Down London Road

you from that. They’re not supposed to be the monster.’
    ‘She’s right.’ Cole leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees, his head bent low as he stared at the floor. ‘Mick needs to teach him another lesson. One that’ll stick this time.’
    Hating to see him distressed, I put my hand on his back and began to rub soothing circles between his shoulder blades.
    He looked back at me. ‘That’s why you fly off the handle when Mum says I’m like him.’
    My mouth flattened. ‘You’re nothing –’
    ‘Like him,’ Cole finished. ‘Aye. I get that now.’
    We were silent again for a moment and then my wee brother looked over at me. ‘You have to stop trying to protect me from everything, Jo. I’m not a kid any more.You handle everything by yourself and it’s not fair on you. So stop. We’re a team.’
    Pride and gratitude bundled together to create a lump in the back of my throat, so I nodded, brushing my hand affectionately through his hair. His eyes closed at the caress and to the surprise of everyone, he tucked himself into the side of me that wasn’t sore and hugged me close. We sat there so long that I drifted asleep …



30
    The whispering of hushed but agitated voices seeped into my consciousness, thankfully pulling me out of a murky dreamscape of wet leaves, blood and pounding footsteps. My sore eyes fluttered open, the blur of colour focusing quickly to reveal that I had a busy sitting room.
    Olivia and Cole still sat beside me, Joss was on the armchair, and Braden was perched on the arm of it, his fingers massaging the nape of her neck. Cam and Mick stood by the fireplace with an older man I didn’t recognize, and Mum was seated on the other armchair.
    They were all staring at me.
    I was staring at Mick.
    The air around him crackled, and although I could tell he had calmed somewhat, he had the aura of a man back from battle. There was a lot of pent-up energy around him.
    My eyes travelled down his arm to his hand.
    Bruised knuckles.
    I swallowed hard.
    ‘He won’t be bothering you again, baby girl.’
    Our eyes caught and I felt my fear disintegrate. ‘He wasn’t expecting you.’
    The corner of Mick’s mouth quirked up. ‘No. That he was not. I had …
words
with him.’ He glanced quickly out of the corner of his eyes at the man I didn’t recognize.‘He’s gone back to Glasgow and he knows if he comes back I’ll forcefully remove him.’
    ‘What do you have over him, Mick?’ I asked curiously, my voice raspy from sleep deprivation and pain.
    He sighed, his eyes darkening. ‘It’s not what I have over him. It’s what I know about him. I know which buttons to push.’
    I shook my head, confused.
    ‘Let’s just say his dad was quick to violence as well.’
    That information froze me in place for a second.
    Murray Walker had been abused? Now, didn’t that make a whole lot of sense? A cycle of abuse. Of course.
    I turned to Cole and brushed his hair back off his face. I may not have saved him from Mum’s quick hands, but I’d saved him from Dad’s brutality. It was a small kind of consolation.
    At the thought of Mum, I focused on her. ‘We woke you up?’ I asked blandly, not really giving a crap if we had or not. My father’s attack had brought back my initial feelings of betrayal and anger when I first discovered she’d hit Cole.
    Fiona’s anxious eyes searched my face. Let’s not forget this was also a woman who had known that Dad beat me as a child and had let it happen for far longer than she should have.
    I stiffened.
    Was that what I was doing with Cole? I knew Mum hadn’t hit him since I confronted her in the kitchen, but did that really matter? He still had to live in an environment where I was nervous about leaving him alone in the flat with her. Was it selfish of me to keep him here becauseI feared losing him? If only she hadn’t threatened to go to the authorities if I took him …
    Resolve forced its way into my bones and my eyes narrowed on her. I was a little tired of threats.
    ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay,’ she muttered before her eyes flickered over everyone. Her hand instinctively went to her unwashed hair. It was a rare moment of self-consciousness, and she followed it by pulling her robe more tightly around her frail body. ‘Now I know you’re okay, I think I’ll go back to bed.’
    I watched her silently shuffle away, a difficult decision weighing on me despite everything.
    ‘Jo, this is Dr Henderson,’ Braden informed