(Continued from previous chapter)

I couldn't stop crying. I sat against the wall hugging my knees. Lin was sitting next to me.

"Are you ok?" He asked. "What did he do?"

"I don't know."

"Yeah you do. I know you do. It's ok, we don't need to talk about it."

"Ok." I let my head rest on his shoulder.

"Sweetheart." I looked up, a police officer was squatting in front of me, "we'd like to ask you some questions, we can give you a ride." He motioned to the cop car, sitting at the front of the alleyway.

"Ok, I'm not in trouble, am I?" I asked, standing up.

"Oh no, of course not." He reassured.

"I can come too right?" Lin stood up, along with me.

"Who are you? Like, to her." The officer asked.

"I'm her father." He replied.

"Oh, ok. You were the one who called this in right?" The officer said, walking both of us over to the car.

"Yeah."

"Alright. This shouldn't take long." He said, and the 2 of us sat in the back of the car.

"You realize you will have to tell them what happened right?" Lin whispered to me, and I nodded a bit, I pulled my phone out, if I texted him, there was no way the officer could hear me.

(I'm just nervous)

I sent the text, and his phone buzzed in his pocket, he pulled it out, and looked from the screen to me, confused, the started typing.

(I get that, but, at least it's over)

(Is it really over? Will it ever be over? I feel like I'm kind of just, you know, destined to always have someone chasing me.)

(It's over.)

I looked up at him, he had a sad look in his eye, which was trained on me.

(What do you think is going to happen?)

I asked.

(They're going to try him for physical abuse, he's going to lose, and he's going to go to juvie.)

(I don't want to go to court.)

(I know.)

After he sent that text, the car stopped in front of the NYPD station, and I awkwardly trailed in behind Lin and the police officer, Lin pestering the officer with the exact question I had just asked him, which was 'what was going to happen'

"It all depends on the severity." I heard his response, and my hand flew up to my neck, where I began to feel a bruise from earlier, I knew I was going to have a bruise on my cheek as well. My only question was, would this be considered severe? Or was he just going to be let off with a warning?

They had us wait in a little waiting area at the police station, and something suddenly occurred to me.

"Where is everyone?" I asked, "they were all here earlier." As if to answer my question Pippa walked out of a room, with a clipboard, and she handed it to a lady at a desk.

"Are you ok?" She walked over to us, and knelt in front of my chair.

"Yeah I'm fine. I'm ok. I'm just a little shaken up."

"Ok, ok, just, remember, we love you."

"Wait, why are you here?" I asked.

"Oh, we all had to give our statement, everyone else should be out soon. I'll see you later." She turned to Lin, "and I'll see you tonight." With that she left.

Everyone else who was out earlier turned in a similar clipboard. 5 minutes after they had all turned in their statements, 2 familiar faces came through the door.

"WHERE THE CRAP IS OUR SON?!" Mr. Walter yelled as he slammed the door behind him. "Oh, you, I knew you would be behind
this." He came up to me, and Lin grabbed my shoulder a bit, I don't know why. "Oh, I'm so sorry about her." He directed this at Lin.

"Excuse me?" Lin asked.

"How far are you in this? 3-4 months?" He sat down next to Lin.

"Um, excuse you?" Lin asked

"Either way you're about halfway done, she's a handful, trust me life will get a lot easier, once she's gone."

"Shut up."

"Woah. Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, I was just letting you know, I've been where you are, fostering her is tough."

"I'm not fostering her." Lin glared at him.

"Oh, sorry, I just thought, because you were sitting together."

"She's my kid. I adopted."

"Well, I didn't see that one coming. To each his own, now, from one dad to another, you may want to consider feeding her less, she's a little chubby."

"Go. Your son did enough, I don't need you ruining her as well, just go."

"Alright man. Sorry. And by the way, my son did nothing wrong." He stood up, and walked away.

"Agree to disagree." Lin muttered. Sooner or later a lady came up to us and asked us to follow her. She brought us into a room with 2 detectives.

"Hello." I said, and waved awkwardly.

"Hi Abigail, can you sit down?" One of the detectives, a blonde asked, I nodded and then sat. "Ok, we're gonna need you to basically, recap what happened earlier today, just so we can get a clear view of everything. And sir," she looked to Lin, "could you step out for this?"

"Yeah," he stood up, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "you'll be ok Niñita." Then left.

"Alright. Can you start from when you first made contact with Nicolas?" She asked.

"Yeah, so, um, I was in front of the Ambassador Theatre, and he sat next to me, I politely asked him to go away, as this has occurred before, and he refused, I stood up to leave, and he forced me into an alleyway and backed me into a wall, from there I felt threatened and, um, kneed him in the groin." I looked at my lap, "then, I made a run for it, he caught up with me, picked me up, brought me back, and threw me back on the ground, and, kind of, jumped on me. That's when he, um," I rubbed the back of my neck. I didn't want to say the next part, I didn't want to hear myself say it. "Um... He"

"It's ok." The blonde put her hand on mine, on the table.

"I can't say it." I choked out, now I was crying again, great.

"It's ok. I think we get what you meant." She turned to her partner and he nodded.

"Anyways, I screamed and then he punched me in the throat, I couldn't breathe for about a minute, he was sorta just glaring me down, once I caught my breath. Um, after that, Lin came, I'm pretty sure he shoved him off of me, I'm not positive, I couldn't see, but, anyways, he pulled me up, told me to stay behind him. Lin took 2 punches for me, one had him doubled over, which is when Nick grabbed me and shoved me back against the wall, and um, punched me in the face," I gestured to the developing bruise on my cheek, "from there, the police showed up." I shrugged a bit, to show that I had finished.

"Thank you so much. Also, Miss Miranda, we're so sorry, and we will be doing everything in our power to make sure that never happens again, to you, or to anyone else." She smiled at me, "you can send your dad in on your way out." She gestured to the door.

TBC

Thanks for reading!

- Abi