Page 82 of Levee

The signs were all there.

The bruises, the red eyes, the little red spots all around her eyes. Then there was her swollen lip, like maybe a hand had been placed there as well.

“Should have stopped to get you some ice pops, huh?” I asked, trying to ease the tension in the air between us.

The little snorting sound that escaped her quickly turned into a whimper, then full-on sobs.

“Hey, it’s alright now,” I assured her, moving onto the couch, and pulling her over my lap, holding her together as she fell apart. “I’m gonna fix this,” I told her as she slowly started to stop crying. “But I’m gonna need you to tell me what happened first.”

“I was sleeping,” she started, face still pressed against my shirt that was damp from her tears. “And then he was in here. His hand was over my mouth, then my throat. I couldn’t get him off,” she said, voice getting tighter again.

“Did he say anything?”

“He just… he was mad I wasn’t leaving it alone.”

“Leaving what alone? What’s been going on?”

“Someone left a nasty-gram on her whiteboard,” Uncle Will said, making both of us look over at him. “Yeah, I saw it,” he said, nodding. “See more than you think I do. Hear more too,” he said,the innuendo hanging heavy, making Jade squeeze her eyes shut in embarrassment over what he was saying he’d overheard.

“What did the whiteboard say?” I asked.

“Told her to mind her business,” Uncle Will said.

“Whose business are you minding?” I asked, scooting back just far enough to watch Jade’s face.

“7D,” she admitted. “Harvey. His business.”

“How about we start at the beginning?” I suggested.

“One day, I was bringing trash to the dumpster. And I came across four guys beating on a guy. I yelled. The guys ran.”

“7D was the guy?” I asked.

“Yeah. He… wasn’t exactly thankful for the interruption,” she admitted. But I thought that was the end of that.”

“Then?” I prompted when she didn’t go on.

My uncle’s wheelchair drew closer, and he held out a glass of water toward her.

She drank some of it, wincing as she swallowed, but went on. “Then one night, I heard a… scuffle upstairs. Then a loud thud. And when I went to the window, I saw a bunch of guys carrying something really heavy between them.”

“A body kind of heavy?” I asked.

“That’s what I thought, yeah. And I couldn’t shake my curiosity. When I went up to check, the door was open. There were signs of a struggle. And blood on the floor.

“While I was in there, I heard people coming. So I ran and hid under the bed. They tossed the whole apartment.”

“Was that when you were attacked the first time?”

“No. I managed to get away that time unseen. Or so I thought. But I, uh, I didn’t know what to do. So I asked the super to check on him. I thought that, you know…”

“He would see the mess, see the blood, and call the cops for you.”

“Yeah.”

“That didn’t happen.”

“He said there was nothing to worry about.”

---