I made a fuss when a nurse told me I had to be taken to the clinic's front doors in a wheelchair, claiming it was the "rules".

I sighed, grumbled that I could walk just fine, then flopped into the seat and scowled as we made our way to the front entrance.

The nurse, her name tag showed Katie on it, dropped me off outside the doors and left me there to sit and wait for my ride. I knew, and had known for a fair while, that Mr. Giacomo hated bullies and bullying with a passion, but I sure wasn't expecting the surprise I received.

A fairly old pick-up truck, one of the smaller RAM models, pulled up and a large but pretty woman in the truck called my name through the open passenger side window. What surprised me even more is that she called me DeeDee, not Dempsey, and my head snapped up like a shot.

She must have seen my reaction and the fact that I cringed into the chair right after that.

I didn't see her look over at me and sigh, but I heard the door of the truck opening, then closing again, and a short while later, a pair of large but soft arms were slowly pulling me forward and wrapping me in a nice hug, something I hadn't experienced for quite some time.

"I'm Safira Giacomo, DeeDee. I'm Vincenzo's wife, I'm here to take you to our home, he'll be picking up your sisters about now," she stated.

I sat there trembling in her arms for a few minutes, but she just stayed there and kept hugging me. Then the tears erupted, I guess it was relief that my sisters were fine that brought them on; I laid my head on her rounded shoulder and cried my heart out for what seemed like forever.

Mrs. Giacomo let me dry my face on my sleeve, shaking her head all the while, but smiling just the same. "Let's go home, DeeDee."

Getting into this truck was a lot easier than getting into Mr. Giacomo's, I was soon buckled into the passenger seat and we were on our way.

It took us about thirty-five minutes or so to get back to town from the clinic because some idiot driving a heavily modified recent model Mustang took the turns that swing north and east on 77, just east of the intersection of 35 which heads into Danbury, way too fast and lost control on the turn. His car flipped several times, turning it and him into proverbial Swiss cheese in the process, car parts were everywhere.

We actually had to wait for nearly ten minutes as a group of fire department folks from Danbury cleared the road, it was that bad.

Mrs. Giacomo overheard a deputy sheriff say the guy was doing better than 150 mph when he hit the second turn and lost control. It turns out that one of the deputies was sitting just around the second turn and saw it all happen. Not the first time something like that has happened around here, too many non-residents seem to think that because there are so few people here, they won't be seen or caught doing shit like that.

We arrived at the Giacomo house, a split-level four bedroom ranch style house on the north side of town, just inside the town limits.

The house wasn't particularly big, but it wasn't a falling apart shambles like the dump that we had known as home until now. I sat there in the truck, just staring at the house in shock until Mrs. Giacomo gently pulled me back to reality and said, "Welcome to your new home."

Oh, geez, there's the darn buckets going again! Her saying welcome home had me bawling, leaned against the window, for quite a while. It wasn't until the rumble of Mr. Giacomo's big pick-up announced his arrival and that of my sisters that the flood of tears stopped.

I unbuckled myself and was out of Mrs. Giacomo's truck like a shot. I came very close to flattening my two sisters as I grabbed them in a hug.

Jenny and Jill were happy to see me, especially when they learned that I would be fine, I just had a bruised shoulder thanks to the asshole.

All five of us headed into the house, then settled into seats in the living room to relax for a little while and sort out the arrangements.

Mrs. Giacomo took a few minutes to bring her husband up to speed regarding me, including describing the driver/car sandwich situation. She described it like that because it was all too apt, the guy's remains were in the middle of a very crumpled and battered car.

Think of it like this: take a napkin, fold it in half, then in half the other way, then repeat the process. It's a lot more compact than it was, right?

Mr. Giacomo shook his head and sighed, "I'm glad you had it easy, Safira, although I wish you hadn't had to see that accident. I got to the house where these children lived... well, survived might be more accurate, only to find their mother passed out on the living room floor.

"It took me nearly fifteen minutes to bring her around, then another half hour before anything I said seemed to make any sense to her.

"These two," he pointed at Jenny and Jill briefly, "just sat in the two easy chairs and waited while I dealt with their heavily intoxicated mother.

"I don't know if the drinking was normal for her or not, or a symptom of her husband being gone, but it wasn't helping matters at all.

We were in that shack for over an hour before she was able to fully understand that I was there to take the two girls. When that did get through the slowly receding haze of the alcohol, though, she just shrugged and mumbled something about them being better off away from there."

"The Child Protection Services worker, Paula Felderman, was there the whole time to make sure nothing untoward happened. Their mother signed the papers to transfer custody of all three children over to us and I let the girls go up to get whatever belongings they wanted."

"Yeah, bro, we brought some of your stuff, too, some basic clothing plus your favourite books and your comic and manga collections." This came from my sister Jenny. As soon as she finished, the two raced out to the trucks and started carrying several shabby suitcases inside.

It took them three trips to bring in the suitcases. Jill pointed at two, saying, "That's your clothes, that's your books and other stuff, bro."

It was not easy to get up off of that sofa and hug the twins, largely because tears could be seen to be trickling down my cheeks.

At that point, Jenny and Jill realized that I was upset by something, although they had no idea what it might be.

Mr. Giacomo intervened, "Well, girls, Dempsey admitted something really serious to me the other day, he wants to be a girl like you."

Jenny and Jill were stunned to say the least. Mr. Dempsey and I spent a good fifteen minutes explaining things to them.

Their response, once the twins knew everything, was to jump on me and smother me in hugs, hugs soon joined in on by the Giacomos.

"My name is Denise Deirdre, I don't mind if you call me DeeDee, okay?" I whispered to them while still wrapped in the big group hug.

The next half hour was spent giving us a quick tour of the house and the large back yard attached to it. The big attraction in the back yard was a pair of mature oak trees near the back fence. These trees were big, although not as old or as large as some oaks could end up being.

Each of the two oaks had a large swing seat attached under one of the bigger limbs, giving a nice spot to relax when we needed it.

I ended up with a room to myself. What shocked me was the size of the room, easily three times as big as my old room in the shack.

Mr. Giacomo placed his hand on my shoulder and smiled down at me, "We'll need to get some furniture, I guess you're pleased with the room?"

"Pleased?" I whispered. "Pleased is an understatement, all I had before was a six foot by eight foot place to hide in that hellhole."

He laughed, a big, rumbling sound that brought a smile to my face. Laughter was not something heard often in that place where I used to live.

"One last thing to show the three of you, I hope you like it," was his comment as we made our way down to the main floor.

He opened a door on one side of the hallway not far from the entrance to the kitchen, the door revealed steps leading downward.

He led us down the narrower steps here, telling us to be careful, then opened a door, showing us a small laundry room.

But the big surprise was what was lying beyond the door on the other side of that short, narrow hallway. He smiled as he opened it; Jenny, Jill and I stood there in the doorway, looking around. There was an acoustic guitar on one stand, an electric guitar on another, and at the back of the room, separated from each other but on slightly elevated platforms, a nice six piece drum set and a very decent keyboard system.

The look on our faces as we saw those instruments waiting there was one of sheer joy.

I've always had a bit of an interest in acoustic guitars, Jenny loved keyboards but had only been able to use the two at school. Jill had a better voice than either Jenny or myself, but the instruments here didn't have the fascination for her that they did for us, although she did like to fool around with various horns at times. The three of us made our way into the room, barely breathing as we moved around the instruments.

The acoustic was a Fender Malibu Classic in hot rod red, I ran my fingers gently along the frets and over the soundboard, sighing happily. Jenny was just as happily examining the keyboard, which turned out to be a rather expensive Roland 88 key stage piano system.

I took a quick look at the electric guitar, holy shit! It was a Les Paul studio model, another rather expensive piece of equipment. It was obvious that the Giacomos had spent a lot of money on these instruments, they may not be absolute top of the line but they are all quality items.

If that were the case, that drum set was going to be a beaut! Yep, a 6 piece Yamaha Stage Custom set in cranberry red.

That was when Jill spoke up, her voice barely a whisper, but still quite audible to us all, "Now if there was a nice alto sax here, I'd be in love!"

Mr. Giacomo had a good laugh at that, the rest of us were grinning as we made our way upstairs to put things away and help with dinner.

Life went on, although it sure was different living with the Giacomos than it had been in the hellhole before we were rescued.

For one thing, we were given either food for lunch at school, breakfast and dinner being eaten at home, or cash to buy lunch at school. For another, on the first Saturday after we ended up in their home, Jenny, Jill and I were taken into Duluth to do some girl shopping.

Considering that the clothing we had then was either threadbare to the point of nearly falling apart, or we had outgrown items, the Giacomos had decided we needed decent clothing. To be honest, I felt relieved as I hated looking like my clothes might fall off at the slightest touch.

Mrs. Giacomo knew of a few places that sold clothing for teens, so we wandered around Duluth from one store to the next. She told us that cost of items was not a problem, so long as we didn't try to buy out entire stores! We started at a store called Ragstock.

I almost drooled over a rather pretty pair of black bell bottom pants with coral floral designs on them, so they ended up in the cart.

Jenny and Jill agreed they were nice and found several pairs of a similar style, in a variety of colours. They went into the cart.

There were some nice matching short and top outfits suitable for summer, in black or white with floral patterns. We grabbed some of those. Yeah, we might not be able to wear them right now, it's early October, but that doesn't mean we can't plan ahead for next summer!

We roamed through the selection of dresses available, it was clear we all liked the ones that were at least mid-thigh in length. Plenty of other dresses looked nice, but they were so short that you would most likely flash everyone in sight just by bending over a bit. Ewwww!!!!

Jenny, Jill and I each tossed a few dresses in with the other stuff in the cart and started looking at the pants available.

Huh, the only jeans we could see were either the skinny ones or the "distressed" ones, you know, the ones with holes and stuff? Well, we each grabbed a couple of pairs of skinny jeans, then an overall and some jogging pants plus leggings in a variety of colours.

Then it was on to the tees and other tops. A lot of what we could see just didn't appeal to us, we just wanted simple, right? There were some semi-cute baseball tees, we each grabbed a light burgundy one and a grey one. The other item that caught our attention was the selection of long side split tee shirts. They were offered in a few colours, so we threw some into the cart along with all the other clothing.

A fair assortment of flannel shirts for casual long sleeve wear were picked and thrown into the cart. Most of the sweaters we could see were just meh, the only ones that we really liked were the fleece navidads which got us all to giggle. We each snatched one of those.

There were hoodies available that matched a bunch of the leggings and jogging pants we'd bought, so they too went in the cart.

I guess it's a good thing that Mrs. Giacomo brought the credit cards, we'd just spent about a thousand dollars of their money!

Mrs. Giacomo suggested we get some outerwear, it can get seriously cold up here, so we hit Northwest Outlet after crossing the I535 bridge.

Jenny, Jill and I all squeed over the North Face Aconcagua jacket. Mrs. Giacomo laughed as we each hugged one tight.

Remember how I said it can get almighty cold here? Well, yeah, it can, so we played smart and grabbed a set of outerwear pants as well. It would have been nice if there was more variety, but after a quick look, the Columbia "modern mountain" pants were the best option.

We decided that we would do the rest of our shopping for clothing at Sears, but first we needed to eat.

After a bit of discussion while crossing the bridge going back toward Sears, we settled on the Texas Roadhouse. Hey, we were hungry!

Just walking into the restaurant, the four of us were salivating, the smells coming from the kitchen were totally awesomesauce!

Mrs. Giacomo ordered cheese fries and buffalo wings as starters, then we looked at the menu. I picked the fried catfish, Jenny and Mrs. Giacomo both opted for the country fried sirloin and Jill waffled for a bit before deciding to get a pulled pork sandwich as her main item.

Soft drinks for the three of us and coffee for Mrs. Giacomo rounded out the meal.

Oohhhh!!! we were all sitting in our seats when we had finished, rubbing our swollen tummies, the food was just that good!

After relaxing for a few minutes, occasionally nibbling on the few leftover fries, Mrs. Giacomo paid and we waddled out to the car.

We took our time going through the clothing at Sears. We were mostly looking for jeans and skirts.

Wow, there was a huge variety of jeans here, we spent nearly two hours in that area finding ones that we liked. Once we were happy with the jeans, we looked at skirts, especially ones that were suitable for colder weather. There was a fair variety to pick through, but we were looking for longer skirts, at least mid-calf length. Most were really lightweight, but we found several from one clothing line that we liked.

There were about half a dozen different styles available from that line, so we each grabbed the ones we liked the most.

We picked out some nice denim skirts for spring. There was only one item available for juniors, so we each grabbed two of them.

We headed to the checkouts and Mrs. Giacomo pulled out that credit card again, another few hundred dollars gone!

All that shopping had worn us out, perhaps a bit of that was due to that big lunch we ate, but we were having a good time, so there!

We loaded everything into the SUV and headed back to Oak Hill, a trip that took a bit over an hour thanks to it being rush hour.

It was just after five PM when we parked by the house and started lugging bags inside. Mr. Giacomo's truck wasn't there.

Once we had the bags inside, we settled down in the living room and started sorting out the clothing. Jenny's stuff went in one set of bags, Jill's in a second set and mine in a third. Mrs. Giacomo hadn't bought much for herself, so she just laid those items across her lap.

With the clothes sorted, we started hauling them up to our rooms to put them away. That took about twenty minutes to finish.

We were just settling back down in the living room when Mr. Giacomo's truck pulled into the driveway and parked next to the SUV. What SUV, you ask? Well, they both had the pick-ups for general daily use but the SUV was a recent purchase after they brought us home.

Anyway, when Mr. Giacomo came in, he was carrying a fair sized box in his hands, which he passed over to an astonished Jill.

"You mentioned something a while back, so... Open it up, girl!" he prompted her.

Jill looked up at him for a moment, then opened the box and pulled out a brand new over $3K value alto sax, her eyes widening until they were nearly bug-like in sheer astonishment. How did we know the price of the sax? Well, the price tag was still on the box, that's how!

I swear Jill hugged that sax like it was a lover, then gently set it down on the sofa and jumped up to give Mr. Giacomo a well-deserved hug!

We lounged around for a while, then Mr. Giacomo called Swede's Drive In and placed an order for a good amount of chicken.

When the food arrived, we enjoyed a nice meal of hot chicken and other items, then relaxed for the rest of the evening.

I guess it was some time late that night when everything went sideways on me.

I started dreaming, believe me, it wasn't a good one. I was reliving in the dream one of the times when I had been raped.

I couldn't for the life of me tell you which time it was, as after enough experiences like that, they just run into each other, ya know?

What I do know is that that dream was way too vivid, I could see and feel first Jerry, then Walter, ramming their dicks into my poor butt.

The actual experiences lasted a few minutes each time; this dream, though, seemed to be slowed down a fair bit.

If I had thought it couldn't get worse, I was wrong. The rape scene ended, I thought it was finished. Oh, gods, how I wish it was!

Barely an instant after the scene had finished, the dream "flipped" and it started all over again. My stomach lurched in shock.

Every single time I thought that it would finish, it would flip again and start showing the whole scene from the beginning.

I have no idea how long this lasted, or how many times the scene or one very similar to it repeated itself. It was just too much too handle.

At some point, I woke from that dream, screaming at the top of my lungs, not just once but many times.

In seconds, everyone else in the house was running into my room, by which point I had fallen to the floor and expelled my dinner.

I have no idea what happened after that, as everything around me faded to black.

I woke up in the back of an ambulance on the way to the Ingalls clinic yet again. Mrs. Giacomo was sitting at the back, looking my way every now and then, I guess, as I caught her doing it the next time and heard her quiet gasp which alerted the paramedic that I was awake.

The paramedic, a somewhat plain looking woman of about thirty maybe, took a minute or two to check my blood pressure and temperature, and then grabbed a stethoscope to listen to my heart and lungs, just to make sure they were working properly, I suppose.

I can't really fault her for checking all of that, as they had no idea why I had blacked out or fainted earlier.

Less than five minutes after she had looked me over, we arrived at the clinic, and I was quickly wheeled into the emergency area.

It was a long three hours or so before they were willing to concede it had only been a fainting spell. Then they released me again.

Mrs. Giacomo was dealing with some hospital admin person who was giving her a hard time about my last name being different. I could just hear Mrs. Giacomo snap back at the idiot that she and her husband had just taken in three children who had very likely been badly abused.

Then she added that one of those children, she pointed my way at that point, was brutally raped many times by two young thugs. She went on to rip the poor admin guy up one side and down the other about reactions rape victims have after the attacks have ended, primarily the fear that even though the person or people responsible may have been caught, they might be at risk of being raped or hurt again by others.

By that point, I was hiding a giggle behind my hand. It was seriously cool to have her defending us, no, defending ME.

The billing process took another five minutes or so for them to sort out, then Mrs. Giacomo sat down beside me and gave me a hug. I was quite willing to accept such a gesture, and we stayed like that for several minutes before she remembered to call her husband at their home.

I guess he was waiting for the call, as it was answered almost the moment it started ringing. "Giacomo residence, to whom am I speaking?"

Mrs. Giacomo giggled, then answered him, "Just me calling, love. We're done here, can you come by and pick us up, please?"

"Not a problem, we'll be there in a while. The girls have been up all this time worrying about DeeDee, so they'll be with me," he replied.

While we were waiting for them to get there, a young boy about my age came out of the emergency entrance and leaned on a wall.

He wasn't a hunk yet, but there were signs that he might be headed that way, he was several inches taller than me and already quite muscular, giving him a bit of a rugged youth look that drew me like a moth to a flame. Uh oh, I think I like boys went through my surprised mind.

That was when he noticed me checking him out. He straightened up, walked over and squatted near the end of the bench where I was sitting.

That was when I got another shock, I hadn't recognized him because there weren't any lights by where he was leaning on that wall.

Oh, gosh, I'm face to face with Sandy Carmichael, who has been the assistant captain of our junior high football team the last two years. I was just about to burst into tears because of recognizing him when he gently laid a hand on me and flashed that gorgeous smile my way.

Then I received yet another shock when he spoke, "I know who you are, or rather were, DeeDee, and what you lived through. I had no idea you felt this way, even though you were likely the nicest, sweetest guy in our classes over the last few years, but it's fine by me. You're cool."

"You're wondering how I knew who you are? Well, my mom works here, and sometimes I come in when she works. The folks here all know me, and some of them let me help them out by doing some of the cleaning around the place. It's a way to help folks, you know?

"Well, I was just about fifteen feet down the hall, doing a bit of floor mopping, someone had dropped one of those paper cups filled with coffee and made a right mess, so it was fairly easy for me to hear you say you wanted to be called Denise Deirdre and my mom use DeeDee."

Then he leaned forward to hug me, and gently kissed me on the cheek before he let go.

He continued talking, "My mom will be off duty in about twenty minutes, so I'm just chilling until she's done. You stay safe, you hear me?"

As he turned to walk away, it dawned on me that the only person who fit the woman he had mentioned had been Dr. Cullen.

I managed to blurt out, "Hey, Sandy... is your mom Dr. Cullen? Because that is who I was talking to at that time."

He turned back toward us, smiling and nodded. "Yes, her medical degrees were all under her birth surname. She married my dad, Brian, while she was still working on her medical degree, but it didn't last very long. He ran off with someone else about six months before she was done, leaving her with me to raise. Mom filed for divorce, then met my step-dad, Christopher Carmichael, about two years after that."

"So I'm guessing that your step-dad adopted you to formalize him taking you as his own child, or something like that?" I asked.

"That's about the way it happened, although it wasn't until about a week after they married that he received the adoption notifications."

He turned once again to walk away, but I wasn't quite finished with him yet. "Hey, Sandy, what do you do for hobbies?"

He pivoted until he was facing me once again, shaking his head and chuckling. "Well obviously football, you know I've enjoyed playing for the school the last couple of years. I don't mind it, but touch or tag football just for fun is a lot more enjoyable for me than full-on contact.

"Other than that, I like to sing, I've been told I have a nice mid-tenor voice. Oh, I also play a mean fiddle, and guitar, too, I guess."

I grinned as an idea whisked through my mind, then asked him, "How would you like to be a starting member in a garage band?"

He flashed a big smile, saying, "Sounds cool. Where would we be practicing?"

"At their house," I replied, pointing to Mrs. Giacomo beside me. She'd been sitting there watching us, ready to help if it was needed.

Mrs. Giacomo looked at me, a slight smile on her pretty face, then asked me, "You sure he's safe, kiddo? You've been through a lot."

"Heck, yeah, Mrs. Giacomo. This is Sandy Carmichael, he's one of the big guys on the football team at school, but a good one. Like your husband, he doesn't like it when people bully others. If he'd known what Jerry and Walt were doing, they might have ended up in hospital."

Sandy chipped in when I finished speaking, "My dad spent a lot of time learning mixed martial arts and he's taught me quite a bit since I was about seven, I think. I'm in the ninth grade this year, a year ahead of DeeDee here, but the town's schools are all in one big building."

Mrs. Giacomo nodded and pulled a small pad from her purse, then a pen and wrote down the address and phone number for the house. With a slightly bigger smile showing on her face, she ripped the sheet from the pad and held it out toward him as he walked over to take it.

Sandy nodded as he accepted the bit of paper, then read the info on it and said, "Thanks, Mrs. Giacomo, for taking in DeeDee and her sisters."

Mrs. Giacomo sighed, shook her head, then replied to him, "After what my husband saw in their former home, he couldn't leave them there."

Sandy smiled again as he backed away a bit, then spoke, "I'll give you a call after supper tonight, we can talk about the band stuff then."

I grinned up at him as I replied, "Okay, Sandy, hopefully I'll be awake for it. Thanks for being nice about what I'm doing with my life."

Mrs. Giacomo giggled, saying, "Well, if I have to wake you up to be sure you answer a call from your boyfriend, I guess I can do that!"

Sandy and I both groaned when she said the boyfriend bit, then he waved, turned around and headed in through the entrance.

We sat there for a few more minutes waiting for Mr. Giacomo and my sisters to get there to take us home, I could sure use some sleep soon.

While we sat there, I was thinking about having met Sandy here and learning that he could sing, play a fiddle and guitar, too.

It looks like we have the fourth member of our band, thanks to Sandy. I wonder how many we'll have once we fill the various positions?

I was still think about band stuff when an SUV pulled up beside us and a horn honked just as a side window opened. "Hop in, girls."

We were glad they had finally arrived, Mrs. Giacomo had to wait a moment until Jill stepped out from the front passenger seat so that she could sit there. Jill and I piled into the back seat next to Jenny, everyone buckled in, we closed the doors and we were headed home once again.

While we were going home, I quietly informed my sisters that we had a fourth person for the band. They erupted into high-pitched squeals that had me sitting there covering my ears with my hand because it hurt. They settled down a moment later, only to ask who the person was.

I told them that it was Sandy, and they squealed again. Damn, that hurts, especially when you're right next to the people doing the squealing!

It didn't take too long for us to get back to the house. We were all very tired, so after a quick snack, we headed off to our own beds to sleep.