Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,16

face. He grabbed Cole from behind and hauled him back, pinning his arms to his sides and rendering him helpless. Dale continued to sway, his face starting to swell where Cole had landed some of his punches.

“And who the hell might you be?” Dale slurred, finally finding some semblance of balance, and squaring up to Vaughn.

“Can’t believe pretty-boy needed someone to rescue him!” He laughed. He was the only one finding anything remotely funny in the whole situation.

“Well, this has really made my day. I knew pretty-boy was sweet on my girl, but you, whoever the hell you are, you come out here all macho like you own the place. What is it? Do you want to fuck my wife too?” Dale continued his manic ramblings and Elise could barely watch as Vaughn took in and considered her husband’s words. She could see him stiffening, anger beginning to radiate from him and she wondered which of the men she should now be more afraid of.

Taking a measured breath, Vaughn slowly released his grip on Cole who was in another stratosphere of anger and he immediately moved forwards; ready to launch at Dale again and to pick up where he left off.

He was too slow though and Elise watched in horror as Vaughn straightened himself up, uncoiling almost like a viper about to attack its prey. With a look of complete murder, he pushed Cole to the side and landed one last final blow himself - straight to Dale’s jaw.

The whole room was suddenly deathly quiet and everything began to happen in slow motion as Elise watched Dale stumble, momentarily stunned. His eyes briefly connected with hers and then he lost any pretence at balance and fell backwards to the floor, landing with a sickening thud.

Chapter Six

It felt like there were police and ambulance crew everywhere. Anyone would think there had been a major riot, not just a couple of angry men having a punch up. Elise stood to the side watching the action unfold feeling completely numb. Somewhere along the line, she had started shivering and a blanket had been folded over her. She hugged into it now, waiting to see if she would wake up from the nightmare and struggling to believe how much her life had changed in less than twenty-four hours.

Both Dale and Cole had been arrested for assault and the police were currently taking statements from everyone else. Elise couldn’t believe that both men could end up with a criminal record; however, the police officer that interviewed her assured her that it was likely they would only end up with a caution as neither of them had any previous convictions.

Dale was being loaded into an ambulance. The paramedics thought he was probably just concussed but wanted to take him into hospital for observation. Cole was also on his way to hospital. His wounds were superficial but because he had received some blows to the head, Vaughn had insisted that he go and be properly checked out too.

No one so far had mentioned Vaughn’s part in the whole debacle and for that, Elise was glad. Not that she had any particular feelings for him but she already felt bad enough for Cole and Dale, without adding a third criminal record to her tally.

Eventually the reception area cleared and staff continued to go about their business, the office humming with the gossip of what had just occurred. Elise was still stood frozen to the spot, unaware of anything other than the fact that she had just watched her husband and best friend being arrested and then escorted to hospital. She almost felt like she needed to pinch herself to wake herself up.

A light touch to her arm brought her to her senses and she turned to see Vaughn quietly studying her.

“Come on, Elise.” he said simply, “Let’s go somewhere a bit quieter”.

Without thinking, she let him take her arm and followed him upstairs to the first floor and the director’s offices. Vaughn pushed open the door of one of the empty offices and settled her on the couch on the corner. Distractedly she wondered why an empty office would have a couch but it didn’t seem important enough to worry about at this particular time.

“I’ve asked Annabel to bring you some tea.” Vaughn said, dropping down onto his knees in front of her. She could feel his eyes on her face, searching for heaven-knew-what, but she didn’t feel ready to meet his gaze. Her mind was a jumble.