Barn and Beyond

Chapter 3:

When Gabriel gestured my door had been broken into, I knew it was Liam, he had come to finish me, wanting me silenced. I somehow knew he was worried that I will tell he is gay more than worrying about being arrested and going to jail. He would have killed me after Yuri was done but Rusty and Gabriel saved me. He had saved me and now offering me a place to stay. I was scared to come back home and be lonely, I was living alone once Dad was completely hospitalised but now I knew the difference between being alone and being lonely. As we walked down the stairs, I noticed Gabriel had a slight limp, not pronounced but it was part of his stride. He was like one of those good looking

Privates they show on social media short videos. Tall, white, muscular, angular face, green eyes, sharp nose and toothy smile.

We waited in the car and for the first time I talked to him since the hospital. "It's Liam, he has come to kill me. He sexually abused me for 4 years and yesterday he got what he wanted. He raped me and would have killed me yesterday but you and Rusty stopped him. He has come back to finish me, I don't know what I have done to him but I know it's Liam and he will not stop looking till either he is arrested or he kills me".

"Or I get to him first" Gabriel added without too much emotion, just a statement, like he was just pointing the obvious. I kept quiet after that.

Detective Hale came with a couple of officers and checked the house. Someone had gotten in and trashed it. "I WILL KILL YOU FAG" was spray painted around the house, the last one incomplete "I WI" it said outside my room.

I wasn't sure how this worked now, how do I get in touch with the insurance people, was I eligible and where to find the documents? I went to my room and found my school bag. Gabriel helped me stuff my clothes in it and a garbage bag, which wasn't much. I threw in my tooth brush and my coconut scented head to toe body wash bottles which I have been using since childhood. I retrieved the cookie box of cash I had saved and gave to Gabriel. Finally I picked up a framed picture of my Dad and me taken 4 years back on Christmas, both happy and smiling.

As I left the house, I looked back at it and then at Gabriel holding a school bag, a garbage bag full of clothes and a cookie box with loose cash. This was my 19 years in this house, where I was happy till my Dad got sick, a simple but loving elementary teacher, who was first left alone by my mother and then slowly killed by cancer. I looked at the picture in my hand and thought, No this was my 19 years here, me and dad and the times we were so happy.

I walked to the car and took my stuff from Gabriel putting it in the backseat with his jacket, noticing stains on it and making a mental note to wash it. I sat clutching the box and the picture till we reached the barn.

As we took a turn to his road leading to the barn, panic started to burn slowly in the pit of my stomach. The area was familiar, looking much scarier in the dark when I was here last but recognisable even at daylight. We took a turn to the private road to the barn with the sign, "PETERSON FARMS", my body reacted as soon as I recognised this sign, I started shutting down, the first persons visions of that night coming back to me in waves. Gabriel stopped the car and took my stuff and the jacket from the back seat but I kept rooted to my seat. He opened the door, unbuckled my seat belt for me and I tried to get down but couldn't.

"Sky?"

I got down and walked a few steps and then my knees gave away and I sat down on the ground, a fresh wave of pain emitting from the stiches but I welcomed it.

"You Okay?" Gabriel touched me and reminding me of being touched by Liam and Yuri, I recoiled and dragged myself backwards, till my back touched the side fence still holding on to the frame and box, the pain from my stiches mounting as I dragged it across the ground.

"Sky, what's wrong?" this time he didn't touch me and then I started to cry. My father, the abuse, the rape, the attack on my house and been left lonely too much for me to handle.