“But Judah’s in your AP Computer Science class. He might know how to break into digital files, unsubmit the real file, submit a new file, and no one would ever know,” Elyxandre surmised.
“Yes. In fact, our teacher actually gave us an assignment to try and break into encrypted files he created in a dummy cloud storage. It’s an annual assignment. The first person to do it got an exam exemption, so we competed hard for that. Judah won.”
“Which means he could have been responsible for swapping Ryker’s essay without anyone noticing, as well as hacking the school’s social media account. He could have easily broken into Lucas’ calendar and changed the appointment time with Dr. Sealy to lead him into a trap.” Elyxandre paused. “What about all the damage at my house?” she asked.
“Judah’s pretty handy. His dad is a construction contractor. He might have known how to create a leak or destroy your air-conditioning unit.”
“Doesn’t make sense. Some things happened long before the raid punishments. Although, he could have been responsible for the flooding in the girls’ locker room.”
“Yes. And ripping up plants doesn’t take a lot of sophistication.”
“Jesus,” Quint mumbled. “We’ve been going at this all wrong. But why snatch Kennedy? And Lucas? He was on Judah’s side. And what about the bruises on Kennedy? You questioned her after the raid, and you said she had bruises on her. She denied they came from her father.”
“Right. She said she got them on the night of the raid from running around,” Elyxandre said. An epiphany hit. “Christ, they came from Judah! I’m so damn stupid. What if she told Judah to back off? She finally decides to break off their friendship, or whatever facsimile of a relationship they’re engaged in, because he’s become too controlling. He won’t take no for an answer, so she confesses to being in a relationship with Ryker. That might push him to the next level and become abusive.”
“But why wouldn’t she say anything to us?” Ezra asked. “She had to know we would help her. She’s our friend.”
She rubbed her permanently misshapen clavicle out of habit and association.
Elyxandre’s past flooded back. Her father had been a drunk and hooked on drugs. His wife had left, and Elyxandre was his convenient scapegoat.
She developed anorexia.
When he hurt her where people could see, which hadn’t been often at first, she stayed home, so she missed a lot of school.
Her grades slipped.
Tripoli had started dating her and gave her a safe refuge. Her friends tried to protect her. They brought her to their houses as much as possible, but they were only able to do so much. Back then, teens were often seen as melodramatic. Most of her parents’ friends didn’t want to acknowledge that the abuse she was suffering was even possible, or they didn’t believe their kids, or they didn’t want to get involved.
She didn’t blame them. He was a mean bastard, and her friends were just kids. Vulnerable. Even they could have been at risk. She didn’t want that for anyone.
She swallowed hard, and her voice started shaking. “People who’ve been abused often don’t tell their friends, partially because they worry no one will believe them. But more than that, they don’t want the people they love to get involved. Maybe get hurt themselves.”
In her mind, she saw herself on a cold January night of her senior year. Her father had been displeased with dinner that night, and his response was to dislocate her shoulder, her elbow, and break her clavicle.
Scared and in pain, she didn’t know what else to do, so she called Tripoli. He didn’t answer, but she sobbed through a message, begging him to call her and help her. He would tell her what to do. She could always count on Tripoli.
Two hours later, Panama knocked on her bedroom window. She took her to the hospital, where they claimed she’d been hit by a car and the driver had fled. Her friend lied for her, claiming they couldn’t tell anything about the car or the driver, so there was no way for them to trace the perpetrator.
Afterward, Panama checked her into a motel on the edge of town and hid out with her to help her through the early days of recovery.
Five days after her phone call to Tripoli, there was a knock at the door. When Panama opened it, there stood her other fourbest friends—Tripoli, Cosmos, Triumph, and Fereh. They were dressed head-to-toe in black, ski masks in hand, and they filed silently into the room one at a time. Tripoli was the last to enter, placing a soft kiss on her forehead, a silent promise that things were taken care of.
Tripoli had managed to sneak off base somehow and then stole a car from a nearby bar. When he arrived in town, the four of them broke into her father’s house in the middle of the night, dragged him from his bed, and took him to a piece of deserted land in the next county. They beat the shit out of her dad and left him there. It was the event that set most of them, except for Tripoli, who was already in the Navy, on the path to law enforcement jobs. A desire to protect others from being taken advantage of, as she had been.
Clearing her throat, her voice became a little stronger. “The abuser apologizes and appears filled with grief so that the victim believes it’s an aberration. They make excuses for whoever hurt them. They genuinely believe that it will never happen again, but then it does. Depending on how bad it is, the cycle continues until suddenly, they realize they are in an abusive relationship, and it’s difficult to leave because things might have progressed to a dangerous situation.”
After all her troubles with her father and finally getting free of him, frighteningly enough, she’d perpetuated the cycle by getting involved with Knox. He’d been hanging around the edges of her life, but when he heard about what her father had done, he promised Elyxandre he would be there to protect her. She wouldn’t need to bother her friends again.
Then he became a monster in his own right.
She never told anyone what he’d done to her. At first, she was afraid he’d lose his job if anyone found out. Her ex had manipulated her into that line of thinking.
When she managed to work through that, she was too embarrassed to confess what their relationship had become. She was a police officer. Why would she put up with treatment like that? She should be stronger than that.
After a while, when she was ready to tell someone because she’d moved from embarrassment to fear, the abuse had been going on for so long, she didn’t think anyone would believe her if she came forward. They would have asked the same question Ezra did. That was when she knew she had to get out. It wasn’t easy, but she managed it.
Both Quint and Ezra watched her closely, weighing what she had offered. Quint was the first to speak, his voice filled with a quiet rage. “Did your ex-husband hurt you, Elyxandre?”
