𝓪𝓼𝓱𝓽𝓻𝓪𝔂 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓪𝓰𝓸𝓷𝔂 ( Degusaurusrex // minou.xi )

[Ascensionism]

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Skyler hadn't picked up her entire life and moved into her sister's cramped apartment half a state away all those months ago just for this to happen. She thought she had done everything right, careful enough to avoid being followed by her ex. Her relationship with Thomas had been rocky from the start. An on and off cycle of unfounded accusations, fights she never wanted, and bruises she never asked for. Things had gotten better when they found out she was carrying his child- at twenty years old she had been naïve, foolish enough to believe that their life as a family would be much happier. Peaceful. It was quite the opposite after she'd given birth, in fact; she couldn't have been any more wrong.

The bigger and more curious Aiden got, the more volatile Thomas' temper seemed to grow; she would have rather died than ever let him lay his hands on their toddler. It had gotten to the point where Skyler began to document and record everything she could in order to eventually make her escape. Countless videos of her crying while he continuously berated her in the background, pictures of bruises and holes in drywall. The most damning piece of evidence she'd gotten was a recording of her then-boyfriend threatening to kill her if she ever tried to take their son and leave him.

The day she'd decided to leave was the day he had sent her to the emergency room. No broken bones thankfully, just a nasty concussion, both old and new bruises. Skyler had enough evidence to get a temporary order of protection and get him arrested. She could at least rest easy knowing that he would be behind bars at least long enough for her to uproot her entire life and get as far away from him as possible. While she hoped that his parents would leave him there to rot, she knew that it was only a matter of time before they bailed him out. In their eyes, he could do no wrong; the perfect, spoiled rotten only child.

Skyler had to have been right in assuming he would get out on bail- there was no other way he would have been standing right in front of the restaurant where she worked. While anyone else might have suggested that it could have been someone who just looked eerily similar, she couldn't shake the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. There were just way too many similarities for it to be anyone else.

Convincing her manager to allow her to leave early had been easy enough. Nora had hired her on the spot after learning about Skyler's situation and was kind enough to let Aiden sit in the back office or at one of the tables whenever she had to work and couldn't find someone to babysit. All it had taken was the frazzled look on the young mother's face and muttered words of "My ex is outside," for Nora to send her off with a nod of understanding and the suggestion to go straight to the police. And so she did just that after gathering her belongings. Snuck out the rear entrance of the restaurant and through the back alleyway until she figured she was at a safe enough distance to go out onto the sidewalk.

Her walk to the police station was rather quick, uneventful (thankfully), and full of anxiety. Skyler couldn't help the way she would look over her shoulder every few seconds until she crossed through the threshold of the station and the glass doors closed behind her. She immediately walked up to the nearest officer, arms clasped tightly over her chest in an attempt to soothe her nerves.

"Excuse me?" she started nervously, "I, um…I think I'm being stalked."

 

[Degusaurusrex]

Cade hadn't been expecting to return to work so quickly, but sitting alone in the empty house was driving him insane. The bottles and empty cigarette packs scattered around spoke the volume of his pain, the blanket on the couch where he routinely slept because laying in the bed had become a reminder of what was lost. It had been less than a month since the accident had taken Alana and their unborn child from him, and work had promptly put him on bereavement leave and been more than accommodating with reassigning any current cases he'd had.

The amount of cards and home cooked meals he had received from both coworkers and outside friends and family had been numerous, many of them sitting untouched in the fridge or left on the counters because he'd drank himself to sleep rather than eat the meal. Jack and the porcelain god had become his best friends the first few days after the accident, and after that he ceased to answer his phone or his door when people tried to check in on him.

It took an actual welfare check by others in his department to get him to snap somewhat out of his daze, where he apologized profusely for wasting their time and simply stated he wasn't ready to talk to anyone. He had, after all, just lost the two most important people in his life, one of whom he hadn't gotten a chance to meet before their untimely demise. Thanksgiving had been spent alone with Jack and the occasional nibble on food to soak up the liquor, but nothing more because what did he have to be thankful for?

The month turned to December and he paced. The weather was growing colder but the snow hadn't quite hit, although there were many days he wished it would snow endlessly so he could bury himself in it and never resurface. He paced, and he paced, and finally he decided that enough was enough, and if he didn't do something with his life he was going to end it.

"I wasn't expecting you back so soon." His supervisor looked at him in a mixture of surprise and suspicion when he appeared, in uniform that evening, but after a brief conversation and assurance that no, Cade wasn't drunk on the job, he waved him away and allowed him to get back to checking on any impending cases. Cade was grateful for his supervisor allowing him back despite the clear apprehension about the situation, but he didn't expect his first night to start with a woman stumbling in from the cold clearly frazzled. He hadn't even gotten back to his office!

"Take a seat ma'am, I'll be right with you. Please make sure to have your ID." He went into autopilot, gesturing to the chairs in the waiting room as he mentally mapped out the rooms in the building. There should have been several rooms open for people that needed to make reports, but that required checking on them first, and he motioned to the chairs again before slipping into the back to investigate the status of the other rooms.

Five minutes later he had a cup of coffee and a cup of water on a table in one of the rooms, then he returned to the main waiting room and gestured for the woman to follow him back toward the offices. Idle chatter echoed from some of the other rooms and cubicles were officers were taking calls or handling cases of their own, but Cade said nothing until he ushered her into the room with two chairs and a metal table where the two cups sat for her to choose from.

"So, what makes you think you're being stalked, ma'am?"

 

[Ascensionism]

She was freezing. Of all of the things she had forgotten to pack in her haste to leave, her winter coat had been one of them- likely still tucked away in the back of a closet somewhere in her old home. Heather had told her to not rush, that she could take as much time as she needed to gather her and Aiden's belongings, but Skyler had been itching to remove herself and her son from her ex's life for what felt like an eternity and was more focused on packing as much of the little boy's things as she could. So she, admittedly, forgot a few things of her own. And without having much time for herself or the mental capacity to be able to handle going anywhere else but work, she usually made do with throwing a worn, faded jean jacket over a hoodie.

As the officer told her to take a seat, Skyler nodded before following his instructions. With her hands tucked between her thighs in hopes to warm them up, she waited. Sat on the edge of the seat, her gray-blue eyes focused on the front doors in case Thomas happened to have followed her here, too. It wasn't too long before the officer had come back into the waiting area and motioned for her to follow him further into the building. She was quick to stand up and trail behind him, occasionally glancing over her shoulder with every new voice or sound she heard. So much for working towards no longer living her life in fear- her child's father had always been hellbent on providing her with her own personal hell.

It was only after he had brought her into a room that the young woman seemed to relax, if only just slightly. She only sat down after the door had been closed and didn't reach for either of the cups just yet.

"My ex was standing outside of the restaurant I work at," Skyler answered him meekly and without elaboration. Paused for a second before realizing that she needed to provide more context- this man had no idea who she was, the kind of person Thomas was and why she left him in the first place. Likely didn't truly understand the implications of her words, no one in this city outside of her boss and her sister did. "I, um…moved here from Graycliff about seven months ago after he put me in the hospital," she began to explain, "By that point he'd been beating me for years…I know I shouldn't have stayed with him as long as I did, but I…I was so convinced he would just change and things would get better after I gave birth."

When her voice began to waver, Skyler paused again, this time reaching for the cup of water and taking a sip, then took a deep breath in an attempt to soothe her nerves. "I was able to get a temporary order of protection for myself and my son when he got arrested but I have no clue how long it was supposed to last and I-I'm so scared." She didn't even notice the tears as they began to stream down her face. "I don't even know how he found me, I- sorry," the young woman sniffled quietly as she wiped away her tears but to no avail. They just kept coming. "He threatened to kill me if I ever took our son and left him a-and I'm scared that he might have come looking for me to either follow through or try to take Aiden away."

 

[Degusaurusrex]

It was fifty-fifty how alleged stalker victims reacted when he brought them back to the rooms. Many of them panicked and clammed up or even tucked tail and left, while a good portion of them seemed to relax for the time they felt safe behind locked doors and a hoard of officers. This woman seemed to of the latter type even though he hardly noticed at first, but once the door to the room was firmly closed her stance changed slightly.

Points for her, her stature and reactions were believable so far. Past that? It remained to be seen, he had seen a lot of bullshit over the years in this line of work, and he knew better than to believe everything that came out of someone's mouth just because they were a woman. For the moment, however, he was going to take her word for it and get a report filed if she wished, then move from there and find out what his supervisor wanted done.

"Okay...?" It wasn't exactly a crime to stand outside of someone's workplace, and he raised an eyebrow and waited patiently for her to continue at her own pace. "Uh huh." Graycliff was a bit of a distance to get away from an ex boyfriend, wasn't it? Now that the story was unfolding he was getting a better picture of it, the typical story of a woman staying with her abusive boyfriend or husband until they nearly died, and then, then they finally ran for the hills and incurred the scorned man's wrath.

"No need to apologize." Now there was a kid involved, that was every cop's worst nightmare when it came to domestic disputes, and after his recent loss, this just made the entire situation far, far worse. Cade sighed, drumming his fingers on the tabletop and motioning to the water she'd sipped.

"Drink the water, it'll help with the nerves. I'll get the paperwork for you to fill out, if there was anyone at your work that can back up your story, I'll need witness statements. I'll also need any information or the name of an officer who can give it to me from back in Graycliff to get a file started." He stood slowly, smoothing out his clothing and leaving the room in search of the proper paperwork to file out the report. Why hadn't he brought it in the room to begin with? Right, because he was clearly still a mess despite his insistence on returning to work.

One of the other officers gave him a questioning look as he retrieved the paperwork and stuck it on a clipboard, snagging a pen from a nearby cup and shrugging his shoulders. There would be plenty of time to talk about it later if they insisted on questioning him, but right now his primary concern was getting the report in and finding out more about the situation.

"Where is your son now?" The door clicked shut as he re-entered and set the paperwork in front of her, then took a seat and picked up the cup of coffee with a sigh. "You have somewhere safe you can stay until this blows over?"