Fighting Conviction by Greer Rivers

Chapter Two

Ellie shouldered open the heavy-duty metal clinic door. Wails coming from the medical room immediately bombarded her senses. She fought the panicked instinct to flee and instead ran toward the screeching.

The sight of the handsome, brooding redhead in a black T-shirt and jeans made her knees wobbly with relief. Whatever she’d barged in on was under control if Dev was there.

Ellie pressed a hand to her heart and willed it to slow as Dev methodically dabbed a patient’s cheek with gauze.

The woman looked exhausted, slumped over crosswise on the examination table with an ice pack against the other cheek. She seemed half awake, despite having a little girl in a green dress clutching her legs and screaming her lungs out.

Dev glanced up from his ministrations before gathering supplies from the counter. Raising his voice over the girl’s bawling, he introduced his patient. “This is Naomi.” He paused and indicated the child with a slight wave of his hand. “And this is Thea. Can you get her? I think she’s upset.”

Ellie held back a snort and relaxed at Dev’s unemotional delivery. It always set her at ease despite the circumstances. If he was freaking out then she’d have broken down right along with the child.

“Hi, Naomi.” Ellie lifted her hand in greeting and gestured to Thea. “Can I?” Ellie waited for the frazzled woman to give permission before approaching.

This was always a sensitive situation. Women who’d just escaped an abusive situation were still on high alert and extremely protective of their children, more so than usual. Putting the children first, even as their own wounds were being tended to, was their main priority. It was likely what drove them to the clinic in the first place.

At Naomi’s nod, Ellie tossed her backpack to the side of the room. She returned and bent low to gently peel Thea away from her mother.

“Shh, shh, shh… Thea? That’s your name, right? Thea… Can you look at me?”

Thea screeched louder and clung to Naomi’s jeans until Ellie kneeled to the ground and rubbed the girl’s back in small circles.

“Thee-aahh… what a pretty name you’ve got there.” After a few more off-key notes, Thea’s cries lowered to whimpers. She stopped climbing the examination table and slid to the floor before sagging against her mother’s legs. “There ya go. Do you want to turn around and say ‘hi’ to me? My name’s Ellie.”

She finally turned and Ellie sucked in a breath at the girl’s round face and the dimple in one of her cheeks. Her heart flipped in her stomach, as if she was falling into the dark pools of the girl’s eyes.

“Found you, Sasha!” Ellie whispered as she climbed farther up the gnarled tree. “You always hide up here.”

High in the branches, Sasha giggled before slapping a hand over her mouth to silence herself. “That’s because no one but you ever finds me.”

To give Ellie room to join her hiding spot, Sasha scooted across the treehouse planks. They settled in to wait for the other seekers in their manhunt. She and Sasha always won the game. No one ever bothered to look up.

Ellie pressed her closed mouth against her knee, still wanting to be quiet. Just in case. Sasha did the same and grinned at her. Ellie smiled back. They were safe.

“Ellie!”

Something shook her out of her flashback and Ellie blinked back into the present. She’d fallen on her butt with her hands bracing her. Dev kneeled beside her with a ginger grip on her shoulder while his brow furrowed in concern.

“You’re okay, angel. You are safe. You are in control. You are here, in this moment. You are at the Sasha Saves clinic.”

“I am safe,” Ellie mumbled. “I am in control. I am here, in this moment.” The robotic words left her lips automatically, as if each phrase were a button activating the next. Almost a year of therapy and the meditation was reflexive. It should’ve been. She’d sure as heck done it enough times.

“That’s right, and where is here, Ellie?”

“Sasha Saves clinic.”

The little girl with wild red curls and hazel green eyes watched her, curious underneath her long, spiky wet lashes. Except for the dimple in her left cheek, Thea actually looked nothing like her childhood friend.

Ellie swallowed back the reality that her flashbacks came without rhyme or reason. Whatever had sparked this one, she had no idea. All she knew was she had to bury that crap deep and get herself under control.

“What’s wrong with her, Mommy?” Thea whispered loudly. Her red curls bounced against her shoulder as she tilted her head to the side. Ellie didn’t like being the center of attention, but at least the girl’s tears had stopped.

“Nothing, she’s fine,” Dev answered for her, his thumb smoothing small circles over the T-shirt sleeve on her shoulder.

Thea’s mother frowned from behind the ice pack on her cheek. Ellie felt heat rise in her chest and brushed imaginary dirt from her hands.

“Sorry.” Ellie cleared her throat. “I…”

“Got caught up in a memory.” Dev’s soft monotone was jarring in the quiet room. Ellie lifted her gaze to his sad smile and her heart stuttered as he squeezed her shoulder one final time.

“God, he’s pretty.”

She’d thought the words, but they giggled across her mind in Sasha’s voice. Ellie nodded to both Sasha and Dev, hoping no one in the room could tell she was losing it. Her therapist explained that Ellie talking to herself in Sasha’s voice was a natural, healthy way to understand her grief. It would go away eventually when she no longer needed the coping mechanism.

“Copin’ mechanism, my ass.”

“Exactly.” Ellie blew out a breath and pasted on a smile. “Thanks Dev, uh, Thea do you wanna go check out our toys—”

“No! I wanna stay with my mommy.”

“It’s alright. They’re over here in this corner. See?” Ellie waved Dev’s hand away as she gathered herself up from the floor. “And look, you can watch a show on this cool bean bag.” Ellie took Thea by the hand again and led her to the toy box in the corner, along with the beanbag and tablet. “You can still see your mommy, but now you don’t have to hear the grownups talk about boring stuff.”

Thea scrunched her nose and lifted her chin in her mother’s direction.

“It’s okay, baby. I’ll be right here.” The woman’s raspy voice broke on the last word. Knowing what usually caused vocal cord injuries made Ellie want to scream on her behalf. But she bit her tongue. She’d have to run her frustration out later.

At the time Sasha Saves opened, Ellie had totally sucked at keeping her emotions to herself. Since then, she’d gotten so adept at hiding her feelings, even she was hard-pressed to know what they were anymore.

But she could always identify rage.

Naomi’s little protector nodded slowly and chose the tablet. Ellie inhaled a slow breath before gathering her courage up again. Unfortunately, fighting past a child’s reluctance to be helped was the easy part. Sometimes the adults fought back.

After a few moments of listening to make sure Thea was enthralled with the Pixar movie, Ellie braced herself and faced Naomi. The eye she wasn’t icing was nearly swollen shut, leaving Ellie worried about how much worse the side that needed icing was.

“El, like I said, this is Naomi. She came for our assistance.” Dev scrubbed his beard before calmly leaning against the counter and crossing his thick arms. His bedside manner was straightforward and had the air of a regular doctor’s checkup, which seemed to put survivors at ease. There’s no judgment in facts.

Giving a slow nod to Dev, Ellie stepped in closer and gave Naomi her full attention. “You met Nora when you came in, right?” At Naomi’s nod, Ellie continued. “She’s our manager and lets me know when someone wants to chat here at the clinic. I’m Ellie Stone. I’m the Survivor Services Director and Advocate. We can help you.”

“Survivor services?” the woman mumbled with a lilt on the end.

Ellie nodded and smiled. “We don’t say victim around here. If you’re seeking help, you’re a survivor.” She watched as a spark of hope lit Naomi’s brown eyes before Ellie continued. “Can you tell me what happened? Who did this to you?”

As soon as it lit, the flame extinguished. Naomi’s face hardened as her lips formed a thin line. But while she could snuff out her words, the pain in her eyes couldn’t be dampened. Like recognized like, and Ellie recognized that anger. The kind that burned inside until it either consumed or was extinguished. This woman may have been beaten back, but she’d never be beaten.

Naomi swallowed and grimaced at the effort. “Nothin’ happened.”

The lie grated against Ellie’s skin, compounded by Naomi’s gravelly voice. Dev’s lips tightened while he retrieved his notes and marked something on the paperwork.

“I understand,” Ellie began. “But your injuries… something happened… I’d love for you to tell me, rather than come to my own conclusions.”

Naomi narrowed her uncovered eye in warning. “I came here to get checked out. I didn’t come for anything else.”

Naomi’s insistence on silence weighed on Ellie, and she leaned on the nearby counter for support. “Please, Naomi? I think I can help you, but we need to know which direction to take.”

There was only so much they could do if a survivor refused to disclose anything. There were ways to still support them, but handing out pamphlets was much less effective than filing a police report.

“Bike accident,” Naomi muttered.

Ellie leaned closer and tilted her ear. “I’m sorry, what’s that?”

Naomi opened her mouth, only for her lips to tighten shut again. Dev cleared his throat.

“Ma’am, you’ve suffered numerous contusions, including petechial hemorrhaging in and around your eyes, and lacerations to your upper body and facial region. Those are most consistent with strikes with a closed fist, likely right-handed given the swelling and discoloration concentrated on your left temple and orbital area.”

“It was an accident.” Naomi’s light olive skin blushed even under the bruises, and her voice lilted up on the end, as if she was asking a question instead of trying to convince them.

“I’m sorry, Naomi…” Ellie began in a gentle voice, trying not to cause the woman more stress. But it was important she knew that they knew her story wasn’t plausible. “Your hoarse voice and the fingerprint bruising on your neck aren’t typically caused by—”

“It was a bike accident!” Naomi’s whispered shout cracked painfully and Thea’s attention swiveled toward them, her nose scrunched as she assessed the situation. Naomi, Ellie, and Dev remained silent, and Thea huffed before turning back to the tablet.

“Thea and I were ridin’ our bikes and… uh… hers swerved into mine. I crashed onto the ground.”

Dev’s schooled expression dropped enough to expose his concern.

“You have the opportunity to get help for you and your daughter… Don’t you want to take it?” He delivered the question in his cool monotone, despite the worry rolling off of him, but Naomi’s swollen eye narrowed a fraction as she hissed.

“Are you sayin’ I’m a bad mother?”

“No, but—”

“Absolutely not, Naomi. We don’t think that,” Ellie answered. “If your injuries need to come from a bike accident, then that’s where they’re from.”

Ellie scowled at Dev and his light cheeks reddened. He nodded at her silent reprimand before sagging against the counter. They’d been doing this long enough he should’ve known from Naomi’s mannerisms she’d shut down at a pointed question like that. But some cases—like ones involving strangulation—were too daunting to keep silent.

She returned her attention to Naomi, hoping they could move forward. “Do you think you need to go to the hospital?”

Naomi’s subtle shake “no” led Ellie to her next routine question, although she knew what the answer would be.

“Would you like to report this… bike accident? We can protect you—”

“No! No. I-I can’t.”

“Okay.” Ellie nodded once and retrieved a pen and paper from her backpack.

“Okay?” Naomi asked in her rough voice. “That’s it? You’re not gonna make me report it?”

Ellie raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to report it?”

“Oh, God, no. I-I can’t come back if you do.”

Ellie bit her lip. The fear they wouldn’t come back the next time they needed help was why she never pushed too hard. “Do you believe there’s any way Thea would get hurt? Does she get in… accidents, too?”

Naomi’s exposed eye widened. “No. Of course not… it’s just, um, me.”

Ellie shrugged. “Well, I guess we can’t report a bike accident.”

There was a heavy pause, one with the weight of decisions hanging in the balance.

“You’re really not gonna report it?” Naomi asked again, the relief in her sigh made Ellie wonder for the hundredth time whether the decision to trust the survivor was a good one.

“No, I’m not gonna report it. We’ll keep documentation for our office, just in case you ever need it, but we’ve designed the fine print for our shelter so our staff aren’t considered mandatory reporters in this state. We’ll give you a phone number you can call anytime and someone will help you with whatever you need. I wish you would report it. But I can’t make you and I won’t take that choice away from you.”

Naomi might have scrunched her nose up like her daughter, but her face was too swollen for it to accomplish the same effect. Her chest puffed out on a deep inhale. After a long moment, Naomi finally shook her head. “It was just a bike accident.”

Ellie rubbed the fiery ache in her chest, yet another survivor refusing to bring her abuser to justice. It’d hit hard the first few survivors who’d refused to prosecute and receive all the help Sasha Saves could provide. But they had a saying around the clinic: ‘Help doesn’t always mean justice. Sometimes it means escape.’ If they scared survivors away then they wouldn’t even be able to provide that.

“Alright, I understand.” Ellie reached out and placed her hand over Naomi’s resting on the examination table.

Naomi’s breath hitched before quiet rivulets trailed down her cheek. “Thank you. Just… thank you.”

Her shoulders slumped and she suddenly looked much older than she was, which was twenty-five, according to her chart. The poor woman had been carrying so much for so long. Ellie gingerly patted her shoulder and squeezed.

Naomi carefully dried her tears with gauze. “Can I take this off?” she asked Dev before indicating the ice pack she’d pulled from her cheek. Ellie couldn’t help her eyes widening. The iced side of Naomi’s face was mottled with purple bruises and the thin skin of and around her eyelid was swollen shut to the size of a golf ball.

Dev checked his watch. “In a few minutes.”

Ellie averted her stare from Naomi’s injuries and brought her hand up to massage her forehead.

“Well, our attorney should be here soon—”

The door behind them crashed open and everyone’s eyes snapped to the noise. Naomi clutched her chest and threw one leg over the side of her seat while the other was poised on the floor, ready for escape. Dev’s back was suddenly in Ellie’s view as he shielded her with his body, so she peeked around him to see who it was.

Blue hair was the first thing Ellie noticed as Snake stood in front of the doorway. He lifted an awkward hand in greeting despite the fact both hands were holding boxes of wires. His pale cheeks flushed to a bright crimson.

“Oh… um. Hi.”