Halley
I knew Jake had his meeting with the Devil's Route that day, when he was going to tell them about our engagement. When I heard a knock on the front door, I expected it was him, coming to tell me how things had played out.
Cole was in the kitchen with me — we were baking chocolate chip cookies, all put together from scratch. “Can you keep stirring this just like that for a minute?” I asked him, even though I knew that was probably a recipe for the bowl of batter falling down on the floor and going everywhere. But my parents weren't home at the moment; they'd taken a weekend trip to their beach house, so there wasn't anyone else who could supervise him, and I wasn't about to make him come to the front door while I signed for a package. If anything happened to the batter, we would just make another batch. We had plenty of time.
“Okay!” Cole said enthusiastically, continuing to stir, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth as he focused on it.
I walked to the front door and pulled it open, trying to remember if Mom had said anything about having things delivered to her or something like that. I couldn't remember anything, but that didn't mean something hadn't just slipped her mind.
I practically choked on air when I saw Brian standing there.
He wasn't the sexy, clean-cut man who I had fallen in love with. His beard was a little too scruffy, and his hair was limp and dull. His face was gaunt; he probably hadn't been feeding himself well now that he had to take care of himself again and couldn't just order me to have something ready for him when he came home from work. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked half-mad. And he stank of vodka.
“You little bitch,” he snarled, striding forwards and forcing me back into the hallway before I could slam the door shut, before I could even move, stunned as I was. “You think you can just run off one day, and I'm not going to come find you? Thanks for serving me the divorce papers. As soon as I saw the address on them, I knew you must be back here. You dumb cunt.”
I cowered back against the wall, curling in on myself. “Brian, please,” I whimpered, hoping that Cole would stay out in the kitchen. The house was big enough that he probably wouldn't be able to hear us from there, but if he came out here…
Brian slapped me hard across the face, and I collapsed to the floor, crying out in pain.
“Please, Brian,” I repeated. “Cole's just in the other room; let's not—”
Brian hauled me up by my hair, putting his face in close to mine. “Good,” he said. “That'll make it easy to take him with me once I've finished with you.” He grinned sharply. “It's not kidnapping if you left the kid in my care when you came out here, which is what we'll tell the jury when we go in for our custody battle, isn't it, sweetheart?”
He hit me again, and when he released my hair, I fell to my knees, cracking them hard on the linoleum. I fumbled in my pocket for anything I could use as a weapon against him, but all I could find was my phone. As much as I'd like to call Jake, there was no way Brian was going to let me do that.
Brian kicked me in the stomach, and I folded forwards, coughing.
That was, of course, when Cole came into the kitchen. “Mama!” he cried out, running towards me.
“Hey, Cole,” Brian said, scooping the kid up. “Haven't you missed your papa?”
Cole struggled against him. “Is Mama okay?” he asked fearfully.
“Your mama is just fine,” Brian said impatiently. “But we're going to have to leave her for right now while we go on back to Louisiana to see Grandma and Grandpa.”
“No!” Cole cried.
I used Brian's distraction to pull out my phone, opening the dialer to the last person called and putting out another call. Then, before Brian could realize I had done it, I jammed my phone back into my pocket, praying that Jake picked up.
Brian had put Cole back on the floor, clearly sick of the way the kid was squirming and struggling against him, but he kept a firm hold on the kid's wrist, tight enough that it would probably bruise.
I narrowed my eyes at that grip and launched myself at Brian, who had no choice but to let Cole go. “You bastard,” I spat, trying to claw him. “Leave Cole alone! Fight me if you want to. I'm the one who—” The rest of what I was planning to say was cut off as Brian swung a fist around again and slammed it into my jaw.
I fell back against the wall, tasting blood.
Cole crawled over to my side, curling into the dubious safety of my arms. “Mama,” he sobbed, his fingers tightly twisted in my shirt. “Mama, why is Papa being so mean?” he asked. “I don't want to go away from you. I want to stay here, with you and Jake and—”
“Who the hell is Jake?” Brian snarled, towering over us.
The door suddenly swung open. “I am,” Jake growled.
He hauled Brian away from us, his hands strong and sure. He yanked Brian out the front door. I could hear the two of them yelling at one another, but I could barely process what they were saying.
“Are you okay, baby?” I asked Cole over and over again, running my hands over him, examining his wrist.
He nodded, though, and that eased something in my chest. He was still crying, but he was all right. We were going to be all right.
Suddenly—or at least, it felt sudden, but my sense of time was feeling totally skewed at the moment, as though everything was passing by in slow motion—I realized I couldn't hear the shouting anymore, and I jumped to my feet, terrified of what I might find outside.
Jake had Brian pinned down on the driveway, and he was raining punches down on the man.
Before I could see more, cop cars were swarming out of nowhere, with policemen streaming out of the cars and surrounding the two men.
“Mama, what's happening with Mr. Jake?” Cole asked, sounding scared as he clung to my jeans.
I watched white-faced, unable to respond as Jake was handcuffed and dragged to a cop car. An ambulance showed up to that Brian away, but I could barely spare a thought for him. Jake, my love and my only hope for salvation, was being arrested.
I swallowed hard, putting an arm around Cole's shoulder and pulling him closer to me, using that contact to try to ground myself.
Jake shot his eyes towards me as they pushed him into the cop car, and I began to cry.