Illusions of the island *A LOST fanfic*

Chapter 61: A ruse

A ruse. A lie. Juliet didn't know which it was, but she was angry that Ed was still alive. How had he faked his own death? Had he gotten a double somehow? She did her best to wrack her brain of the answer, but it wouldn't come.

"Why would he chance his name? Simon Braggens. Heh. Well that seems to suit him. David, are you listening?"

David stopped stirring his coffee and looked up at Juliet.

"Jules, he can't hurt you anymore. I won't let him."

Juliet wasn't only worried, she'd been hiding something from David for the last few days. She tugged on her sleeve to cover up her wrist.

"When did you start wearing baggy long-sleeved shirts?"

Avoiding his gaze only slightly, she distracted herself with looking down at the chart in front of her. She held out her arm, and David pushed back her sleeve to get a look at her wrist.

"I noticed this the other day. What'd you do to your wrist?"

Fear seized her gut and curled around inside her.

"Ed broke into my house the other day, threatened me and grabbed my wrist."

David gently probed her left wrist with his fingers. She could see anger boiling below the surface of his apparently calm exterior. She pulled her hand away when she felt pain
shoot up her hand and into her arm.

"Ouch!"

Sighing, David shook his head.

"You'll need to get an x-ray on this hand Jules. It feels like you have a small break in your wrist, but we can' be sure until we get an x-ray."

Juliet held her wrist gingerly and glared down at it.

"Ed thinks he can mess with me? I'm not going to be pushed around anymore."

This was another side David had never seen of Juliet before.

"Come on Jules. Let's get that hand looked at."

Relenting, Juliet followed David out of the break room with a bit of confidence in tow.

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It had been a long day and Juliet was tired. As soon as she entered the house, she heard the fire alarm going off, smoke was drifting out of the kitchen and Mayra was crying at the
top of her lungs. Rushing over to the playpen, she picked her up. She felt a breeze coming into the living room, and noticed the windows were open. She heard James curse and come flying into the living room.

"I'm sorry darlin'. Daddy has everything under control now. What're we gonna make for dinner now though? Your mama is gonna be home soon and we got nothin' on the table.
Oh, blondie you're home. Don't worry, I got everything under control."

Juliet was trying to console her crying child as she gave James a hard stare.

"What's going on in here?"

James took the crying Mayra from Juliet's arms and rocked her.

"I told ya blondie, I've got everything under control. Ok, so I burned the spaghetti. I was tryin' to do something nice for ya so you didn't have to cook when you got home."

It was now that James noticed the cast on Juliet's wrist.

"You broke your wrist?"

Juliet wanted to grind her teeth. Ed was still out there.

"You can blame Ed for that."

James was fuming.

"Don't worry darlin' I won't let him touch you again. Once we find him, we can put him away for good."

In theory Juliet knew that sounded like a good plan, but she knew how Ed worked, he was sneakily suspicious of everyone and could manipulate his way out of things when he had to.

"Well then, I think it's time we went down to the police station and file a report."

To Be Continued...