I want to stop her, tell her to take a fucking break and give Lucy some space, but Lucy seems determined to keep going. To pour everything out. Relieve herself of some of the pain of carrying this alone.
“Yes,” Lucy whispers as she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She hasn’t shed any tears yet, but I can feel them coming. Fuck, I want to cry for her. Her story would bring anyone to their fucking knees. Not in sympathy, but from feeling a slice of the pain that she describes piercing their heart.
“Whenever you’re ready,” the police woman says, a smile on her face that doesn’t quite reach her beady, dark eyes. I don’t know what to make of her, but if she is going to help my girl get that bastard locked away, then I don’t need to make anything of her. All that matters here is Lucy.
“The moment it started to get worse was when I was taking a bath. I was exhausted from the constant back and forth of Michael’s emotions. I couldn’t keep up. I wanted some peace, away from him, away from the hell that was my life. He was there as I got into the tub and closed my eyes, wishing that things could have been different, telling myself that I had to do better.
“It can’t have been more than a minute before I felt my head being pushed down, beneath the water. I hadn’t been prepared, I hadn’t taken a deep breath. I frantically tried to get him off me, my arms flailing, my legs kicking out. I remember thinking that it must have been my fault… I angered him, I wasn’t a good enough girlfriend, I kept doing things wrong… Until I stopped thinking, I stopped flailing and kicking, and I just lay still, waiting for death to rescue me.
“When I stopped, I guess Michael panicked and he pulled my head from under the water. I gasped for breath as he towered over me, and I remember thinking that I had been so close to being free from him, only for him to snatch it all away and bring me back to the nightmare that I was living in.
“He fell to his knees, told me he loved me, told me that he didn’t mean it before I told him to go away, and he left the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. I left the apartment shortly after and went to Cal’s.”
She stops talking and looks at me, my brave soldier. Fuck is she brave. I’ve never witnessed anything like it.
I already knew about the bath tub incident, but it still pains me to hear it again. But nothing prepared me for the next revelation as she detailed Michael handcuffing her to the bed.
My teeth grit together so hard that I’m surprised they don’t crack from the force.
Motherfucker.
“Do you have any evidence of these incidents?” the police woman says.
“There are some photos,” Lucy answers.
“Are we able to see them?”
Lucy looks to me. I have the photos, including the ones that Kim took. I’ve tortured myself by looking at them, knowing she was living in hell whilst trying to get as much evidence as she could to lock the monster in a cage.
“I’ve got them,” I say, and the police officer narrows her eyes my way.
“Where are they now?”
“At my house.”
“Which is where?” she asks.
I rattle off my address and she says that she would like me to accompany them, so that they can take the photos to the station.
“It’s okay, Cal, you go, I need to get some sleep anyway,” Lucy says, sensing my struggle to go and give the police what they need but at the same time battling my urge to stay here with her.
“I’ll come straight back,” I tell her.
“There’s no need. You go, get some rest, and I’ll call if the doctor says that I can leave.”
With a resigned sigh and a heavy heart, I stand up, waiting for the police officers to escort me out of here, like I’m the fucking criminal.
“We’ll be in touch, Lucy,” the police woman says before she walks to the door, the other officer following behind her.
“I’ll see you soon,” I say as I lean down and place a kiss on the top of Lucy’s head.
Time to go and make sure that we nail this bastard, and with any luck, they will throw away the fucking key.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The woman that I lost
Lucy
