Royce(61)

Gurt had been there at the beginning. She and Kasey had been hired in around the same time, Kasey about a week before the girl started. Kasey was amazed at how much the woman had changed and it wasn’t until she took the stand that Kasey figured out just how much.

“Miss Best, could you tell us in your own words what happened the day you had a private meeting with Mr. White?” Curtis said to her gently. “There’s no rush.”

“He raped me.” The words came out slowly as a wand was put at her throat. The sound was tinny and monotone. “He hit me with a bat and then he raped me.”

Curtis nodded and handed her a box of tissues. “Is that how you came to have your throat injured? From the bat when he’d hit you?”

“No. Later. When I told him I would go to police.” The girl wiped at the tears with her tissue. “He came to my house. He came with a gun.”

Kasey felt the baby stir. Not like he’d done before, but a tightening around her middle that hurt almost. She rubbed her hand over him and tried to soothe him as Gurt continued to speak.

“He said I was to be still. Quiet. Told me to stop talking to others. I said no. I didn’t see the gun until too late.”

“What happened next, Miss Best? Tell us what he did next.” Curtis’ voice was soft, lulling almost. She looked over at him as she felt another pain, this one harder.

“Said he’d shut me up. Then he pulled out the gun. It was at my head and I fought him. I thought he was going to kill me. He…noise was loud and he laughed. Said how he had shut me up for good.”

White jumped up from his seat screaming at them. Kasey didn’t know what was being said because she was hurting badly now. She reached for Royce’s hand and he turned to look at her as another pain grabbed her. She looked at his mouth moving, but couldn’t hear anything coming out. Suddenly, Willow, her new friend, was standing next to her. Then nothing.

~~~

Royce watched them prep her. He’d been told that he needed to leave several times now, but he wasn’t budging. He held her hand the entire time they talked gently to his wife.

He tried not to think about her slipping from her chair in the court room. That alone had aged him fifty years or so. But the blood had made him feel faint until one of his brothers, he thought it was Jesse, had shoved him away so that someone could have a look at her.

“She’s in labor. Hard labor if I don’t miss my guess. Your Mrs. here is going to have a baby soon. Here if we don’t get her going.” The man had introduced himself twice to Royce, but all he could wrap his mind around was that Kasey was in labor.

The ride to the hospital was made slowly, very slowly if he was asked about it. And as soon as the ambulance came to a sudden stop the doors flew open, and she was being jerked out with a cry.

“The attendant isn’t suing you,” Jesse had told him earlier. “Not because you offered to pay him not to, but because he said he should have known that you’d be scared when she was being brought in. He said to tell you that you have a hell of a left hook.”

Royce flushed when his mother snorted at them. “I should have beaten you more as a child is what I’m thinking. What will you do when your own son hits someone without provocation?”

“He made her cry. Was I supposed to just stand by and let them make her cry?” She snorted again, a sound he was beginning to hate more and more daily. “And I didn’t really mean to hit him. She cried out and I hit. It was a reflex.”

His mom didn’t say anything more, but he could tell she wasn’t all that thrilled with him still. When Kasey said something to the nurse and she laughed Royce took her hand again.

“You do know that you’re making their job harder, don’t you? Or do you even care?” He didn’t say anything to her question because frankly, he didn’t. “Why don’t you go and tell your family what’s happening? The doctor said I had about an hour yet. But that everything was going just fine.”

“I’m not leaving you. The way you seem to be running though this, I’ll step out the door and my son will be in first grade before I get back. I’m staying.” He glared at the nurse when she huffed at him. “I want to be here for you. I can’t be here if everyone keeps sending me—”

The grip on his hand nearly had him cry out himself. Royce heard the beeping on the monitor go berserk as her fingers began to dig deep into his hand. He stepped into her view and told her to breathe with him. She glared but seemed to relax as the monitor slowed again. He vaguely heard a door open then close behind him before he heard the booming voice of the doctor behind him.