Chapter 5 - The Red Line
The house filled with blue and red light within thirty seconds.
Four patrol officers entered the house with their weapons drawn in low-ready positions, their heavy tactical boots crunching over the shattered glass in the foyer. Behind them came two paramedics carrying a bright orange trauma bag and a folding stretcher.
"Police! Nobody move!" the lead officer, a sergeant with a graying mustache, barked from the hallway.
Derek didn't flinch. He didn't stand up. He slowly took both hands off the ice pack, placed his palms flat against the kitchen floor in plain sight, and spoke in a clear, measured voice.
"Victim is on the kitchen floor with a compound forearm fracture and head trauma. Suspect is incapacitated in the foyer against the stairs. Weapon is outside in the front mulch bed."
The sergeant looked at Derek, took in his cauliflower ears, his calm demeanor, and then looked at the sobbing girl on the floor cradling her broken arm.
"Lower your weapons," the sergeant told the two younger officers behind him. "Jenkins, secure the male in the hall. Call for transport. Medics, move in."
The two paramedics dropped beside Lena immediately.
"Sweetheart, my name is Sarah," the female medic said gently, pulling out a pair of trauma shears to cut away Lena’s blouse sleeve. "We're going to give you something for the pain right now, okay? You're going to be fine."
Lena squeezed my hand with her good fingers. Her grip was surprisingly strong, desperate, like a drowning person clinging to a piece of driftwood. "Don't leave me, Dad."
"I'm right here," I said, kissing her temple. "I'm riding with you in the ambulance."
In the foyer, Travis was being rolled onto his stomach. He let out a piercing howl of agony as the officers pulled his arms behind his back to apply the cuffs, his bruised ribs grinding against the hardwood floor.
"He assaulted me!" Travis screamed, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings of the suburban house. "That bald bastard broke into my house and jumped me! Look at my face! Look at my ribs! I want him arrested! I want him charged with attempted murder!"
The sergeant walked back into the kitchen, looking at Derek, who was now standing by the sink, rinsing a smudge of grease off his knuckles under the tap.
"Did you force entry, sir?" the sergeant asked, his notepad out.
Derek turned around, drying his hands on a paper towel.
"The victim called her father stating she was being beaten with a baseball bat," Derek replied evenly. "I arrived to find the suspect on the porch, armed with that bat, threatening to kill her and anyone who stepped onto the property. I neutralized the threat to preserve life under Ohio Revised Code self-defense and defense-of-others statutes."
The sergeant stared at Derek for three seconds. He didn't write anything down.
"You former military or law enforcement?" the sergeant asked.
"Ten years in professional combat sports," Derek said. "And she's my niece."
The sergeant looked back toward the hallway, where Travis was still whimpering as two officers hauled him to his feet. He looked at the black bat visible through the front window, then down at Lena’s fractured arm, which the medic was now stabilizing in a rigid pneumatic splint.
"Looks like clear defense of a third party to me," the sergeant muttered, tucking his pen behind his ear. "We'll need your statement at the station later, Mr. Harris. But right now, go take care of your family."
"Thank you, Officer," Derek said.
The paramedics lifted Lena onto the gurney. As they rolled her through the foyer, Travis caught her eye. He was slumped against an officer's shoulder, blood dripping from his chin onto his gray sweatshirt.
"Lena..." he whimpered, trying to sound pathetic, trying to work the old levers of guilt that abusers use to keep their victims silent. "Lena, baby, tell them it was an accident. Tell them we were just arguing. You know I love you..."
Lena stopped looking at the floor.
May you like
She lifted her head from the stretcher pillow. Her eyes, still rimmed with red, locked onto his swollen face. For the first time in three years, there was no fear in them. There was only an icy, unshakeable disgust.
"You hit me with a bat, Travis," she said, her voice clear enough for every officer in the room to hear. "I hope you rot in a cage."
