Bruises - JATP Fanfic (Luke x OC)

Chapter 15

I'm posting this a bit early because I wanted to thank you all so much for the 1K reads! It means so much to know that so many people enjoy this story!

After severely disappointing Julie, the boys choose to stay other places than Julie's garage, feeling extremely guilty about everything they did that night. Reggie stays at the pier where he grew up, Alex in the neighborhood he grew up in about fifteen miles away from Julie and Brielle's neighborhood, and Luke roams the streets of Julie and Brielle's neighborhood. Eventually, he reaches a house that he is drawn to. Little did he know that it is Brielle's home. They all had that one shock at the gym, making them question what was wrong with them, but after a couple of hours, they all forgot, only remembering the look on Julie's face before she ran out.

At an early four o'clock in the morning, after hours of walking around the neighborhood, Luke passing Brielle's house a dozen times, he finally gathers the courage to walk inside, seeing glass shards covering the floor, puddles of blood, and even a few piles of things he'd rather not find out the origins of. Although he may not be able to eat anything, the whole house reeked of dead animals, making him nauseous and willing to throw up the non-existent contents of his stomach. How anyone could live there was beyond him.

Walking through the whole place, he eventually finds the stairs to the second floor, eventually finding the first room with a lifer in it. The guy was asleep, drooling on the keys of the keyboard which were making a nice little imprint on his face. The screens of the kid's computer were dark after having been unused for an hour or two, with a garbage can overflowing with junk food wrappers, spilling onto the floor and partially under the swivel chair supporting the rest of the passed-out kid.

The next room was a bathroom, one of the cleanest rooms in the whole house, only a dirty towel on the floor and a little bit of grime in the sink, and he quickly exits the room, moving to the room at the end of the hall, where a woman and man are sleeping, the two of them wrapped in each other's embrace, and the room is spotless, cleaner than even the bathroom.

The final door, the only room Luke has yet to enter, suddenly lights up, shocking Luke and he slams into the wall behind him. Taking a precautious step forward, he leans his head into the room, shocked at the lifer occupying the room.

"Brielle?" Luke asks, walking into the room and grabbing her attention immediately.

"Luke, it's too early for this." Brielle rubs her eyes, yawning.

"What are you doing up, then?" Luke wonders, noting the lack of the dead animal stench in the room.

"Shutting the window. It was getting a bit cold in here." Brielle climbs back in her bed, sliding her prosthetic foot off and setting it on the side table. She figured out quickly that it liked to come off while she was sleeping and get tangled in the blankets, so it was just easier to not have it on in the first place.

"Is this... is this really where you live?" Luke asks aloud, seeing the fragile girl climb into bed, joining her.

"Can you see why I never wanted you guys to come here?" Brielle yawns yet again, tired because she only has had a few hours of sleep.

"Brielle, we don't care. We just care that you're safe. Why are you here, though, if you hate it so much?" Luke looks at the little girl, who looks to be half-asleep already.

"I'm grounded for the next week. It's here and school for the next seven days." She yawns one more time, finally falling asleep as Luke processes her sentence. The next seven days. He can't get even imagine being in an abusive, destructive, and trashed household. Taking one final look at the innocent, yet broken, girl, Luke proofs away to Julie's studio, where Reggie and Alex have both retreated to after seeing the places they grew up.

"Guys, did you know about Brielle's life?" Luke asks Alex and Reggie, who are both aware of how awfully she is treated. Reggie was never told explicitly, but he's pieced together a lot of information, enough to figure out what's been going on at home. Because Reggie has been a victim to his parents' fights for years. And after finding out her situation, and after finding out that Alex knew as well, they have both been trying to find ways to make her life better in little ways.

"Yeah..." Reggie and Alex reply, waiting for the anger about to burst from Luke. It's not anger, though, that Luke feels. He feels a wave of sadness, pain, and the hundreds of emotions that he felt the day he ran away from his parents.

"It's awful. I went to her house, and it's... I can't even describe it." Luke breathes, and they all hug each other, before Reggie comes up with an idea none of them would have expected to come out of the bassist.

"What if we figured out how to get Ray to adopt Brielle?" Reggie suggests, making both of his bandmates look at him.

"You're genius, Reggie." Luke smiles, before they all realize that Julie probably hates them. "Now, we just have to think of a way to get Julie to accept our apology, which we have yet to give."

Poofing to one of the many coffee shops nearby, Reggie and Alex sit and wait as Luke is doing something else. The three of them know it's a hotspot for managers, VIPs and music fanatics, but are unsure why Luke wanted them to go there instead of the Orpheum.

"Oh yeah, great angle." Reggie leans over, looking at a lifer's phone and commenting on how she is taking pictures of her coffee. "Now, that's a good pic."

"Is this what we're here for? To watch people take pictures of food?" Alex wonders, severely questioning Reggie's and Luke's judgement on coming to the coffee shop if that's the only thing they'll be doing. Then, Reggie starts moving the girl's coffee around, causing her hand to miss, until she gets up and moves to a different table.

"I keep wondering with every step

Who would I be with what I left

Behind in my past

If I could do it all again

I might regret the place I would end

So many questions, so many decisions

But I think I'm okay right where I am

Right where I am" Reggie and Alex listen to the girl singing at the back of the coffee shop, enjoying her sound just as Luke pops up, taking the empty chair where the female lifer used to be.

"Being a ghost definitely has its privileges. I just wrote our names on the playlist for tonight." Luke brags, and Alex just looks at him, trying to figure out where his head is.

"I'm getting a little worried about him. He keeps forgetting Julie quit the band." Alex whispers to the both of them, raising his voice on the last three words to make it very clear that Julie is not going to perform with them.

"And that she's gonna come back as soon as she knows we have a great gig." Luke argues, but both of his bandmates see MAJOR flaws with the plan.

"But, if she doesn't come back, let's not forget, we do have somewhere else we can play and eat pizza." Reggie entices them, and both of them agree.

"Dude, I know. It was awesome to be seen by lifers at Caleb's party, but... we got this with Julie. We don't need him." The girl who was just singing passes by the ghosts, tripping over her own feet at the words Luke just said. Just as she is trying to catch her footing, the boys receive another jolt, making them all feel like they're dying again.

And all the coffee shop girl thinks is, if they don't go back, they're goners.

Author's Note: Hello, everyone! Sorry it's kinda short, but I'm still super happy with how this chapter turned out, and that Reggie actually came up with the idea of Ray adopting Brielle (he's not that bright, but that idea was one of his better ones). I already have about a billion ideas of how that will all go down for the end, but that'll come later. The song is mine, so please don't steal it (the key of F is the key I like for this little snippet of a song—F, C, A, and B flat)! Thank you all for reading and vote, comment, do whatever.

Loves,

mistyrider921

~❣~