Chapter fifteen

Brits point of vie w
"Brit, it's so good to see you," Joanna says as she sits at the table next to another women in police uniform and a guy in a suit. I'm going to take a wild guess that he is the lawyer guy who I'm meant to talk to about my statement. "Hi, um shall we go through to the sitting room," I say forcing a smile as I twiddle my ring round my finger which catches Joanna's attention. Oh damn it, here comes the argument about why I don't need to take the blimming ring off to be completely better.
"Yes let's," she mutters still staring at the ring. Didn't anybody ever tell her that staring is rude.
As we all traipse into the sitting room, Joanna grabs my arm and guides (drags) me over to one of the sofas.
"Would you care to tell me Brittany why you are still wearing the ring I'm pretty sure you promised to take off?" She asks staring at me rather pointedly. I swear everyone has an obsession with this bloody ring, it's not my fault he decided to get the biggest one he could find. It's not like I wanted it, but I've just got used to wearing it, Max would get so angry when I took it off, even if it was just for a few minutes to do something like the washing up. He would go ballistic and Max was a scary man when he was really angry. "I like wearing it okay, it's my body and my jewellery I can do what I like with it,"I snap back plonking down in the chair. So maybe that's not the whole truth but what she doesn't know can't hurt her. It was the thing that showed I belonged to Max, I was his 'wife' his property and no one could do anything about it, not Mase, not John, not the police, no one could help once I was his property. The other 'wives' of Max's 'friends' and associates were the same, apart from I'm the only one who got out, as soon as word spread about max, they all went underground, the police can't locate them.
"Right then let's begin'" Mr suit guy says awkwardly looking between me and Joanna. "What do you want to start with Brittany?" He mumbles not making eye contact, for goodness sake how long does it take people to realise that I do not like the name Brittany. "First off my name is Di or at a push Brit, not Brittany capiche and start wherever you want to," I snap sinking further back into my chair.
"O....ookk, let's start with your statement of the events on Friday 10th November , can you please just run through what happened?" He stutters, I probably should at some point learn his name.
"Well Max came to pick me up for our date at about 5:30ish, I was running a few minutes late so we didn't leave mine until about 5:45. Max was acting kind of odd.."
"Odd how?" Mr lawyer guy interrupts. "He was fiddling with his watch and constantly checking his phone and just generally sort of fidgeting and looking uncomfortable, I thought he was just nervous, he was quite geeky and from what I heard he didn't seem to go on many or really any dates, so I just thought he was a bit nervous. Anyways so we got to this little restaurant place, max said it did really good food and that we would be going to the cinema afterwards to watch some comedy action film. It took I think like twenty minutes to get to the restaurant and the car journey was nice, he seemed to relax a bit, which really made me think that he'd just been shy and nervous earlier on. We sat down, I had my back to the door and he sat opposite me. We ordered some drinks and just sat there talking about school, teachers likes and dislikes, basically first date conversations. Then the whole place went silent and I mean dead silent, I had my back to the door so I couldn't see anything, I didn't even notice there was something wrong until someone started shouting to get on the ground. I did exactly what they said but Max, Max started smiling and stood up, I thought he was mad, he pulled me with me but tossed my bag on the other side of the table. I was so confused, I didn't know what was happening. Max dragged me up to the people who had been shouting at all of us. There was about 8 of them all wearing black scarves/balaclavas and waving gun at everyone on the floor Max started talking to them, like they were old friends, I think it was then that I realised that something was really wrong and I had ended up in the middle of it. I was dragged out of the restaurant an shoved in the back of a van and taken to Max's house," I say, there is no way in hell I'm telling them about what else happened outside that stupid restaurant, no one will ever know.
"Okay, we will need to show the pictures of your injuries when you came into hospital and the ones from the medical file obtained from Mr Carmichael's office, Joanna do you have copies of those with you?" Mr lawyer guys asks, Joanna nods passing him a folder. Wait hang on a minute they have a medical file, about me, from Max. Were they ever going to tell me. "Right these pictures will be shown to the jury to show them some of what you suffered with Max, we will then ask you questions about your daily life with him, and other parts, shall we do a quick run through of that?" Mr lawyer guy asks after flicking through the file. "Okay I'm going to have to ask how some of your injuries and scars happened and what Max's reasons for them were, if that's okay with you," he says I nod to him to start.
"Just stop if you need to. I'm going to start with this one, Brittany how did you get this?" He asks holding up a picture of my back and the scar running diagonally down it. "It was a few months after I was taken. He had locked me in the coat cupboard  because I interrupted him in a meeting without a good reason. He left me in there and it was really dark and I felt like I'd been in there forever, I thought he had left, I heard the door, I could have sworn he had left. So I started shouting for help, it was so dark and I was so hungry, I thought someone would help me. I was wrong. Max was still home, he dragged me out of the cupboard. He shoved me onto the floor and knelt on my back so I couldn't get up. And he sliced my back, he told me to never make such a racket again, that I was an embarrassment and needed to learn that I was to be seen and not heard. Afterwards he um he put me back in the cupboard and left me there for what felt like a lifetime. I didn't make a sound, I couldn't. He taught me early on not to scream, not to cry just to take it and keep my mouth shut. One of his men came and got me I think it was a few hours or maybe more after and Max's doctor stitched me up," I mumble staring at the wall.
"Well done, it will get easier the more you talk about it," Joanna says giving me a pitying look.
"How did you get this one?" Mr lawyer guy says holding up the stomach pictures, one which looks like it was taken when the doc stitched it up and the other in the hospital just after I was rescued. "And more importantly you will need to tell the jury why it is in an M shape," he says. Right joy oh joy.
"I tried to escape, I planed it and planned it, I made sure the guards would be round the other side of the building, that Max would be out at a meeting and planned my route out, how I would get home. My first idea was to run to the nearest police station but Max has people in the police is be back there before I could say a word. I got as far as the fence before they dragged me back inside. Max had upped patrol without me knowing. They saw me sneak out and grabbed me. I was taken inside an handcuffed to a chair, I pleaded with them to not tell Max, but they had to. I don't blame them, he would have killed them if they didn't. My guards had to report every move I made to Max or they were either beaten to within an inch of their life or killed depending on how badly they screwed up, but they were never allowed to lay a hand on me unless to restrain me. I was Max's property so his to deal with and punish accordingly. Max came home a short while after that, they called him to fill him in about the incident. When he got in he made the guards leave, he ripped my shirt open, got his knife out and started carving. By then I knew not to make a noise during punishments. It hurt so bad but I just bit my tongue and stayed silent. He spent ages just slicing it over and over again making sure it was deep enough. He told me it was to show me who I belonged to, that he thought the ring would be enough but I wouldn't listen and that it was my fault that it had come to this. He let my guards stitch it up, that time I wasn't allowed to see the doctor. He didn't want it to heal. He wanted it to scar. He wanted it to last forever," I state.
"When was this? Because the one from the hospital looks quite recent," Joanna asks looking at the pictures.
"He did it about 8 months in, but he would redo it whenever it healed enough, he wanted a scar, he wanted me to know that he could control me, that I could never escape, I can never escape,"
The police lady looks shocked as Joanna looks to be honest I don't know how she looks.
"Can you... Can you show us how it looks now?" She asks.
Sighing I lift my top to show them his mark, the symbol of who I belong to.
Forever.