Decrescendo

Flashing police lights, red and blue, red and blue. Sirens blaring in my ears, the whirr of officers and the SWAT team running in and out, in and out.

A major sex trafficking ring, that's what they called it. I was going to be sold into sex slavery. They told me I was lucky, told me that I should be happy that the girls I was put with were fighters and had a plan.

Happy? I should have been happy that my life was a bleeding, incoherent cancerous mass that I would never be able to hear.

My heart was still beating, but I couldn't feel it. I knew it was there, but I didn't know if it would ever beat correctly ever again.

I felt the weight of the blanket around me, but its warmth didn't see through to my core like it was supposed to.

The flashing of photographers burned into my eyes leaving black and red swarming dots ever lingering, like they would be there forever.

I was just staring into the ground, watching legs walk around me. I was just sitting on the back of the ambulance, waiting to be taken to the hospital or the police station, I honestly couldn't care which.

"Sir! Sir you are not allowed to cross the border! Sir!"

"I don't care what you say that is my daughter and I am going to see her!"

I recognized my dad's voice before I saw him. Not my dad...my adoptive dad? My non biological father?

I was going to call the man who raised me my dad and the masochistic human who donated his sperm to me my biological father.

He didn't even deserve the title father. I would just call him my sperm donor.

"Holly! Holly oh my god are you okay?! We were so worried when you didn't come home, what happened?" I heard his words but didn't register their meaning. My mom was with him too but she was standing beside him silently, streams of tears running in rivulets down her face.

"I don't know," I told him honestly. My whole world had just been imploded upon and I didn't know how to fix it, and I didn't know if anything would ever be okay again, if I would ever be okay again.

And then I saw his face...and I knew that he would be able to help me pick up the pieces.

"What's that famous guy doing here? I don't care how much money he has, he's not allowed past the yellow tape!" I heard the police officer next to me yelling into his cell phone.

Without thinking, I jolted up from my place on the ambulance and ran towards the spot where I had last glimpsed his face, not caring about the medics screaming my name or my parents yelling for me to stop and come back. They thought I was running away from them, but they couldn't have been more wrong.

Sure, I was upset with them for keeping such a detrimental secret from me, but that didn't mean that I didn't love them and never wanted to see them again.

I just had someone to run to who I needed more than I needed my lying parents. At least with Sebastian, I knew he'd tell me the truth about that picture sooner or later. I honestly didn't care at that point, I knew how he felt about me if he was willing to be at the crime scene to try and find me.

Arms folding around me, the floodgates opening finally for the first time in what felt like years, I let his presence surround me and unruly around me like a butterfly closing its wings.

"Holly, I- I don't know what to say, I...are you okay?" he asked me and I had to stop to think about that question for a moment.

I had to forget about the tingles rushing through my body at his touch, forget how the deep timbre of his voice made my bones quiver with happiness and lust. I had to forget about how royally and totally messed up my life was.

"I will be."

***

"Has the jury reached a verdict?" the judge with the funny hair that looked like a toupee asked the twelve people beside the stand.

"We have, your honor," one of the women of the jury stated, holding a white card for everyone in the courtroom to see.

Sebastian's hand clenched my own and I swore I could feel a drop of sweat dripping slowly and mercilessly down the side of my face.

"On the first count of kidnapping in the first degree, how do you read?"

My heart palpitated, jumping out of my chest entirely. I was about to puke, about to run out of the door, but Sebastian calmly overturned my hand in his, reminding me to stay grounded.

"On the count of kidnapping in the first degree, we find the defendant...guilty. On the four counts of human trafficking in the second degree, we find the defendant...guilty. On the twelve counts of assault and battery in the first degree, we find the defendant...guilty."

On and on down the list they went, recalling my worst nightmares and those of the girls beside me, watching the men who hurt and abused us being put away forever.

Thankfully I hadn't had to endure two trials, Dylan pled guilty in order to get a lesser sentence for both sexual assault and the regular assault on me, going to a juvenile detention center for one and a half years until he turned eighteen and then he would serve ten consecutive years with no chance of parole until those ten years were up.

I would have liked to see him go away for longer, but had we gone to trial I would have had to recall the terrible things that not only did his father, my sperm donor, do to me but then I would also have to admit in open court that I had a relationship with my half brother.

The media hadn't put it together yet and I wasn't about to give them the pieces to do so.

I thought that Sebastian's legal and social managers had somehow been able to squash any story linking my sperm donor to both me and Dylan and I was going to keep it that way.

I hadn't told the jury about what he had said to me when he kidnapped me and put me in that cell, and neither did he. He didn't even testify.

I hugged Sebastian and quickly went over to the girls, especially Gwen and hugged all of them.

The girl who had driven us to safety hugged me first. Mariana was her name and she was even more fearless outside of a crisis than inside of one, if that was even possible.

It had only been a few weeks since the incident, the assistant district attorney wanted to make sure it was an open and shut case considering it was against the chief of police.

"You were great on the stand, girl. He never stood a chance, not with all the evidence we had against him," she said to me, the pink pantsuit she was wearing bringing out the caramel color of her skin.

"So were you, I'm just surprised I didn't fall apart on the stand," I laughed to her, happy that we could joke about our situation.

"So, what are you going to do about that boy over there?" she asked me, and to be honest I didn't have an answer for her.

"I don't know. We've kind of been walking on eggshells around each other. He hadn't defined anything between us, and he hasn't brought up that whole picture thing about him kissing that girl, but honestly with our brush with death I can forgive it. We weren't official at the time and who knows, it could have been taken out of context anyway..." I trailed off, citing reasons that I should have been with Sebastian but I didn't know what was holding me back.

"Mmm, girl if you don't define it, then I will!" she exclaimed and I just had to laugh at her.

I didn't know what was holding me back but I knew that for better or worse, we had to talk about it, otherwise I would probably do something rash, like kiss him out of the blue and I didn't know how he would react to that.

I finished talking with Mariana and Gwen and made my way over to Sebastian, feeling like a fog had lifted over my eyes.

"He's guilty. He's probably going to jail...forever..." I said, noticing my parents motioning that they wanted to take me home.

"You're right, he can never come anywhere near you again."

And I realized that I knew what was holding me back. I was scared that somehow, my sperm donor would break out of police custody and kidnap me again, but when he was sentenced it felt more final, like he would finally go to prison and I could move on with my life, finally go back to school.

Finally be with the man I loved...

I just had to tell him first.