I’ve been in the hospital so many times that I know all the staff there by their names and their families too. I’ve got a scar that runs from my waist up to my breast because of that one time he managed to actually come close to killing me.”

I screamed out every single memory I had of Jason from the time he started to beat me to the recent one where Derek had saved me. Not one detail was left out and this made everyone standing there shiver with disgust. They all had misty eyes but some of them let their tears fall. The others were shaking with anger. “Where were you? Did you even have people looking out for me, huh? Did have people keeping tabs on me?” I screamed and guilt ran all over her and Adrian’s faces. I took that as a bad sign. “What? Tell me why you have the guilty looks on your faces.” I demanded and they flinched.

“Avita, Adrian and Leah’s parents were the ones looking after you but they had no idea that you were being abused. They say you were happy every time you came there and they’ve never seen you cry unless you’ve watched a movie that really touched you.” She explained and I sucked in a breath.

I turned to Adrian. “Did you know about this?” I asked softly and he couldn’t look me in the eye. That confirmed it for me. “You did! Adrian, do you not love that much that you couldn’t tell me about this? I could have slept peacefully at night instead of having nightmares were growls and howls of animals were heard in the background and… and the feeling of something chasing me making me wake up screaming bloody murder.” Adrian snapped his gaze to me and I held it.

“I knew,” he said slowly, “but I was sworn not to tell you. I had to obey my father’s orders.” He took a step towards me and I took a step back. Looking at me with sadness in his eyes he said, “Avita, if I could have I would have told you a long time ago but the reality is I couldn’t. I was so tempted to do it that even though I didn’t have to I went to college to get away from you so that I wouldn’t break my promise. Every time after that when I saw you, you were growing up; even more beautiful each time it got harder but I managed to keep it secret because I occupied myself with my projects. Don’t ever question the love I have for you, Angel. The things I did were to protect you from bad things. I know you’ve been through so much but believe me when I say that you won’t hurt that bad like Jason ever again. I promise.”