Safe

Fourteen

"No!"
Was the first thing that came out of Nike's mouth after the initial shock.
"No?" Her mother echoed, with a  bewildered glance at her father.
"No." She repeated. Her heart was thundering in her throat and she struggled to remember how to breathe and slow down.
An investigation meant they were going to ask her questions. Force her to relive those weeks she'd spent months trying to bury. She'd have to give detail to help them put away the criminals who had kidnapped her, she knew that and she was scared. Scared that saying yes would condemn her back to fighting her own shadows in the dark.
"Nike, you don't have a choice. You have to help!"
"I don't have a choice?" She parroted back at her mother in surprise. "I, who actually lived through this nightmare, do not get a say?"
"Please, you'll only have to answer a few questions. Nothing serious." Her father supplied before they could start arguing which turned out to be the wrong move because his daughter turned on him immediately.
"How can you say it's nothing serious? Do you have any idea what remembering those events could do to me? To my mental well being?"
"The alternative is to let them get away with what they've done to you. Do you prefer that?" Josephine asked angrily. Unlike her husband, she had little patience for her difficult daughter. There was only one way forward and it was through that investigation. Nike was going to have to deal with it.
"Yes! What if that's what I want? What if I just want to put this all behind me and move on!"
"There's no moving on from this without justice!" Her mother fired back with just as much ire.
"Two of you stop this right now!"
Kola's command might as well have been a suggestion with the way both women ignored him.
"Justice? Is that what this is about? Is this justice or revenge? Tell me!"
"You're forgetting which one of us the adult is! Don't speak to me that way."
Nike scoffed and strode away from both her parents to the edge of the living room.
"You're the parent. You should know better yet you want to force me to contribute to something that could possibly send me into a downward spiral. And for what? Something as flimsy as revenge?"
"You want this to happen to someone else? Because that is what will happen if those men are released from custody."
"Don't you dare try to blackmail me! I'm not responsible for those people. Their safety is not more important than mine!"
"Jo, that's not fair. Sit down, two of you and let's talk like adults."
Josephine glared at her husband and sat while Nike chose to remain at her station, far enough from them that she could simply walk away from their ridiculous ideas.
"Nike, these men are part of a crime network that's much bigger than just kidnapping. Cybercrime, assassinations, drugs, all the terrible crimes you can imagine. The police aren't going to let them go. They're building a strong enough case to get them locked away for life as we speak and they need your story to help with that."
"Assassinations and drugs huh? I'm sure that's enough to put them away for a very long time. They don't need me for that."
"They might not." He agreed. "But an extra charge will help the cause and I want to see them pay for what they did to my daughter."
Nike turned to look at him then and saw the pain in his face. He looked tired and she knew he must be between running after criminals and his work for the government, he didn't have much time to rest. The strain was showing on his slim frame.
"Do you want them put away so badly that you'd ignore what this could do to me?" She asked gently.
Her father sighed as he leaned back on the couch. After a moment, he looked up again and glanced between his daughter and his wife.
"I could never ask you to do anything you're not at peace with. I understand if you don't want to press charges. We'll do as you say."
Nike let out a relived breath and managed a shaky smile.
"Thank you daddy."
Her attention was drawn back by her mother leaving the room angrily and she turned to her father helplessly.
"What does she want from me? I don't want to do this. You agree with me right?"
Her father sighed heavily and patted the spot next to him, telling her to sit. When she did, he took her hand in his and drew her close so that her head rested against his chest. The move gave her more comfort than she would like to admit and the steady sound of her father's heart calmed her.
"Your mother is a complicated person. You're right to take a stand because I understand what a toll this entire situation has had on you but you have to remember it's been hard on all of us. Each of us felt it differently and for your mother, it was terror that her child would never return. I don't blame her for wanting justice for you, for all of us. It's the least her heart will allow her to settle for."
Nike sighed but kept quiet as her father stroked her head. They remained silent for a while, both lost in their thoughts.
"Do you really think I should do this?" She asked much later.
Her father smiled and said to her, "I do but regardless of what you decide, I'll stand by you."
She nodded and got up to leave, only hesitating at the door.
"I'll need some time to think. Is that okay?"
"Take your time my dear."
        That night, Nike slept fitfully. She spent the night half awake and jerking at every sound in the dark and got up the next morning tired and cranky.
She ignored the banging on her door when her sister came to get her for church as well as her father's inquiries about her safety and didn't push the covers back till she was sure they were gone.
Down in the kitchen, she drank strong coffee and sat at the table pressing her forehead to it's cool surface. In the absence of other people, the house had become so still that she had no choice but to pay attention to the churning sensation in her stomach.
Perhaps, she thought ruefully, see should have gone with her family to church then she thought about having to put on a brave face and smile for strangers and decided she was better off alone at home.
With breakfast out of the question, Nike took her time in the bathroom leaning against the cold tile wall as even colder water beat down on her, replaying the conversation from the night before in her head.
She almost fainted with fright when the inverter kicked on as the power went out.
"Stop scaring yourself." She muttered by way of encouragement to herself and went to lie in bed wishing the knot in her stomach would loosen. It didn't. It stayed wound all through the day and week and didn't change until on Wednesday evening, she told her parents she'd decided to file charges as they wanted.
Her father had given her a sympathetic smile and encouragement while her mother, more prone to keeping malice just hissed and muttered unintelligibly to herself.
For the rest of the week, Nike lived in anxiety, constantly looking over her shoulder as if her worst nightmares would pop up. Sleep went out the window and she couldn't stand to look at food much less eat with how scared she was.
When the time finally came to speak to the detectives about her experience, she was so jittery that they had to stop several times to give her time to collect herself but despite her fear, she wanted to get it all done as quickly as possible so she didn't have to return unless absolutely necessary.
"So you're saying you don't know how many men were there?"
The detective asked. To his credit, he was incredibly patient and hadn't yet lost his temper with his wreck of a witness. Nike supposed the incentive of bringing down a network of criminals as notorious as the ones in question was enough.
"There were a few of them. I don't remember exactly how many."
"Can you try to give me a head count?" He tried. Nike nodded and tried to look past her fear to remember.
"Well, there were two of them at the mall that day and another four men or so would come and go from the house after."
The detective nodded vigorously and scribbled on a notepad he carried despite the entire conversation being recorded.
"You mentioned one person staying at the house with you. What can you tell me about him?"
Nike looked at the policeman, either his pen poised above the paper, ready to condemn the only person who'd helped her while she'd been captive and knew she couldn't give him up.
He'd protected her and kept her company. For all she knew he'd been forced into doing what he did, after all he was nothing like the others at all.
"Anything at all?" The detective prompted which jolted her out of her thoughts.
"Um... no. I'm sorry, it's all very fuzzy. I don't remember much."
"I know this is hard for you but anything you can give me is helpful, so please try."
Realizing she would have to give him something, she began in a shaky tone to paint as different a picture from her protector as she could to him.
"Um.. he was tall, much taller than me and skinny. He had this ring that he always wore, it had an animal head on it."
That part was true, he did wear a ring with a signet but she doubted a piece of jewelry would lead them right to him.
"Any distinguishing features you can think of? Maybe a tattoo or a scar?"
She remembered something, a scar on his back. She suspected it came from a blade of some sort from the white slash that marked his lower back but she shook her head anyway.
"No. Nothing like that." She answered.
She answered a few more questions then left with her parents after the police told them they would be in contact.
Nike hoped they wouldn't.
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Hola amigos! Another chapter for your pleasure. Please ignore my Spanish, Duo is in my emails crying for attention so you can't blame me. Please comment and vote if you enjoyed this chapter and let me know if you think they'll catch "TJ".