Dangerous Love

Dangerous Love: Part One - Where It All Began

The times were hard and children were bearing the brunt of it all. Drugs circulated and alcoholism dominated. Whist mothers and fathers pass out, the young ones are neglected.

The Brookesend Institution was a care home for chidren from deprived backgrounds. It was meant to be a place that chidren could call home, but instead, staff were brutal and turned a potential home into the perfect hell. They beat the children with wooden sticks over menial disputes, peeling away strips of skin. Male staff members openly watched the girls take their showers and sometimes te abuse became sexual. This was the case for Baby Palmer, a long-term occupant at Brookesend. Baby was brought in by an anonymous man battered and bruised when she was seven years old. Since then, she had been subjected to the most degrading acts that had scarred her physically, mentally and emotionally. When her background check was carried out after she was admitted, it came to light that even before Baby arrived at Brookesend, she had already endured her fair share of abuse at the hands of her father. Fortunately, he was a arrested shortly after Baby was found for child abuse. He had been molesting her from the age of four and as a result of his violent alcohol addiction, Baby's mother committed suicide by slitting her wrists in the bath. Brookesend had robbed Baby of what innocence she had left, and her soul was nothing but numb.

***

Bobby was a 6ft2, short haired, bad boy with only one thing running through him besides blood, anger. He was admitted to Brookesend when he was thirteen and had a completely different experience from Baby. Even though staff attempted to intimidate him with the harshest beatings, he still terrorised the institution day and night. He attacked staff and other children with anything near to hand and made sure he marked his territory. In Bobby's eyes, he had escaped his miserable life at home and he wasn't about to go through it all again at the hands of the people that were meant to be helping him. His father, like Baby's, had abused him from a young age, and his mother was the instigator most of the time. She would stand there and watch as Bobby's father whipped him with his thick leather belt and in some cases, she would let him strangle Bobby to near death, then lock him in the basement for hours. All Bobby knows is the darkness of that basement. The sheer thought of what he endured caused him to have nightmares and wake up in cold sweat. Bobby and Baby could relate to each other in so many ways. They were both being weighed down by darkness waiting to escape, and together as a couple, they were a ticking time bomb.

***

"I can't live here anymore Baby. I'm gonna end up killing someone for what they keep doing to you," shouted Bobby as he paced around the garden.

Baby was fixing her clothes after another encouter with a male member of staff, and Bobby could do nothing about it. They were being captive and no one wanted to hear their screams. 

"I know Bobby, but what can we really do? We just have to get through another year and we're free from this place. Once we're eighteen we can do as we please,"

"We're not staying here for another year. Your body will fucking give up by then. I can't see you get treated like this anymore. You're my girl, my right hand, the only reason I was able to survive in here. We're leaving tonight,"

"And going where? With what money? Be realistic. After this year goes by it will all be over. We run away now, get caught and they'll throw us in another shit hole. I can't bare that Bobby, I can't," she replied.

Bobby stared at her as he realised she was right. They would be nothing to go to nothing. He needed to think about his next move before he took any action. He knelt down infront of Baby and held her face in his palms.

"I'm gonna sort this out, and I promise you, we're leaving tonight," he said confidently.

Together they smiled cunningly.