My Eight Loving Brothers

I'm sorry I didn't know.

*James POV*

When I laid Ry on the table, he winced from pain and tears were sliding down his face.

I immediately felt bad for them. When our parents were alive, we would sometimes visit them and their parents, our aunt and uncle. They weren't the kindest people on the planet but I would never thought they could actually abuse someone!

I broke from my thoughts and rushed back to Ry. Sam and Emma were standing on the other side of him. "Ry," I began, "I need you to tell me what hurts, so I can make it better, okay?" He slowly pointed to his stomach. I started lifting his shirt but he stopped me. "Please, I don't want anyone to see." He said sobbing. I looked at Sam questioningly and he just shrugged. "And would you show me if Emma and Sam went outside?" He looked at me and nodded slowly. I looked at them. They saw the message and went outside. Sam hesitated when closing the door, but then got out.

When they were both out, I started to lift his shirt again. This time, he put his hand to stop me there again, but soon let me lift it. There I saw something that my heart sunk at. There were bruises of different colors and shapes and some of them weren't a few hours old, they were more like a few weeks old.

"Ryan, I need you to answer my question truthfully now, okay?" I told him while helping him sit up. He looked at me and then nodded. "Was today your first beating from your parents?" I asked him. He hid his face in his hands and shook his head no. I was shocked, how didn't Sam know? I quietly cleaned his wounds and then asked him, "Does anything else hurt?" He showed me his wrist which was beaten black and blue as well and I went outside and X-rayed it. Fortunately it was just really badly bruised.

After swathing his wrist and cleaning a few more wounds on his face, we went back to the living room, where everyone sat. I sat him beside me and coughed. All eyes turned on us. Ryan took a deep breath and said something even I didn't expect. He said that he has been abused for about three months now. He would take two beatings: his and his twin's, because their parents couldn't see the difference and he didn't want Rick to get hurt. We all cried and Emma hugged him tightly.

*Emma's POV*

I really didn't expect that. It hurt so much to see my cousin beaten black and blue. We all cried for a while, but then decided that we should have some fun, because we didn't want to think about the evil people. Adam helped Ryan and Rick get their bags upstairs to Ed's room, where they would be sleeping and Ed will sleep with me.

Ed lend them some of his old swim trunks and we all gone down to the pool. I lied down on my towel and relaxed a bit. Then someone was straddling my waist, his weight on my stomach. I opened my eyes to see Adam smirking at me. At first I smiled, but then that horrible day came to my mind. When he was straddling me and taking my clothes off. Adam probably thought I was having fun and pinned my hands above my head, holding them with one of his. I looked on one side, trying to get the images of that man out of my head but I couldn't. I winced and tears started to slide down my cheeks. Adam saw that and got of me quickly. I curled in a ball and cried silently.

Then someone picked me up. I tried to get away from him, be he only held me closer. I looked up and saw Owen carrying me. He sat down and put me on his lap and I started to cry again. When I ran out of tears, I took a deep breath and looked around. All of the boys were looking at me with concern, our cousins with more of a worry. Liam then started to speak and told them what happened that night.

Then Adam took me from Owen's lap. I tried to get away as I was scared but he held me close. "I'm so sorry, Emma! I didn't know about it. God, I'm so so so sorry, forgive me please." He said tears sliding down his cheeks in the end. I just looked at him, not knowing what to say. I wasn't angry, it just scared me. I wiped his tears away and kissed his cheek. "I'm not mad or angry, Adam. I was just scared, but it's okay now." I smiled at him.

We ended up having so much fun after all. I got thrown in the pool about a thousand times and was super tired in the evening. We all ate some pizza and watched a movie. Tony went and tucked Aussie in while we were just laughing at something. When all of us started yawning, we decided to go to bed. Ed picked me up and carried me to my room. We got under the blanket and fell asleep cuddled close to each other.

Hello my darlings!

Thank you for all your support! We have got 1k reads already?! Oh my god, I really can't believe that. It means so much. I already started writing the Christmas version, I can't wait for you guys to see it too!

Anyway, I wanted to ask you. Do you better like short chapters but more often or longer ones not so often? Please let me know in the comments.

Love you!

Claire xoxo