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“Mama got hurt. But I’m fine now, sweetie,” she said softly, turning her face and kissing his hand.

Corey stood, helping Ava up and looked over to me. “I’m taking her back to the house to get some rest.”

Nodding, I moved over to sit next to Kay, bringing Eli up onto my lap. “We need to be extra careful, bud,” I said when he tried to move closer to her.

I spotted Ma stood at the door

and I nodded, letting her know that it was okay.

“Lindsey? Would you like to wait out in the warehouse with me?” Charlie said, standing up and waiting by the door. Lindsey stood up, giving Kay a small smile before she followed Charlie out of the room.

“Right!” Kay announced. “Now that all of that is over, who wants to make popcorn and watch a movie?”

Shaking my head, I smiled. That was the woman that she’d grown into, she’d come such a long way. Even after all that she’d just been through, she was still putting on a brave face. Remembering back to the last time she was in this office, after Max had hurt her, to now. The difference was incredible.

“You can choose the movie, mama,” Eli said as I put him down on the floor. Pushing up off the couch, I held my hand out and helped Kay up. She let a small groan slip but just smiled it off and squeezed my hand.

“Hmmm, I think I want to watch, spider man,” she said, limping to the door.

“Really?” Eli asked slipping his hand inside Kay’s.

“Yep!”

We walked slowly through the warehouse, Kay stopping to talk to Lindsey who was on her way to the station with Charlie.

“Social worker is gonna meet us at the station,” he said to me.

“Thought she was coming here?” I asked, keeping my eyes on Kay.

“She was but I think Ava needs some more time.” He looked around, not wanting to say what we were all thinking. She still hadn’t given her statement yet so we had no idea what had happened to her.

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” I nodded.

Lindsey walked back over to Charlie after her and Kay had hugged, and gave me a nod before she walked off.

“I’ll be over tomorrow,” Charlie said before he walked off. I watched as he gave Kay a hug, whispering something to her before following Lindsey out of the warehouse.

Kay turned and smiled, looking down at Eli and then back up to me. “Ready?”

Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I said. “Always ready for you.” Winking, I moved forward, wrapping my arm around her shoulder.

Having her back made our little family complete, only time would tell how we would move on from here. I hoped we could move past everything and start again, this time without all of the drama.

Things had settled down after being home for a couple of days, with me they had anyway. Ava still hadn’t come out of the room that Corey had taken her to and we were all worried about her.

Charlie had said yesterday that he couldn’t give her much longer, not only did he need a statement, but the social worker had to find her a foster home.

“Has she still not come out of her room?” Elena asked on the fourth morning.

Ty had taken Eli to preschool while Elena came around for a visit. I loved having her come over, not only was she easy to talk to, but she understood some of the things that I was going through. She hadn’t told me specifics but just the way that she said she understood, and the look in her eyes, let’s me know that she was telling the truth.

“No.” I shook my head, lifting the coffee cup up to my mouth, taking a sip. “She’ll only answer to Corey.”

“She needs to come out of there sooner or later.”

“I know,” I huffed. I didn’t know how to try and get her out of there. I was spending all of my time and energy on making sure Eli didn’t see how much it had affected me and that in itself wasn’t easy.

Elena pushed her chair back, placing her cup down and standing up. “Let me try.” She smirked.