Prologue

When Cat’s mum was tossed down the stairs, she could only hide. Her fragile 6 year old mind couldn’t comprehend the anger she could see in her fathers’ eyes. The hatred making them at least three shades darker than usual. He father had hit her mother before plenty of times. He had even hit her. But she had never seen it get this bad. Cat could feel the bad vibes running off him.

She was hiding behind the stairs looking at her mothers fragile, un moving form at the bottom of the stairs. Blood pounding in her ears. She didn’t dare run to get the phone to ring 999 like she knew she should. She didn’t want to end up in the same state. Her father didn’t know that she was there. And even her young self knew better than to change that. Eventually after what seemed like hours and not even a stir from her mother. Her father retreated. He left the house. He already stunk of ‘dirty beer’ As her mother always called it. And when he left, he went straight to the nearest bar.

Cat had no idea what to do. If she rang the police her father wouldn’t be pleased. But if somebody came, without her telling them to come it wouldn’t be her fault. In the end she relented, appealing to anybody walking by, or her neighbours that might hear her.

“Help!” She screamed it from the top of her lungs, using all of the energy she could find.

“Please!” Nobody was coming. She started to beg, as she realised that her mother hadn’t moved for at least ten minutes. She began to cry endlessly as a pain hit her heart.

“Mummy no! You can’t leave me! Help!” She screamed and cried as loud as she could until somebody would come. Still nobody came. Nobody. She screamed more and more, for hours until finally, by a stroke of luck somebody came. She had no clue who it was, but they shouted things like,

“Are you all right?” “what happened?” and “where’s the phone?” Cat couldn’t do or say anything. She was exhausted. She had screamed for hours. Her throat was roar, and her head pounding, blood rushed to her feet as black spots appeared in her vision, leaving her to collapse on top of her mother’s dead body.

1...

Boxes covered all of the floors in their new house. Cat’s father had wanted to start fresh. It had been 13 years since his wife’s death. His daughter looked just like her. He couldn’t help getting angry from time to time. When he looked at her all he saw was her mother with that other man. He’d hit her daily, he controlled her life. If it was up to him, she would live with him until he died. But as it was, he was planning to marry her off to some rich client. Being a business man, it was the easiest things to do. He was a lawyer, everything about him screamed, ‘you will always lose’ Well that’s what Cat thought anyway.

A new town, to start fresh. Well that’s what he thought. But that’s what he thought the last time as well. But this time, she had a feeling it would be better. She didn’t know why. It was just a feeling.

Cat and her Father didn’t go to church often, they only really went at holidays, like Christmas and Easter, but in this small town, everybody seemed to attend, so the best place to meet new potential clients as well as the rest of the town was to go to church. Not that Cat minded, not at all. It would give her a chance to meet people. If her father would allow it.

Father Waters finished his service by welcoming the new family. Harold and his daughter Caitria Frost, He asked them to stand up and they obliged. Well Mr. Frost stood up. Cat was on crutches, still from the last time he beat her. She still smiled and looked around. Her eyes caught a deep blue gaze as she travelled, the owner of that gaze was a man. He had thick raven black hair and full perfectly coloured lips that any girl would kill for. He had lot’s of muscle, his shoulders were bulky but lead to a taught waist. His lips turned up at the sides, when he caught her staring, and she instantly looked away, blushing a few shades. It was just lucky that her father didn’t see. She would have heard about it other wise. Well felt about it. Her eyes swam around the rest of the crowd, obverting them from the smirking man, she had ogled before.

As people began to leave the church, Father Waters called to the Frost’s to come as well as shouting for a ‘Dominic’ As a man, came into view, on his way to the front of the church where Cat was standing with Father Waters and her Father, she realised that ‘Dominic’ was the man she had been ogling earlier. She quickly busied herself, setting her crutches right.

“Oh! I am sorry sit down Caitria. I forgot.” Father Waters tried to help, but she shook her head saying,

“No it’s fine, it wont get any better if I don’t use it a little.” He nodded but then ‘Dominic’ said

“You should sit down, after a little though, or it will get worse.” Cat was about to say something along the lines of ‘what do you know’ when Father Waters said,

“Dominic here, is our towns doctor, I wanted to introduce you, because I thought that you had probably left you old physician. And by the looks of it, that pot, shouldn’t be on for too much longer.” Cat nodded, but her Father spoke first.

“Yes, that would be marvellous, will she need to book an appointment? Because I’m sure you’d like to have a look soon, to see if it’s all healing well.” Her fathers voice sickened her, the way he made everybody feel small. ‘Well maybe not everybody’ She thought as she looked to Dominic, He was by no means small. He towered above her and her father. Her being 5’8” and by no means small. Dominic must have stood at, at least 6’7” maybe bigger. He was massive. ‘But in a good way‘. Before she had chance to mentally scold herself, Dominic spoke to her.

“No you wont need an appointment. Actually, I haven’t got an appointment booked until noon, so you can come now, and I’ll get somebody to take you home afterwards?” Mr Frost, nodded his head and smiled,

“Yes that would be fine, is that okay with you Cat?” Cat was a little bit shocked at that, but answered with a stiff,

“Yes Father.” Before looking to Dominic

“That would be really helpful, thank you.” He nodded and ushered them out of the church. Her father said a ‘good bye’ and that he would see her later as Dominic opened the passenger side door for her and taking her crutches. The car wasn’t really a car. It was a pick up truck. A Mitsubishi Warrior to be precise, and Cat loved it.

2...

“So how did you brake it?” Dominic was the first to start conversation. Cat, visibly winced thinking about how her father had actually broken it, before answering, with a simple,

“I fell down the stairs.” Dominic, smiled, a little,

“Are you clumsy then?” Car smiled a bit at that, glad that he hadn’t seen the wince, but then gave a small laugh saying a truthful,

“I’m always getting hurt.” She didn’t like to lie, or tell the truth, so she just got it as close to the truth as possible.

“Well, don’t worry, if you ever get hurt and I can’t help you, the hospital’s not too far up the road.” Cat knew he was joking, but that kind of hit a soft spot. Her had always moved them near to a hospital, because he knew with out a doubt that Cat would end up there at some point or another. When Cat didn’t reply, Dominic took it as she was bored of the conversation. There was something about her that he couldn’t figure out. He was intrigued, not to mention getting harder by the second, with just her presence, getting to him. That never happened! She was beautiful though, she had blonde hair, that any man, would drool over, just wanting for their hands to be running through it. Then those gorgeous blue eyes, that were strangely a very similar colour to his own. She was really getting t him. Luckily they were at the surgery.

“Go and sit in the room that says Dr. D. Jackson, That’ me if you hadn’t figured out.” The smile that came with that comment made Cat smile, and a small laugh erupted Dr. Jackson rolled his eyes and said,

“I’ll be in, in a minute.”Truthfully he could have gone straight in there with her, but he decided that a better course of action would be to hide his obvious attraction to her, by taking a few minutes to calm down.

Cat was sat in the doctors office waiting for Dominic, wondering what he could be doing, she envisioned him changing his shirt, those taught muscles that she saw before, moving under his skin in her imagination. Suddenly she was snapped out of her imagination and was back in the room, with Dominic coming through the door.

“I’m just going to keep this short, and then I’ll try to find your folder, and get it from your old doctor.” Cat nodded her head as she struggled to get her leg with the pot up onto the examination bed, so that Dominic could take a look. In the end, Dominic saw her struggles and helped her, he gently placed the pot on the table, noticing as she winced, when he held her shoulder to turn her around slightly. He ignored it thinking, ‘she fell down the stairs, she’s obviously going to have a few other injuries.’

As his hand travelled over the pot, he asked,

“How long have you had this on?” She thought about it before saying,

“About five and a half weeks.” Dominic nodded before asking another question,

“Was it a bad brake,” Cat looked to the pot on her ankle shaking her head,

“No, I don’t think so, you’d have to ask my doctor though.” Dominic nodded and started asking about her other doctor, Where he was, When the last time she had seen him etc… Then he typed something on his computer. Found the doctors name and sent a short email, explaining the predicament and that he needed Caitria Frost’s folder and information, before he shut it down and helped Cat of the examination bed, handing her, her crutches, so that he could take her home.

“I’ll take you home, and I’ll get in touch, when I have your folder, from what I can see, the pot should be off in about a week, maybe less.” She nodded saying thanks before getting in the passenger side of the Warrior giving her crutches to Dominic, and waiting for him to take her home, to her Father. She wished that it had taken longer, but sadly it had lasted less than 40 minutes, which meant, her Father wouldn’t have passed out yet. And that was bad.

3...

Dominic, just dropped her off outside her new house, but waited to make sure she got in okay, before driving away. That girl was really getting to him. He needed a cold shower.

Cat walked in to see that she was lucky. Her Father had already passed out on the sofa, which meant that she would be able to go to her room, and read, and not have to deal with his drunken, abusive behaviour. She didn’t have her mum any more. But she couldn’t remember what happened to her. All she knew is what her father told her, that she fell down the stairs and died. But Cat knew that there was a hell of a lot more to the story, she just couldn’t rack it out of her brain. It was horrible, a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, telling her that she knew more, it was just trapped and she had to search for the answers. But she wasn’t sure if she wanted the answers. She decided to just lay down and read a book, while enjoying a small amount of freedom while her Father snored on the sofa downstairs. 19 years old and still living with her dad, who controlled every part of her life. She had no money, because she was never given any, and even if she did, she had no where to go. It was something that she just couldn’t get out of.

She fell asleep, with a book on her chest, she hadn’t realised how tired moving had made her, that and trying to keep her breathing under control when she was around a certain doctor. ‘wink’ ‘wink’. She had absolutely no idea, if her was married, had a girl friend, or even if he ‘walked on the other side of the road’ But he was getting to her, and she had no idea how. Her Father would surely kill her if he found out. And she certainly didn’t want that. She decided that she would just have to learn to live with it.

She was woken a few hours later, by somebody bursting into her room. She opened her eyes to see her Father standing in the door way. Her had a bottle of some sort, in his hand and the other holding him up against the door frame.

“Make me some food, Cat! Now! Or I wont feed you.” She just about understood what he had said, because her was slurring so badly. Cat didn’t dare not do as she was told, because she knew that it wasn’t an empty threat and he would starve her. He had done it before. She passed out in school, and they thought that she had anorexia. That was not a pleasant experience and she didn’t want that to happen. She rushed down the stairs, as fast as she could on crutches and went to the fridge. She had made chilli only a few days a go, and hidden it at the back of the fridge for a case like this. She did that a lot, she made her life a hell of a lot easier by doing what she could when she could. She put the chilli in a pan and started to heat through it.

“What are you making me?” He dad, slurred/shouted through the door,

“Chilli dad, like the one you liked the other day!” She used a voice that she only used when her Father was around: Sickly sweet and fake.

“I don’t want your stupid chilli!” He stormed into the room, and barged passed her, knocking the pan of now hot chilli, all over her. On purpose. She screamed as it scolded and burnt her skin, tears streamed out of her eyes as she knew it was only a short bit off of her passing out. The chilli, had been about to be put on simmer as it went all over her, meaning it was boiling hot, and now all over her skin. Her Father just left the room and rang an ambulance, honestly not caring, that he had done it on purpose. When she heard her dad on the phone, she was crying, she was all screamed out. She was in a hell of a lot of pain and her Father didn’t care. She passed out, more likely from exhaustion than from the pain. In truth she had probably had worse.


When Cat opened her eyes, she just saw that she was in the hospital. She had woken up like this plenty of times and knew the gist. She tried to sit up, noticing that she had cooling jell bandages rapped around her torso and the top of her arms. A nurse came in, and smiled kindly at her.

“we had your pot taken off whilst you were here. So when we get those cooling aids off. I want you to be careful walking round, and you will still have to use your crutches. The hospital also called your doctor. So Dr Jackson is on his way. He’s going to take you to his surgery before he takes you home.” Cat nodded, not understanding why Dominic would come and pick her up.

“I’m going to get the doctor so that we can get those bandages off of you. And get some new ones on.” Again Cat nodded, wincing a bit as she sat up. Just then Dominic strolled into the room.

“You said that you were clumsy,” He started, “I didn’t actually believe you until now.” Cat actually laughed at that, but winced a little as her skin tugged,

“I talked to the doctor, your skin isn’t serious, but you should try not to test your limits, it will feel a little tight for a while.” Cat surprised herself by talking instead of nodding,

“Yeah, I can feel that. So I got my pot off.” Dominic laughed at the change of subject.

It wasn’t much longer before Cat’s bandages had been changed and she was being helped into Dominic’s Warrior on the way to the surgery.

“So why did you pick me up?” She asked innocently.

“Well your Father, is in France on a business trip, did you forget.” She knew that that was just a cover story. So she nodded and pretended to know.

“Oh! I forgot! Thanks for picking me up anyway.” She said to end the conversation. Dominic took the hint and drove a little faster, so that they could get to the surgery.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 13.08.2012

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Widmung:
To nobody in specific, this is just for everybody, who every gave me support or helped me, or even if you don't know me, just reading this book, finished or not, you are helping. That's what I want to thank you for.