The Ones Who Failed Us

Chapter 14

I grabbed Teddy's hand and stormed upstairs to my room. After locking my door, I turned to Teddy who was shaking uncontrollably. I gently picked him up and sat him down on the bed next to me and ran my fingers through his hair.

"Teddy, you're safe now. Everything is going to be okay," I tried to reassure. "I locked the door so no one can come in. The twins can't come in and neither can the rest of our brothers."

I held Teddy close to me and placed small kisses on the top of his head until his shaking stopped. Teddy moved out of my touch, and I asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Teddy turned away from me and laid down on the bed. I tried turning him towards me, but it was like he had completely shut down and reverted to his behavior when we were still living with Sir.

Sir's motto was that children should be seen, not heard, and to drill this into our heads, he would beat me whenever Teddy or I talked in his presence. Sir's favorite punishment for Teddy was to tie him up and force him to watch me being beaten. To protect me to the best of his ability, Teddy would refuse to talk whenever we were in that house, even if Sir wasn't home. I had informally diagnosed him with selective mutism.

When the twin's put their hands on me, it showed both of us of how dangerous Matteo and Emilio can be. They weren't any different than Sir and that meant we needed to be extra careful of what we did in the future. It was my duty to protect Teddy with all I have, and I will do that until either the day I die or he finds me.

Alessandro, Elijah, and Leo would definitely make the twins apologize for tonight, but it would just be a half-hearted apology. I had heard too many of those in my lifetime to believe another one, especially an apology from two people who had tormented Teddy and I without even understanding who we are and what we had gone through. There was no way I would accept two half-assed apologies again.

Someone suddenly knocked on the door and tried opening the door, but was stopped by the lock. "Hey, Aves? Teddy? It's Leo. You guys okay? I brought pizza, and I also have your antibiotics, Ava."

I glanced at Teddy who had fallen asleep. I really didn't want to talk to anyone, but I needed to take my medicine. The pity party could wait for now.

I started walking towards the door when I remembered the pizza that Emilio had rubbed all over my face. After quickly washing my face, I went to my door, opened it, and was met by Leo. "Hi, Tesoro. I brought some food for you and Teddy as well as your antibiotics. Do you two want to come downstairs? Alessandro and Elijah are home."

I shook my head, grabbed the food and antibiotics from Leo, and said, "I'll see you tomorrow at breakfast," before shutting the door.

I walked over to my bed and ate a slice of pizza. My appetite had completely disappeared, but I couldn't take the antibiotics on an empty stomach. Once I finished eating, I dry swallowed the pills and laid down next to Teddy.

There was no way I would be sleeping tonight, and even if I did sleep, I would soon be awaken by nightmares of him. Although I never scream during nightmares, I would need comfort from Teddy, and he wasn't in the headspace to provide that. He had already done too much for me these past four years, and my little brother deserved a childhood where he could rely on me for comfort, not be the one comforting me. That was my job as his big sister.

I spent the night thinking of what I could do to alleviate Teddy's worries, but deep down, I knew that the emotions Teddy had shown last night were an accumulation of everything traumatic he had ever experienced. The only thing that could help Teddy was therapy and a whole lot of it. Even if we did decide to go to therapy, there was so much of our past life that we couldn't divulge to our brothers or any therapist unless we wanted him to find us.