Dave paused before he answered and looked around suspiciously. He panicked when he turned to see two huge, over six feet tall, guys standing between him and the door. Terror tagged at him knowing his family was on the other side of the door. He hoped they hadn’t seen them.
“Take what you want from me just let me walk out of here.” He extended the hand that had the blackberry in it to Joe.
“We don’t want your money,” Joe pushed Dave’s hand away.
Before Dave could speak again, Joe picked him up by the collar and threw him behind the counter. He hit the floor hard on his side. Blood trickled from the cut on his head where it had met with the corner of the counter. He was dazed and confused. He stumbled a bit on his knees as his head was spinning. Before he could stand up, the door opened, and three pairs of footsteps walked in.
“Hi Ash, Baku has a message for you.”
“What’s that?”
Ash, Joe and Billy got out of the car and walked up the driveway of the cream-colored house with red and white roses bordering the path. Joe had tracked them here, to Dave’s house.Billy reached to ring the doorbell when Ash stopped him. “Don’t bother no one's home. They left; I hope for good.” Ash was relieved. He could now go back to hunting Baku without worrying about the humans. “Let’s go. We have a bigger fish to fry.”“Ash, could we get some pizza on the way?” Joe said sounding relaxed, “Too bad we can’t go back to that place, the sauce smelled pretty good.”Ash turned and looked at him, a perplexed look on his face. “What?”“Only Joe can think of food at the oddest of times,” Billy said flatly as he walked back to the car.“Joe, when I first met you, you were a pretty serious guy, what happened?” Ash asked Joe who was staring at him wi
Baku threw things around. He felt caged and that made him anxious and uncontrollable. Soon he’d be taking his frustration out on his pack.“I can’t keep hiding out like a rat. We need to get rid of him now! Seth! Why is Cole taking so long! All I did was ask him to kill a family of weak humans, how hard can that be!”Seth smiled. He was unmoved by Baku’s erratic behavior. “The humans will be back from their vacation tomorrow. They will be dead by the next morning. I thought you would want to kill two birds with one stone, so I set a trap for Ash—” Before he could finish telling his master plan, Baku interrupted him with an air of arrogance and a hint of mockery in his voice.“Thinking and strategizing is my forte. Let’s face it, it’s not your strongest suit, but there is a first time for everything, continue.”Seth clenched his jaw and fisted his hands tightly. Baku ignored his frigid
It was dark when Dave pulled the car into his driveway and the moon shone brighter than the streetlights. The vacation seemed so short, but he was more relaxed than he was three weeks ago. He had enjoyed the time he had spent with his family. It showed him exactly how much he loved them and wouldn’t want to be without them. The kids wanted to stay longer, but he had to get back to work. “We are home,” Dave announced to his family. Jayson jumped out of the car, Martha followed suit with Alice in her arms. Merilee had fallen asleep and didn’t seem to be waking up anytime soon. “Honey, wake up we’re home,” Dave whispered as he nudged her gently to wake up, instead she lay flat on her belly in the vacant back seat. She looked so sweet and peaceful, deep in her slumber. But he knew better, Merilee was just pretending so that he could carry her in. There was no other choice but to submit to the little princess, then come back and get the bags. Before he could step out of his car, he heard
Where am I?Lee turned around in a circle on the same spot as she looked around, searching for something familiar but all she could see was fog of a misty early morning. She raised her hands to her face. She could see that. She looked down to the ground. She couldn’t see her feet, but she could feel the solid ground beneath them.Where exactly am I? She wondered, her heartbeat echoing loudly in her ears.Don’t panic. Take deep breathes. She’d barely taken one deep draw in when the fog in front of her began to part. Startled, she took a step back. She looked to her right, then to her left and finally behind her. Thick mist surrounded her, only the front that seemed to be opening up. What was she to do? If she was to leave this unknown place, she had to move and the only path open to her was ahead.Gathering all her courage, Lee took one step into the opening. The fog parted for her. She took another step, and the path opened wider. With each step forward she took, the cloudy mist opene
“Morning.” Ann walked into the kitchen in her pajamas, her short blond hair was in a mess and she was clearly half asleep. She sat down, crossed her arms over the table and put her head down.“Good morning to you too,” Maria responded with a beaming smile on her face. She was in a good mood this morning, like every morning. She was an early bird, the fact that there was only one bathroom in their three-bedroom apartment, was also a motivation. She always woke up early to be the first one to use it. She stood from the table and poured Ann some coffee in her favorite mug.“Where is Lee? She’s going to be late for school…and why are you always so damn cheerful?” Ann grunted back at her. Maria placed the mug in front of her and went back to her bowl of cereal.“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, again. She must be getting dressed.”Ann’s headshot up, she had one of her evil grins on. “Actually, I had the best dream ever!”Maria put her spoon down, leaned back in the chair and l
“You,” she gave him a cut look then sipped at her coffee. “There is a new rule. You are only allowed to eat food that you’ve paid for. Did you pay for this?” She picked up the box and shook it in his face.He stayed quiet but he was fuming. He gave her a look that screamed murder. Ann didn’t flinch. She placed the box back on the floor and went back to her coffee, “Didn’t think so.”“Ann…” he called out her name between clenched teeth.“You didn’t pay for my name either, so don’t say it.” She stayed cool, ready to challenge his comeback.Before Steve could speak, Lee rushed into the room. She was in a hurry to get to her therapist’s office before she headed to school. She could feel the tension in the room; it was all too familiar to her. She looked at Ann’s cool face then at Steve’s heated face, he was glaring at Ann. So far Ann was winning this fight.“I don’t want to know what you are fighting about. I’m going to miss my appointment if I don’t leave now. And I don’t have the time,
Merilee met Maria and Ann at the last group home she was placed in. She was ten then and had been in four different group homes already. She was a loner, never bothered to make friends because she wasn’t sure how long she would stay. Ann and Maria were best friends then, complete opposites of each other.Ann was a sarcastic, cynical, twelve year old. Her druggie mother abandoned her when she was six. She never depended on anyone, got what she wanted through her own efforts. She never cried because she knew it would never solve anything. She was cold and straightforward, if she didn’t like you she made sure you knew it. Her attitude had made it difficult for adoption, but she didn’t care. She had survived in the worst of situations and had learned to be independent. She wasn’t into making friends, but Maria had tugged at her heart.Maria was eleven when she came to Ann’s group home. Her parents had died in a car crash when she was nine. For a whole year, her relatives had passed her ar
Lee pulled the little green golf into the Edgeview high school parking lot. She was lucky to have found a parking space right next to the science building. Her therapy had run a little late and she was now five minutes late for biology, again. Miss Don wouldn’t be too patient with her this time. It was her third strike, and that meant detention or massive mountains of homework because calling her legal guardian, Ann, had proved useless in the past. She rebelled against authority worse than Lee did.On therapy free days, it took her close to five minutes to get to school, but when she did go to therapy it took her half an hour.She ran down the brightly-lit corridor full of student lockers and the red Eagle’s football team banners hung everywhere. She stopped at the glass door and straightened out her ruffled hair. She held her backpack in front of her to cover the large brown coffee stain on the hip of her blue jeans. She had driven to school in a frenzy and spilled the entire cup on