❤️❤️

I grabbed Jade's hand, my heart instantly beginning to race. Alex had almost gone to Marcus, but hadn't because he was friends with my father.

He was friend's with my father.

Meaning, he could have close communications with him.

Meaning, they were all in danger now.

The breath left my lungs as my mind started panicking, desperately searching for a way out of it. Unintentionally, my eyes widened before I could control my reaction. It was too late though, as the corner of his lips twitched up, and I knew that he knew who he was. I tightened my grip on Jade's hand and she gave me a concerned look, but otherwise brushed it off due to my obvious distress at my situation.

"Okay, well, neither of us have eaten breakfast yet, so we're going to go and grab something and hang out at my place. You in?" Jade asked, obviously trying to get out of the stressful situation. Sam shook her head and motioned to Marcus, who still had his eyes on me.

"I've just got to covre a few things, and..."

"Come eat with us, Sam! Please?" I squeaked, cutting off her excuse. Sam looked at me and I could tell she was about to refuse, when her eyes softened and she started to nod.

"Fine, I can just come back afterwards..." Marcus narrowed his eyes at me, shaking his head in an almost unnoticable motion.

"Sam, this is a time-sensitive issue; I'm afraid it needs discussing as soon as physically able," Sam shook him off and walked over to us, talkinga s she opened the door.

"Sure, I'll be physically available after breakfast. Go talk to Donny about Stage 1 if you want, I'm pretty sure that needs a few extra minutes work," She led us out, neither her or Jade looking back at him as we left. I managed to look over my shoulder, finding him with an emotionless mask once more. The door slammed shut and we hurried through the warehouse, Sam calling out to some of the guys walking around. We got into the car silently and Jade pulled out, speeding away.

My friends were now in danger because of me. The thought just circled around and around my mind, picking up a pace like a snowball rolling down a hill, the anxiety building and building until it just felt like white noise. I couldn't seem to find a way out - these people had so much more power and resources than I oculd ever dream to have. There was nothing that I could do that could stop them, either Marcus or my father or anyone else that stood with them.

I was naive. I knew that I always desperately clawed at the image of everyone having good in them, and that somehow, life would turn out good like a fairytale. But as much as tried to look at the situation realistically, the thought of maybe Marcus not being so bad, maybe I was judging him too fast, maybe he wouldn't go running to my father.

Maybe things would turn out okay.

"Well, that was an adventure," Sam snorted, lounging around in the back seat. There was no sign of tension around her, despite both me and Jade sitting tensely in the front. Looking down at my hands, I could see them trembling slightly as I tried to focus on the real world, and not the panic inside of me.

"You could call it that," Jade muttered, leaning forwards to try and peek around a truck at a turn. When the truck only pulled forwards in our view once more, she huffed and rolled down the window.

"Oi, fuckface! Get the fuck out of my way you selfish fucking asshole! Yeah, you, bitch! I hope you fucking swallow broken glass!" My head shot up and I stared at Jade, who was still screaming explicits at the guy.

"Hey, don't worry. She get's mad when she's stressed," Sam whispered, her head suddenly popping up from between the seats. "She'll calm down once she's eaten," She chuckled at the disbelief in my expression before falling back again, leaning against the window and kicking her feet up on the seats, no seatbelt in sight.

Jade made several rude gestures at the guy who hadn't even looked at her once before scoffing and pulling out sharply, swerving as she almost a car pulling out around him. A loud horn followed us but Jade sped up, holding her hand out the window and flicking them off.

"Fucking Karens..." She grumbled, her eyes now on the road once more. I stared at her, hands flying out as she took a specifically sharp turn.

Thankfully, we pulled into a McDonald's drive-through pretty quickly, partly due to the closeness of the building and partly due to Jade's reckless driving. At least her road rage kept my mind off of the situation for a few minutes though as I sat terrified I would die before my father even had a chance to get to me.

Jade barked out a set of numbers and instantly drove through to the next window without checking if our order was even right or not. Heck, she didn't even check if we wanted those orders...

"Sam?" Sam shot up and held out her hands, welcoming a bag of food thrown at her. Jade passed me mine a little less roughly before snatching her own and driving off with a surprisingly polite 'thank you'.

"At least you've still got some manners..." Sam mocked, practically shoving a burger in her mouth. We had just missed the breakfast menu, although there were still some hashbrowns and syrup in my bag, obviously left overs from the morning.

"They get paid too little to deal with my bullshit," She snapped through a bite of a wrap.

"And yet we get it for free," Sam snarkily replied. Jade only rolled her eyes.

"Did I get your order right? Sorry if not, I was getting impatient at the situation," I nodded and started eating my fries, the stress eater in me instantly making it's appearence.

Who even cared that we were eating burgers and fries for breakfast.

I was probably going to die soon anyway.