Bombshells ~ Complete

Chapter Fifty-Four: Broken Doll

Ariel's POV:

The police rushed in, guns waving and yelling for my father to put the weapon down and get on the floor. I blinked.

Jaydon...

The same boy I was so angry at in the beginning of all this, had just taken a very literal bullet for me.

Two or three EMT's rushed into the room, clutching bags and totting a stretcher behind them. Officer's cuffed my father and led him from the house, his pleas of innocence falling on deaf ears.

How could he be innocent?

He just shot my brother.

It was only when the rest of my brothers and my step-mother were being cut lose, did I realize that I was still laying on the floor. The tears had long dried on my face, leaving only their streaks of red as evidence of their existence. My whole body was still, no shaking, no trembling.

Was this shock?

An EMT tried to help me, but I batted his hands aside and watched with wide eyes as the other EMT's rushed my brother into an ambulance, shouting words to each other that I wasn't sure I wanted to understand.

An officer tried to restrain me when I fought the EMT, but I started screaming and hitting anything I could with flying fists. I didn't want any help!

Why couldn't they just go away and help someone who wanted it?

Help Lila, help Kade, help Jaydon. Help whoever the hell you want. Just don't touch me.

"...Mrs. Steel, please calm her down!" Someone shouted over my pained and frantic shrieks. I didn't want anyone shouting, please stop shouting. God, shouting just like my father did. Always like my father.

I was hyperventilating when I felt the sharp prick in my neck. I whimpered as everything went dark.

When I woke up, there was no one in the room. I didn't know why the feeling was disappointing. It just was.

"Ariel, sweetie, you're awake." Mia walked into the room, trying to stay as quiet as possible. I jolted up into a sitting position, memories hitting me one after the other. I started breathing heavily, my chest heaving with every breath I took. Mia laid a calming hand on my shoulder, but without even thinking, I flinched away from her.

She removed her hand quickly, something I was grateful for.

I didn't want to be touched by anyone.

"Jaydon?" I croaked. Mia gave a faint smile, just enough to reassure me.

"Perfectly fine. Missed all his major organs. He can leave in two days or so, they just wanna keep him around for observation." Mia told me, stepping closer to the machines I was hooked up to. She looked over my with sad eyes. That was when it really and truly hit me.

Everyone knew.

Everyone. Knew. Everything.

Oh God.

"Mia... What do they know?" I asked, tears already streaming down my face. Mia wiped a tear away with her thumb, ignoring my jerking back. I wanted to escape her touch, but it was so comforting and warm.

"Lila told me what happened. Your father made it pretty obvious that he killed your mother. You made it pretty obvious that this isn't the first time he's hurt you. Not to mention Jaydon told us the same thing when he woke up. Oh, your brothers were mad at that boy, but him being shot and all made them unable to do anything. That, and Jaydon told them what you told him. And then he told us." Mia explained, rushing to get all of the words out before I could even open my mouth to say anything.

Jaydon told?

Jaydon was awake?

The boys and Lila were at the hospital and not one of them was in here when I woke up.

Did they not want me anymore?

Once they realized my father was a monster, they must have decided that I wasn't worth the hassle anymore.

That I came with too many problems.

That I was nothing more than a broken doll.

"And... Him?" I asked. For some reason my throat closed up at the thought of my father. I had never had such a reaction before.

When I was growing up, I thought beating your wife and child was just the way things were. It took me going to my first sleepover to find out how wrong I was. By then, it was already too late. I was used to the pain and used to being afraid.

But I had never had such an intense reaction to thinking about my father before.

Perhaps it was because he had nearly killed someone incredibly close to my heart?

"In jail. They're holding him for kidnapping and attempted murder. They're hoping to get a bit more of a case on him, if you'd be willing to talk to the officers." Mia said, a small, vindictive smile gracing her lips when she spoke about my father's well deserved fate.

He deserved death. He deserved so much worse than death.

But prison would do until my father found his way into Hell.

"Not right now." I mumbled, rolling onto my side and away from the world. I looked at the white wall, but not really seeing it. Some people's vision focuses when they go through a tragedy. My vision tunneled.

"You'll need to talk to them eventually. They need to hear your side of the story." Mia whispered, trying not to disturb me anymore than I had already been disturbed. Her keeping quiet as to keep me calm was a sweet gesture, but her words made me angry.

I jolted up into a sitting position, brushing aside the pain radiating from my everywhere. The look I pinned her with had her stopped in her tracks.

"What side to the story? I'm just another attention seeker with a perfect, loving, charismatic, dotting father." I snapped, my teeth snapping together at the end of my sentence. Mia's face crumpled into something that resembled pain.

What pain did she feel?

The physical pain of a beating?

The mental pain of a beating?

The pain of no one believing you no matter how hard you try and make them?

The pain of knowing you're broken?

That pain? The same pain I suffer through every single minute of every single day of my life?

Perhaps I shouldn't have taken my anger out on Mia. Perhaps she shouldn't have said what she said. Maybe I should've just told her everything I knew, gotten everything out of the way. But I was stuck in my lies, stuck in the way I had lived for the last sixteen years.

I ignored Mia when she tried to speak to me, tried to comfort me with words and soothing phrases.

Didn't she know that there's no comforting a broken doll?