A small sample from the INVISIBLE series
INVISIBLE JUSTICE
"Ok, let me try again. A few months ago while I was playing one of my games, a headline popped up that caught my attention. It was another child that had suffered years of abuse by their parent that ended when they were killed by the one who gave them life. I saw so many shades of red and felt such anger. I knew that some how, I needed to make a difference in some way. I need to help those kids, to get them away from their abusers, to give them a chance to have a non painful childhood." Kate sat still, her fork had been set down midpoint of my rant. She held eye contact with me and I noticed that her eyes were full. Softly she said "how?". "That's what I'm still struggling to figure out. I have to get more information and resources yet to know what direction to take this. " I responded. "So will you help the child once they're in the system, kind of like a big sister or are you thinking of opening up our house as foster parents?" Kate asked. "Um no, right now I'm leaning more towards eliminating the source of abuse." My voice lost volume as the final words were spoken. Kate's eyes said what words didn't. Was it fear, disgust or something else that I was seeing. The rest of our meal was pretty silent. I paid the check and unlocked the car. 12 "Are you ok Kate, I know you didn't expect to hear what I just told you but please don't shut me out." "I'm trying hard to make sense of what you told me. You're not even a kid person so I don't understand why you feel like it's your calling to try and save them. You're not qualified, we're retired and this is supposed to be OUR time and honestly, I have felt quite alone while you've been working out or doing who knows what. I wake up in the middle of the night and you're on your phone. We haven't had a decent conversation in a long time, instead you mumble a short answer and barely look up from your screen. And you are thinking about eliminating someone as in killing them? How in the hell do you think you won't be caught?" replied Kate, her voice rising in tone. "Because I am invisible." I responded.
INVISIBLE ENFORCEMENT
She hit one over the head and slammed the other one in the arm which made him fall to the ground. She took the time to put the end of the branch into the fire, igniting it before she ran towards the two struggling to hold onto a hysterical Iras.
Molly stated she really didn’t remember clearly what happened next. She recalled Iras screaming and the sound of someone else screaming but wasn’t sure if it was herself, one of the guys or her coworkers. She had told the officer she felt something hit her head, and feeling the blood as it ran down her face but beyond or before that, was very murky.
The facts of the incident came from the residents once they were able to speak, the other two staff members and three of the would be assailants. What they described had to be horrific for all of them to witness and for the responders to deal with, as the young male laid on the ground smoldering and Molly laid unconscious near the car, her head having been slammed repeatedly by the car door.
The guy that had been charred had been the one responsible per the other males, he had convinced them to grab Iras and have “some fun” with her as she wouldn’t have the brains to identify them. The guys went along with it because they were afraid of him and admitted to being stupid. One admitted to slamming Molly’s head in the door after she had slammed her burning stick into Tom, their leader. He said he had panicked and didn’t know what to do once Tom’s clothes started to catch on fire and the flames became too much for him to try to put out with his hands. The other guys had tried to drag him away from the car to avoid the gas tank exploding and maybe roll him but there was no place to grab him as he was burning too much was what they’d said while questioned.
Both staff members were questioned separately, both stated that Molly had tripped on Iras as she ran forward and that’s how the stick came into contact with Tom. She hadn’t tried to set him on fire on purpose. They also mentioned that the stick had gone into Tom’s stomach a few inches as it had been sharpened for the hot dogs eaten earlier. Molly had been trying to protect Iras and the other residents from harm and had been injured in the process.
The police took the three guys down to the station to be booked, the coroner took Tom’s body down to the morgue to be identified by any family he may have had and Molly was loaded into an ambulance and rushed to the nearby trauma center for what was believed to be a traumatic brain injury. From that night forward, the residents didn’t ever want to do a bonfire night again and Iras withdrew into herself, the other staff members unable to get her to smile or laugh as she once did.