Juliana's POV



I froze, turning around in a slow, animated way. Like the way you would see someone in a movie, or cartoon, do.

But I relaxed when I saw who it was.

"Oh, hey Elijah. What do you need?" I asked, leaning on the railing that led to the upstairs hallway.

"Can you come with me real quick? I'd like to check your arm." He said and I shrugged, sticking my arm out but he shook his head, making me realise I had misunderstood.

"No no, I would like to do it in the clinic. We have cream for burns up there, and I'd also like to assess you for a concussion. I don't know if you remember this or not, but when you fell to the ground your head hit the ground pretty hard."

So I followed him up to the clinic, and for some reason Elijah was sure to tell me that I wouldn't have to see Hunter, as he was in a different section than we would be.

Once we got into what looked to be your standard doctors office type room, I hopped up onto the annoying bed with the crinkly paper, which I thought was a little dramatic for something as small as a burn, and turned towards Elijah expectantly.

"Go ahead and roll up your sleeve." I rolled it up to my elbow, and he inspected the burn, poked in a few places just to make sure none of my nerves had been damaged.

"So, you want to be a doctor when you get older?" He asked as he applied burn cream to my forearm.

"Possibly. I don't know if I want to be a doctor exactly, maybe just a nurse." I said. A nurse seemed like a much more attainable goal. They were always needed, plus medical school seemed like a bitch.

"I'm sure you'll be amazing no matter what you choose to do. Do you plan on being involved in the mafia?" He asked sceptically.

I thought about that for a second, considering it.

"I don't know." Was the best thing I could settle on, and Elijah raised his brow at me.

"You 'don't know?'" He repeated.

"I mean I've never really thought about it. It's no secret that my side of the family is pretty distanced from the mafia. Especially compared to here. I've never really thought about what my life would look like after I turned 18." I said semi-honestly.

Had I thought about what my life would look like after I turned 18, yes. And that plan included me leaving. Going someplace far away, where nobody knew where I was, and he could never touch me again.

"Well it is something you'll have to put into consideration as you get older. This burn seems like it would have been the worst of the two, and I am going to give you something to put on it. I don't think the other one should be any bother; however if it is just let me know. But I won't look at it. That'll save you the trouble of having to take off your shirt." Elijah said, and I nodded gratefully.

"So, I'm going to take a look at your pupils by shining this," He held up a little pocket light that all doctors seem to just have on them at all times. "In your eyes."

He then proceeded to blind the fuck out of me and resort to holding my eyelids open when I refused to do so on my own.

Talk about torture devices.

He then held up a finger and made me follow it around, which was a weird game, and it made me frustrated when the second I would focus on his finger he would suddenly move it again. Not to mention that there was no true way to win the game if he was just going to keep moving his finger around.

Finally, out of frustration I reached out and snatched his finger, stopping it mid move.

'There.' I thought, pleased.

I can't lose if he can't move his finger.

I heard a throat clear and I looked up to see Elijah giving me an amused look.

"May I have my finger back now?" He asked and I glared.

"Are you going to stop waving it in front of my face?" I rebutted and he rolled his eyes but agreed.

"You don't have a concussion, I can tell that much. Now say ahh." He said as he grabbed him little bright torture device and I quickly closed my eyes, covering them with my hands and shaking my head in refusal.

I heard a chuckle and then there was a hand on my wrist.

"I'm not going to shine your eyes. I'm going to look down your throat to make sure there's no damage. Even though you seem to be talking fine I would still like to make sure."

I slowly dropped my hands, giving him a sceptical look before I opened my mouth and said Ahh. True to his word, he only shone the light down my throat. Not my eyes.

He said that my throat was a little red, probably a little sore, and also looked at the bruising around my neck, telling me that it would clear up fine on its own in a few days.

"Before you go," Elijah started, stopping my pursuit to run out the door. "Did you bring up what happened last night to Maria?" He asked me as he took off his gloves and I gave him a guilty look.

"Am I going to be in trouble if I say no?" I asked and Elijah just sighed.

"Juliana..."

"I know, Elijah, trust me, I know. But I didn't feel like having some stranger digging into my personal life. And I'm fine, I promise." I pleaded, not sure if he was going to call Maria back and force me to talk about it.

"Alright, fine. If you say your fine then I'm going to take your word for it. Just know that if you do decide you're not okay, or you want to talk, we're all here for you. But, don't tell Massimo. He probably will call Maria back here." Elijah said, chuckling when I shuddered at the thought.

"Okay, I promise. Can I go now?" I asked and Elijah nodded, giving me a little wave.

I had just stepped out the door when suddenly something occurred to me.

"Hey Elijah?" I asked and he looked at me, concerned.

"Yes?"

"What happened to Hunter's friends?" I asked cautiously, letting my curiosity get the best of me.

"Well, I can tell you that I don't think anyone is going to be seeing them for a while." He said, avoiding the question.

"Soo, in cells? Or dirt naps?" I asked and he let out a dry chuckle at my phrase.

"They're in the shed. Why?" He asked, leaning back against the counter in the room.

"I just wondered." I shrugged. "What hap-"

"Juliana." Elijah cut me off with a warning tone.

"Just one more question." I bargained and he rolled his eyes, motioning for me to go ahead.

"What happened to Hunter's other friend? The handsy one, is he okay?" I asked and Elijah gave me a confused look.

"The handsy one? I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific as they all seemed pretty handsy to me." I knew I probably needed to speed this up because Elijah's control was slipping and I could hear the anger hidden beneath his facade.

"The other one who was passed out on the couch. Did he have to get his stomach pumped too?" I asked and Elijah stiffened.

"He's dead."

"Elijah! I thought you said you didn't kill any of them?" Elijah shook his head at this.

"He overdosed. He was lying dead on the couch by the time we got there."

"Oh." I whispered, looking down.

"Juliana don't you dare look guilty." Elijah barked and I shook my head.

"I don't feel guilty, I'm just... sad." I explained, using the best word for it I could.

"If it makes you feel any better, he suffered much less than he would have had he stayed alive." Elijah soothed, and I gave him an amused shake of the head.

"That does not make me feel better, but thank you for trying." I said as I finally left the room, unable to not think about how his family must feel.

It would kill me if I lost one of my brothers. Okay, certain brothers. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose my child.

However, that didn't stop me from practically running out of that clinic. Don't get me wrong, I like Elijah just fine, however I do not like doctors visits of any kind.

Okay, I think Elijah may have just become my new least favourite cousin.

I had fled the entire way to the kitchen before I finally bumped into somebody, and that somebody just so happened to be Justin.

Got to say, there are worse people to be bumping into right now.

Justin was at the counter, making himself what looked to be a PB&J. The only thing that confused me is that he didn't seem to be wearing his normal, bright, happy, childish, clothing. Instead, he was wearing a black shirt with a skull on it that had black and white flowers coming out of its mouth and eyes, along with a baggy pair of jeans.

He must have finally noticed that someone was there, because he looked back, mouth full of the peanut butter he had just licked off of the spoon he was using.

I smiled at him, because even though I was a little confused at the sudden change in attire, out of everyone in this household, the one person that didn't know the events of last night was the person I would rather be around.

He held his hand up in a short wave, swallowing his bite of peanut butter, washing it down with some of the milk on the counter.

"Hey Juliana." He said and I shrieked, making him look at me weirdly.

"What the fuck was that?" I asked, holding one hand over my heart, looking at him in shock.

"What do you mean-"

"That!" I cut him off. "What the hell happened to your voice?" Justan suddenly caught onto what I was so upset about because he let out a little chuckle.

"Puberty, that's what." He said in his freakishly low voice. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, however this was the same Julian who had been high pitched and childish not only a few hours ago at breakfast, and how here was... whatever this was.

"Okay, well it's weird." I said, hopping up to sit on the counter next to his food.

"Yes, well that is one of the only physical changes between little me and big me." He explained.

"So you're fifteen right now?" I asked, just making sure.

"Yes, I'm in a normal mindset right now." He said, his voice becoming harsh and my eyebrows furrowed as he snatched the peanut butter and jelly and marched over to put them back where they belong.

"Well," I started as he trudged back to me. He kind of had to since I was next to his food. "To be honest, you being eight had sort of become normal to me. But I'd still like to get to know you while you're like this. Do you mind if I stick around for a bit? Or would you like me to leave you alone?" I asked, knowing he might not want to have me around right now.

His entire demeanour seemed to soften when I said this.

"Oh." He mumbled and then shrugged. "You can stick around. I was going outside though, hope you don't mind." He said as he grabbed his plate and started towards the back door.

I followed him like a lost puppy as we made our way towards the little forest behind the play set. We hardly went a few feet deep before we reached a bench hidden off to the side.

Justin stopped there, sitting down and indicating that he wanted me to sit down there as well.

"So, what made you come out of it?" I asked and Justin gave me a confused look as he took a big chomp out of his sandwich.

'Good to know not all things change.'

"Your headspace. Is that what it's called? I did some research on it and that's what one of the articles I read called it." I rushed to explain, not wanting to say the wrong thing as I really didn't know much about this.

"Yeah, that's one of the terms. Also littlespace." He agreed.

"Okay, okay. Uncle Stefano said that you were normally in littlespace when you were at home." I stumbled over the word a little bit, the word still foreign to me.

"How are you?" Justin suddenly asked, and I squinted my eyes at him for half a second.

"Fine... But why are you answering a question with another question?"

"Are you sure? Because last night was..." He trailed off, looking at me with genuine concern.

I let out a huff like breath when I realised that Justin knew what had happened last night.

"Of course." I muttered angrily. "Who told you?" I asked, this time it was my voice that came out harsh.

"Nobody." He said and I gave him a look.

"Well obviously somebody told you." I snapped, misplacing and redirecting my anger towards him.

"Would you let me finish?" He snapped back, more than ready to match my tone. "Who do you think called dad and the others?" He asked rhetorically and I froze, looking at him in shock.

"What?" I whispered.

"You don't think they just managed to come barging through the door at the right time do you?" He pointed out and suddenly it all made sense.

Remembering the loud bang, and the way that whats-his-face was immediately pulled off of me, no hesitation at all. It was almost as though they had known they would be walking into a bad situation.

"S-so then you saw?" I asked.

"I saw part of it, yes. I woke up needing to use the bathroom, and I could tell I wasn't in littlespace. But then I just had this really bad feeling, in the bottom of my gut. And I just felt like I needed to check on you for some reason. Even though it was like, 3 in the morning. I noticed you weren't in your room, and that just didn't sit well with me. So I went to look for you.

I remember walking down the stairs and hearing laughing. Not one that belonged to anyone in our family, so it definitely wasn't one that should have been there at such a weird time. I remember smelling a bad stench in the air, and I had just peeked around the stairs in time to see you being groped, probably not for the first time that night. You looked really uncomfortable, and Hunter was nowhere to be seen, yet I could recognise them as his friends.

So I did the first rational thing I could think of and I called dad. He told me not to interfere, and to just go back to my room. That they would be there soon. Yet I couldn't leave. Not without making sure you were okay first.

Everything was relatively calm for a while before I heard you asking about Hunter and one of his friends, asking if they were okay, and your question was just laughed off. But, now I knew that they were somewhere in the room and that made me pissed. It pissed me off that Hunter could let you be there, that he could let this happen to you.

And then things escalated. When he threw you down onto the floor is when I tried to intervene. The one that wasn't actively trying to rape you at that point saw me and tackled me. I was out before I even hit the floor." He explained, a guilty tone to his voice.

"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you." He whispered, looking at the ground.

"Hey." I said, poking him in the arm so that he would look at me. "The last thing you need to be doing is apologising. I don't even want to know what would have happened had you not called somebody. And if anything, I should be the one checking on you." I said and he looked at me with a relieved look.

"I'm fine." He said offhandedly. "So you mean they didn't..." He trailed off, not being able to finish and I shook my head.

"No. They got my pants down but that's about it. Next thing I knew I had 7 wannabe Avengers barging into the room." I joked, glad when I saw a slight smirk come from Justin.

"Wannabe Avengers. I'm going to change that to the name of our group chat." He said and I rolled my eyes at him, glad that he was smiling again.

"Do you want to do something fun with me?" Justin asked suddenly, smiling deviously at me.

"Depends. What's your version of fun?" I asked, unsure.

"You'll just have to trust me on this one."





'Trust me.'

The two seemingly harmless words that got me into this less than ideal situation to begin with.

Apparently, Justin's version of fun includes getting trapped in the huge wardrobe in Elliot's closet because our supposed lookout forgot how to do his job.

Granted our lookout was a cute doberman who decided to nap on the job, so maybe that was our fault.

"I'm going to kill you after this." I whispered angrily to Justin, who just kicked his foot out at me.

"It's not my fault, last I checked he was in his art studio, I didn't think he'd be back for a while." Justin said and unapologetically shrugged.

The reason we were in Elliot's closet to begin with is because Justin wanted to play a prank on Elliot. Now, I had immediately told him that he was batshit crazy for wanting to pull a prank on the grumpiest person in the household, but being the stupidly good manipulator he is, he guilted me into doing it with him.

The original prank was something generic, like putting water over the door and letting it drop down on him once he walked in, but then I started listing all the things that could go wrong with that and Justin caved while calling me a "buzz-kill."

He then wanted to mess with some of Elliot's art supplies, maybe move it around, or "get rid" of some of it and I said hell no. I do not have a death wish.

So then he asked me what I would like to do instead and off the top of my head I suggested that we put napkins or something in all of Elliot's shoes to trick him into thinking that they were too small or something, and surprisingly Justin seemed to like that.

Apparently other than art, Elliot was almost anal retentive about his precious shoes, so for him to think something was wrong with them would make Justin's day.

Of course Justin wanted to add his own little twist to the otherwise "boring" prank and leave fake spiders, that he very conveniently had stashed in his closet, into some of the shoes because apparently Elliot was also terrified of spiders.

Which, if you think I'm not storing that away to use for later, you are very wrong.

Everything was going smoothly, until we heard the bedroom door open, and we had about 5.3 seconds to get all evidence shoved into the cabinet before we had to throw ourselves somewhere unseen.

So here we were, sitting, surprisingly comfortably, in Elliot's wardrobe while we waited for Elliot to be done screaming at the poor person on the other end of the phone and leave so we could get out of here.

"Because you fought me so hard on it." Justin remarked and I huffed.

"At the very least, I learned a valuable lesson today. Never trust you when you say 'trust me.'" I glared and he just chuckled quietly.

We sat there for a little bit before I noticed that Justin didn't seem to be acting right. One of his feet wouldn't stop moving around nervously, he kept running his hand harshly down his thigh. His breathing was a little too harsh, and he kept looking around, before exhaling impatiently.

"So is your favourite colour still red?" I asked, and Justin snapped his gaze to me.

"What?" He asked, and I got a full grasp on just how breathless he really was.

"Out of little space, I mean? You said that a lot of things change mentally from when you're eight and when you're fifteen. I just wondered if your favourite colour changed." I explained, keeping a close eye on his body language.

"No. I mean, yes, it's still the same. It's red." His voice came out harsher than I think he meant for it to, and that sealed it for me.

"Any particular reason? I mean, why red?" I asked, trying to just keep him talking.

"You." He said and I looked at him confused.

"You, you used to-" He paused to take in another shallow breath, though his voice still came out breathless. "You used to love the colour red. Every piece of clothing you owned contained the colour red. All your favourite toys were red, you and Massimo used to put red edible dye in food and some days that was the only way they could get you to eat." He said, smiling to himself as he recalled the times from when we were younger.

"Yeah, I was a bit of a picky kid, wasn't I?" I asked, relieved when I saw his foot gradually start slowing down in tempo, and he seemed to be breathing a bit deeper than before.

"Honestly, I think you just liked spending time with Nonna and Massimo. They were always the ones to dye the food with you." He spoke clearer now, a good amount of air behind his voice, and his foot was tapping relatively slow now.

"Are you okay?" I asked gently, not sure if asking about it would trigger another one, or if the previous one was truly over with.

"Yeah," He let out a slow breath, closing his eyes for a second, grounding himself. "Thank you."

I just nodded, relieved that he was okay.

"Mind telling me what that was about?" I asked, not wanting to unknowingly trigger him.

"I uh, I hate the dark. I hate feeling cramped. I-I can't do it, not after what they did." He stuttered and I reached over, placing a hand on his knee, stopping him.

"Okay, that's okay. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. Why don't we open the door? That way it won't feel so cramped?" I suggested but he shook his head.

"No. No, I'm more scared of Elliot finding us here than I am of the dark." He joked lamely.

"Well then, is there something you want to talk about while we're stuck in here?" I asked and he thought for a minute.

"Do you actually know what happened?" He asked.

"You're going to have to be a little more specific."

"To make me regress. You don't actually know, do you?" He asked and I shook my head, voicing my answer when I remembered he couldn't see me very well.

"Didn't think so. Dad always said that the only people who would know where the ones who had to, or I chose to tell. What happened was-"

"I don't need to know." I cut him off.

"I don't want you to think that you have to tell me, I do not need to know." I knew that whatever he was about to tell me, it couldn't be an easy story for him to recall.

"No, I want to tell you. I think it would be better if you understood why I age regress. When I was eight, Elliot and Elijah were about fourteen, at the time, and Massimo was twenty. Elliot had this friend, who came over a lot. They were in the same grade, liked most of the same things, and most importantly both of them seemed to be rebelling.

Massimo kept saying how he didn't like Elliot's friend, but everybody brushed it off. Eventually, about a year later Elliot's friend had everyone loving him. Dad thought that he was a "good influence" on Elliot, and Elijah liked that Elliot finally had someone besides himself that he could rely on.

Nobody really knew that he and I were close. Everyone knew I always liked to be involved in everything anyone did, so it wasn't uncommon for me to follow people around, or try to involve myself in others' activities. And so when I started following around Elliot's friend, no one blinked twice.

I don't think anyone actually realised that I had formed a relationship with him. We were really good friends, which at the time I couldn't see what was wrong with a nine year old and a fifteen year old being best friends, but I loved it. I liked that he made me feel seen. He wasn't constantly pushing me away, or saying I was too young to hang out with them.

Only after years of therapy can I see that he was grooming me. Manipulating me so that I would go quietly." Justin exhaled and I could see him mentally preparing himself for what would come next.

"When I turned nine, Elliot's friend told me that he had a surprise for me. A belated birthday gift. But I would have to go with him to get it. Me being a gullible little kid, I agreed. I went with him, didn't even tell dad, or anyone for that matter, that I was leaving.

We were in the car when I finally started getting nervous. We were heading out of town, I could tell that much. Every one of my questions or concerns were shot down, and we drove for maybe 30 minutes before he knocked me out. Put a rag filled with chloroform to my face.

When I woke up I was very disoriented. I could tell I was tied up, I think I was blindfolded. That could have just been the shipping container they stuffed me in. I later found out that I was on a boat for about three days.

It took them a little over a week to find me. That was possibly the longest week of my life. I can't even describe the things they did to me. But I think the worst thing they did was when they were done with the actual torture. They would shove me back in that shipping container. I never knew when they would let me out.

I remember there was one day where they didn't let me out. Nobody came anywhere near me, I genuinely thought they had just left me to die. I couldn't decide whether I was relieved or terrified when they let me out the next day.

When I was rescued, once I finally got back home I never felt safe. I always thought that someone was just going to snatch me back up in the middle of the night. I refused to sleep alone for almost three years. Even after I started age regressing I couldn't stand to be alone at night.

And don't even get me started on how hard it was for me to get integrated back into society. I lost a lot of my friends because I was so sceptical around them. Refused to be alone with them, go anywhere with them, I was constantly interrogating them. I had one person who stuck by my side through it all, and he is now my absolute best friend.

So that's why I regress. It isn't just me overreacting to the situation, it is just my brain being so fucked up that the only way for me to cope is to go back to a time when things were easier. And for me, that's when I was seven-eight years old." Justin studied me intently as he said the last part, but I couldn't stop myself from staring at him in shock.

"One, I am so sorry that that happened to you. You did not deserve that, and the fact that anyone would do that to a literal child is disgusting. But two, I've never thought that your age regression was just you "overreacting." Even before I knew why you regressed, I knew that it was your brain trying it's best to survive, and protect itself. You're brain isn't fucked up, you are not fucked up. You're exactly who you should be." Justin's look morphed into something incomprehensible before he looked down, hiding his face from me.

I was about to say something else, maybe apologise again when we heard the bedroom door slam shut, and everything went quiet.

"Well, looks like it's time to make our escape." Justin said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I guess it is." I said, however I couldn't stop thinking about how Justin could ever think that his brain was fucked up, or that he was just overreacting. But I did know one thing.

I will kill whoever made him think that way.