Page 48 of Ruckus

“Go back to sleep, Willow,” I whisper as I creep across the landing and put her back to bed.

“I miss my mommy,” she cries, and I wish I knew how to comfort her. I miss Amber too, and I know she wouldn't have left us by choice. It feels so cruel to lie, but to comfort Willow I have to promise her that her mommy will be home soon, while I face up to the fact that she’s probably dead.

“Daddy and his friends are too loud.” She places her hands over her ears as I tuck her in under the covers. “I know, you just have to drown them out. Lie down and I’ll draw circles on your back until you fall asleep.” I smile, knowing it’s how Amber used to settle her. She tried it on me once when I was younger but I was far too ticklish.

“What if she never comes back, like Aaron?” Willow asks with tears swelling in her pretty green eyes. Aaron always made time for us, he was our big protective brother, which makes the fact he bailed on us so much harder to understand. Willow misses him, I miss him, and it makes me hate him so much for leaving us behind.

I don’t answer her question, because I can’t. Instead I make those circles on her back until she stops sobbing and eventually falls asleep. Placing a soft kiss on her cheek, I slowly creep back into my own room. Closing the door, I scowl when I remember the bolt I fixed to it all by myself isn’t there anymore. Dad must have taken it away while I was at school. He hasn’t mentioned anything about it. I guess he’s waiting until I do. Everything with him is a mental game, and I won’t give him the satisfaction of playing along. I’ll just pretend that bolt never existed

I toss and turn through the night as the noises coming from downstairs get louder. I can hear the scared screams, as well as the laughter, and I try so hard to blank it out. I can’t go downstairs, I tried that a few months ago, and what I saw is still etched in my brain.

It’s past 4 am when I hear the bike engines outside the window start up, and when curiosity gets the better of me, again, I get up to look out of the window. I see the brothers I expect, Rex, Mac, and my father. Then I see the four young girls, wearing just underwear, who they have tied and gagged and are loading into the back of a cage.

I know the screams I heard would have come from them, just like they did from the girls here before them. These aren’t club girls, they’re far too innocent and scared. They don’t come here by choice and I’m certain I’ll never see their faces again.

I notice another guy beside the cage, and when he steps closer to the porch light and shakes my dad's hand, I recognize who it is. He’s got a face I could never forget, one that makes me shudder every time I see it.

The club brothers call him Chop, but he insists that I call him Tobias, he tells me I’m special, and when he kisses my cheek it always makes me go cold. Thankfully Chop doesn’t belong to this charter, he comes from Colorado, so it's not often that I have to endure him.

His eyes lift up to my window and I gasp when he catches me looking. I should get back into bed, last time Daddy caught me snooping I got locked in the basement, all alone. It was so dark and cold down there, minutes felt like days and I don’t want to go down there again. But I remain frozen with my eyes locked on to his. He smiles at me before getting behind the wheel of the cage, and after I watch him pull away with Rex and Mac flanking him on their bikes I breathe a sigh of relief.Until I realize that my dad is looking up at me, and that same chill spreads over my skin.

I quickly move away from the window and get back into bed, closing my eyes tight and trying not to think of the fate of those girls in the back of Chop’s van.

I hear footsteps coming up the stairs and hold my breath as they move across the landing, one step, two step, three step…

The door creaks open and I keep my eyes shut as tight.

“I know you're awake, princess,” Dad speaks playfully as he comes all the way inside and closes the door behind him, the mattress dips when he sits on the edge of it and I stay as still as I can.

“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” He strokes my hair with his finger and my breathing starts to get faster. “I’ve warned you so many times, and you know you won’t like what you see.” His voice is so soft, nothing like how it sounds when he talks to his club brothers.

“I’ll bet you have some questions, so why don’t you go right ahead and ask.” He takes me by surprise, so much so that I open my eyes and look over my shoulder at him. He doesn’t look mad, like he was last time.

“C’mon, you're a big girl now, ask what you wanna know.”

“Who… who are they?” I whisper, unable to resist taking the bait

“They’re troubled, princess, not all girls have daddies who love and take care of ‘em,” My hair continues to slide through his fingers.

“And where does he take them?” Tears stream down my cheeks for the girls whose names I’ll never know.

“That doesn’t matter, I would never let you end up like them. I will always take care of you.” His words sound more like a curse than a promise. “I have your future all planned out,princess. You'll always be taken care of.” He reaches over and places a long lingering kiss on my cheek.

“You just enjoy being a child, you only have a few more years left.” His words sound more threatening than comforting as he gets up off the bed, but I have one more question for him.

“Did Eden have to go where they did?” I ask, thinking about how she looked when I last saw her. She was so thin, her skin was filthy and her eyes looked dead as Mac was forcing himself inside her. I didn’t know her well, but I knew she was Aaron’s girl, he was in love with her and Daddy knew that too. He knew and he sat drinking a beer watching his friend punch her in the face while he fucked her broken body.

“No, sweetheart, Eden’s at peace now. I had to let her go.”

“Freya… Freya.” The loud knock coming from the other side of the bathroom door, shakes me out of the memory and I quickly splash some water on my face before I answer it.

“You okay?” Ruckus looks worried when I step back into the room.

“I’m fine,” I assure him, hating that my father can still haunt me from the grave. He may never have assaulted me the way he did Eden, and all the other girls, but he sure as hell made me think he would. I spent every day waiting for him to take his creepiness to the next level. I lived on the edge of my nerves, and he knew it.

“Hey.” Ruckus grabs my face in his hand and cradles my cheek when he sees my tears start to run. “If you don’t like the arrangement, I can take you to the houseboat. I just thought this would give us the chance to…”

“I like the arrangement.” I look up at him and confess. I can try and lie to myself, but the thought of spending another night with him holding me, and making me feel so safe isallI want. It’s just something I can’t let myself get used to.

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