Dani

 

 

 

“Here, sweetheart.” The female police officer hands me a styrofoam cup filled with coffee, then she leaves the room.

I've been here for over an hour just waiting. My mind is all over the place. I didn't mean to do what I did, but I didn't see any other way to make it all stop. He was going to kill me, what was I supposed to do? Stand there and let him slit my throat?

Believe me, he would have done it. He'd come to the end of his rope and he wanted to hang me with him. Slit my throat anyway.

“Dani.” I swallow hard. Sheriff Harper just walked through the door with his Deputy, Freddy, my friend.

Both men take a seat at the table in front of me, notebooks open, pens poised. I have never been more terrified than I am right now, but I'm oddly at peace at the same time.

“I'm sorry we've kept you waiting, Danika, but there has been a lot to deal with.” The Sheriff tells me. He leans forward in his seat, arms on the table, a kind smile on his face. “How are you holding up?”

I shrug. “I don't know what I'm supposed to be thinking or feeling.”

“A natural reaction.” I wouldn't know, I've never killed anybody before. “Let's get started. The sooner we do, the sooner we'll be finished.”

I nod my head. It's not like I have much choice in the matter. I want to get this over with so I can go home and see my little boy. If I get to go home. Even if I never go home again after what I did, I'll at least know Alex will be safe, and so will Dean, safe with Greg. That's the only thing I will ask of the man I love, to take Alex and love him alongside Dean. I want Greg to be a father to Alex, to tell him every day how much his mommy loves him.

“Can you tell us what happened?”

I nod slowly and begin to tell them the story of what happened earlier today. I make sure to tell them how Joel turned up on my doorstep, how I was on my way to find Greg when the face I saw when I opened the door was my ex-husbands.

I tell them everything he said to me before I walked away from him, stupidly turning my back on him. The knife to my throat, the fear Joel put into me in that moment.

“He told me that I had to die for what I'd done.” I swallow a gulp of the now cold coffee, anything to ease this dryness in my mouth. “He was angry because he thought I'd managed to find out where he'd been keeping my son and steal him back.”

I'm finding it a little hard to breathe. I'm trying so hard to keep it together, but I killed someone today, how am I supposed to process that? I'm no coldblooded killer, I'm just a girl who's been trying to save her own life for more years than I care to count.

“I didn't mean for it to happen, Keller.” I wipe the tears from my eyes that have defied me and fallen.

“Dani,” I look up at Freddy, he smiles softly, kindly. “We know how difficult this is for you right now, and we're sorry we had to keep you waiting, but we need you to tell us in as much detail as you possibly can what happened.”

I close my eyes and breathe deeply. I have to hold it together, I cannot break right now. There will be plenty of time for that once these officers are done with me.

“The knife was digging into my throat.” I touch the long mark on my neck where the knife almost cut me. It left a red welt behind. I don't think it will scar, but it bled a little. “I hadn't planned anything, I swear, but I wasn't ready to die. I'd been married to Joel long enough to know that he had no intention of letting me live today. He wanted me dead by any means possible. He would have killed me, I have no doubt about that.”

I'm having a moment. I don't know how I'm not dead. Joel's one-second hesitation is the only reason I'm alive right now.

“I knew I had to fight back. I had to make him stop. I brought my head forward as much as I could without slitting my own throat, that's how I got the marks, and then I slammed it back into his face as hard as I could. He clutched his nose, which gave me the chance to run from him. But he threw the knife in my direction. It flew by me, jamming into the wall beside my head. It missed me by mere inches.”

I take a deep breath and blow it out through my lips slowly. My head is pounding, my heart is finally slowing down, but my stomach aches something chronic. I think the shock is starting to wear off.

“I grabbed the knife as he ran towards me. He grabbed the back of my neck, and I knew that he'd slam my head against the wall if he got the chance. If he managed to get the upper hand, I wouldn't have lived very long. I don't know why, but he hesitated for a second. A second is all it took for me to twist in his arms and jam the knife into his stomach. I still had the knife in my hand when he pulled away from me. He looked down and touched his stomach. Then he looked at me with such evil in his eyes. He was laughing and telling me how he was going to kill me in the worst way, mangle my body and face so Greg would never be able to identify me, then he was going to find my son and kill him, cut him into tiny pieces and send his body parts all over the county.”

This time, I do cry. Those words he spoke about killing Alex will always haunt me. I'll never forget the evil in his voice as he spoke. There was no good inside of that man, no one little drop. He was the devil in human form.

I don't know what happened in his life to make him the way he turned out, but I do know that even God couldn't have saved his black soul.

“All I could think about was Joel walking away after he'd killed me and finding my little boy and doing those awful things to him. Because I knew he meant what he said. He would have done the worst things to my son just to make me pay for what I'd done to him. Even dead he'd make me pay. He said that I may not have been alive to witness Alex's death, but even in my own I would find no peace knowing he'd slaughtered my son.”

“You're doing great, Dani. Keep going.”

I rub my forehead to try and ease the pressure. “I'm so tired, Keller. Can we do this tomorrow?” I'm bone tired. Everything that's happened today has really taken a toll on me.

“We need to get this over with now, sweetheart. I can't let you go home until we have all the information we need to get this sorted. We need all the facts while they're still fresh in your mind. It's easy to forget important detail if enough time elapses.”

“I didn't kill him just for the sake of it. I killed him because he would have killed me first!”

“We understand, Dani. But this really is important.” Freddy smiles again. He's always giving people that smile that means he's easy to trust.

I sigh but nod my head to let them know I'll continue. “He grabbed my throat and pinned me to the wall. He went for the knife, but I held tight, kicked out at him. He smacked me across the face. I stumbled, but I didn't fall. But he did to his knees. He was bleeding bad from the wound in his stomach. I don't know what I was thinking.” I gulp back a sob. “He was taunting me. Telling me that I didn't have the guts, I wasn't strong enough, was weak that's why he'd always get the upper hand. I couldn't take anymore. It had to end. I had to make him stop. I just wanted to be free.”

I clasp my hands over my eyes and sob. I didn't think about the repercussions that would come after killing Joel. I hadn't even meant to kill him, I just wanted him to shut up. I didn't want to be his punch bag, sex slave anymore. I wanted my son safe. I was sick of running and hiding from the man I should never have been with, to begin with.

I can't change the past and the choices I made, I can only move forward. But right now, my future is so uncertain. I could end up in prison if the DA doesn't believe I acted out of self-defense. I'm not sure how he can't when it's well documented the kind of man Joel Scott was and the hell he's put me through over the years. Freddy also took pictures of my injuries. They'll coincide with my story of how I had to fight Joel off. But I did kill him, I can't deny that.

“Am I going to jail?” I ask while looking up at Keller, the kind man I had hoped one day to be my father-in-law.

“No, Dani. Not if I have anything to do with it. I doubt there's anyone out there who will give a damn that that man is dead. He was a monster who tormented you for years, beat, raped, and sold you. He stole your son after hunting you down again. He came to you today with intention of killing you.”

“But I killed him.”

“Yes, you did. But you did it in order to save yourself and your son, Dani.”

“I should have run. I should have called you. He would have gone to prison.”

“For a very long time,” Freddy tells me. “We had enough information to put him away for the rest of his life. But I think you know as well as I do that if you hadn't have done what you did earlier today, he would have killed you. He would have gotten exactly what he wanted. Once he had, he would have gone looking for your son and he wouldn't have given up until he found him and made good on his promise.”

I fully believe that. Joel was just that kind of bastard. Even with me dead, he would have hunted my son and killed him too. Even in death, he wouldn't've stopped trying to ruin everyone connected to me. Not just my son, but my brother, Greg, my friends. Everyone would have suffered, so did I really do the wrong thing in ending his life?

He was the worst kind of monster. He killed more people than I could ever count. He ruined, even more, lives with the things he did. Not just the girl's he kidnapped, broke in, then sold off, but their families and friends. If anybody deserved death it was Joel Scott.

I will never rid myself of the visions I will see every time I close my eyes, visions of his wide eyes as I thrust that knife into his body over and over again, screaming out my rage. But I know that I'll go on living. I will because I'm finally free.

Free.

Means different things to different people. It won't matter if I'm in prison for the rest of my life because I will be free inside my heart and mind. I'll be able to breathe easy because the monster that has ruled my life for the past decade is finally gone.

I've saved more people than just myself. I've saved the lives of any and all girl's Joel had planned to kidnap and sell for sex as slaves to rich men. And maybe, just maybe those memory sticks Hudson and Maya had possession of hold the key to finding more women alive. Maybe they'll be able to come home to their families.

If they are found and brought home, they'll need a lot of help and therapy to get over the hell Joel and his men put them through. But I have faith that they'll go on to live full and happy lives. Or at least, that's my hope.

And if I somehow get out of this, I'll do anything I can to help those women and girls who are found alive.

I want a place they can come and talk about what they've been through. I don't know, some kind of help center for victims of Joel's abuse. We could counsel them, help them find jobs, find some kind of peace inside of themselves. We could talk about our experiences.

They say talking helps.

I know it helped when I finally let it all out. I was able to move forward as much as I could with Joel still trying to kill me every chance he got.

“Are we done now? I need to see Greg, I need to tell him what happened.”

“He knows what happened, Dani. He's waiting right outside with Kory and Daxton.”

Daxton. I'd been such a bitch to him when he finally arrived at my house to find me covered in Joel's blood. I screamed how he'd let me down, he hadn't gotten to me quick enough. He yelled how it was the bodyguards he and Greg had hired to protect me that had let me down. They hadn't noticed Joel even walk the steps to my front door.

I shouldn't have been so hard on my brother, it wasn't his fault. Joel looked so different from the man he used to be. I doubt anyone would have recognized him from the pictures they'd all seen.

Daxton had grabbed my face as I sat on the floor of my hallway. He told me that it was over, Joel was really gone, I was free.

I blink and tears fall from my eyes.

Greg's right outside this room waiting for me.

I don't know what he's been told, but I'm assuming it's everything. Or at least what the cops know. But I want him to hold me. I need to feel his arms around me. He's the only thing that seems real to me right now. He grounds me and keeps me centered.

Plus, I want him to know that our sons can come home!

I'm frightened that this will end badly for me.

But as long as I know my son will be loved and cared for, I know I'll be okay.