The Bad and The Broken

Chapter 32

*** EDITED ***

Dawn's POV

I stare at the papers, confused about what they are.

"Name: Keith Little
DOB: August 21,1982

Crimes committed: physical assault, robbery/ theft, destruction of property, trespassing... " and the list goes on.

I look at the second paper.

"Name: Joseph Galdwell
DOB: June 12, 1929

Crimes committed: robbery/theft, possession of drugs, DUI, sexual assault-" I stop reading.

What are these? Why does Jim have them? What does he need them for? How did he get them? Who are these people?

Questions flood my mind as a quickly ski!m through three more of these papers on different people.

These people are criminals. Really bad ones.

I look at the last one, and was about to read it, but father interrupted me.

"Dawn! Hurry up dammit!" He yells, coming outside.

I gather papers into a messy stack, and scurry to him.

I hand him the papers, and he eyes me carefully.

He grabs my arm in a tight, firm grip and drags me inside, slamming the door behind him.

He throws my on the ground, and made sure to step on my wrist as he walks past me. He puts all of his weight on the foot crippling my wrist, making me wince.

When he's gone, I get up, cradling my wrist, and go to the kitchen.

I get an ice pack from the freezer, and go up the stairs to my room.

"That took a little while. Area you okay?" Jesse asks.

I go to the bathroom and get a rag from under my sink, wrapping the ice pack in it.

"Yeah. He asked me to get papers from his truck," I say as a apply the ice pack to my wrist, "they were papers on criminals.." I trail thoughtfully.

"Criminals?"

"Yeah... One of them, I think his name was Joseph," I pause, trying to remember his name, "Galdwell! Yeah, Joseph Galdwell. He sexually assaulted someone." I say, feeling pity for the person he assaulted.

"Why would father need those?" He asks, furrowing his eyebrows.

"I don't know." I answer, looking at my slightly swollen wrist.

That's not going to look pretty tomorrow. Then again, what on my body does?

"Oh yeah, we need to go grocery shopping tomorrow," I tell Jesse, remembering our empty fridge and pantry.

"Okay. We should probably go to bed. We have school tomorrow," Jesse says, yawning.

******

"Quiet down!" The teacher yells, attempting to quiet all the talking, but wasn't able.

If anything, they just got louder.

I decide to put my head down, and try to ignore all the talking and yelling. It's starting to give me a headache.