❦𝓡𝓸𝓼𝓮❦

"You should be more careful." Blake scolds me.

I'm a little scraped up. When I parkcored over the picnic table and tackled Isaiah to the ground, I got a little banged up on the elbows and knees.

"It was worth it." I giggle. "Did you see the mouthful of grass he ate?" I nearly died of laughter when he smiled at me a few minutes later, a blade of grass was stuck in his teeth.

I really wish I could have got a picture of it.

"Yeah, I saw it." He loses his sturn face, a smile talking over.

"Here, I admit defeat." Isaiah mumbles, his hand stretched out offering me a bottle of lemonade.

It's now my favorite drink, partially because of the memories, but mostly because it tastes good.

"Thank you." I grin up at him. The playful mood is forgotten when all of our phones chime at the same time. My brows furrow as I pull the phone out of my pocket and check the text.

From: Unknown

Better watch out.

The phone is snached from my hand as soon as I read the text. Nerves build in me as I process the words. What does it mean?

"They all say the same thing." Blake growls out.

"Who sent it? And why?" Isaiah scratches his eyebrow as he frowns at his phone.

"Shit. We need to get her out of here." Blake's gruff voice bellows. He grabs my wrist and starts dragging me towards his car.

"Do you know who sent it?" Ace says as he jogs beside us.

"Conway." He grits. "We need to get her out of here before he tries something." He rushes out.

I'm trying to keep up with him, but my short legs have to move twice as much to match his speed. We reach the car faster than I thought possible, Blake opens the passenger door so I can get in, closing it behind me.

He walks around the car and gets into the driver's seat, the other boys jumping in the back.

"What's happening?" I try to keep the terror out of my voice, but I did a bad job and Blake's hands strangle the steering wheel as he backs out of the parking space.

"I'm not sure, but whatever it is, it can't be good." The voice coming out of Blake's mouth doesn't sound like his, it sends a surge of fear through me.

I lean my head against the headrest and close my eyes, focusing on breathing deeply. I attempt to calm my nerves as we peel out of the parking lot.

"Rose, deep breaths. We'll be ok." Blake's soothing voice tries to reassure me when he notices I'm starting to freak out.

I didn't tell anyone, but last week at the fight Conway made eye contact with me and sent me a wink. He's huge, his eyes scream murder and it makes me nauseous just thinking about them.

"Somethings not right." Ace mumbles, I hear zippers and rusling as he searches through his gym bag.

"What do you mean?" Blake's jaw clenches, his fingers tap the steering wheel.

"Someone messed with my bag... Shit my wallet is gone!" I whip around in my seat as Ace throws his bag back on the floor.

"Mine's gone too." Isaiah frowns, checking his pockets. "You've got to be fucking kidding me, check my bag." I reach down to my feet and pull Blake's bag onto my lap searching through it.

"Nothing... it's not here!" I say, panicked.

"It's ok, Rose. Everything will be fine, I've got you." Blake reaches over to me, his thumb rubs circles on the back of my hand.

"Did he take yours too, Rose?" I quickly check my bag and see my ID is still in there, I don't have a wallet so that's probably why. I usually keep it stuffed in a tiny pocket inside my backpack, and it hasn't been taken out in years.

"I still have everything." Blake sighs in relief.

"I've got a bad feeling, Blake." Ace leans between the two front seats. "I don't like it." He grits.

"I know, He's not the type of guy to steal a few hundred dollars for revenge." Tension is so thick in the air, it makes it hard to breathe. Each breath I take feels heavy and it's hard to swallow.

"Let's just get-" Blake is cut off.

Whoop woop.

Red and blue lights flash behind us. A string of curse words leave the guys' mouths.

"Why are they pulling us over?" My shaky hands dig into the seat beside my legs. We weren't speeding or anything.

"Rose, breath." I hadn't noticed that I stopped breathing completely.

Blake pulls over to the side of the road and grabs my hand. "We'll be fine, it's probably nothing." He tries to convince me, but I can hear the uncertainty in his voice.

I jump as the officer knocks on Blake's window with his flashlight. Blake rolls down the window half way.

"Good evening officer." His cool and collected voice floats out the window, while I'm over here freaking out.

"License and registration." His voice is rough, he skips all pleasantries and gets straight to the point.

"I just got my wallet stolen at the park." Blake reaches for the glove compartment.

"Registration." The officer leans forward a scowl on his face. My breathing picks up, I can't get in trouble.

"You got it- Shit." He slams the compartment shut. "It's gone. Even the insurance card is gone." He grits out.

"I thought so." The officer steps back, unholstering his gun. A choked gasp leaves my mouth as the gun is pointed in the car at us.

"Hands up." He yells. I throw mine up immediately, but Blake takes his sweet time.

"What's the gun for? You're scaring my girl." His shoulders are tense, hands raised but they are in fists above his head.

"Step out of the car, hands above your head." Blake calmly reaches one hand to the handle, opens the door then steps out.

"Turn around, back towards me. Put your hands on your head." The officer keeps his gun pointed at Blake. He does what the officer demands and when he turns his eyes meet mine. He worriedly scans my body, his eyes go dark and he grinds his jaw.

It's then that I notice my whole body is shaking, I'm terrified.

The officer has a gun pointed at him, at any moment he could pull that trigger and I'd lose him forever.

I don't understand what's going in, I try to make sense of it but nothing feels right. We weren't doing anything illegal, there was no need for him to pull us over.

The officer walks behind Blake, ripping his hands off his head and placing them in cuffs.

"Is this really necessary?" Blake growls. Please be careful, I want to yell at him. But my teeth just chatter together as my body shakes. It feels like I'm freezing, my body slowly starting to numb as everything slows around me.

"You're next." The officer shifts his gun from Blake to Isaiah.

"This is bullshit." Isaiah mumbles low enough so the officer couldn't hear.

"Everything will be fine, it's probably just some stupid mix up." Ace speaks reassuringly. It does nothing to calm my racing heart as Isaiah is put in cuffs and instructed to sit next to Blake on the curb.

"Out." The officer shouts, pointing the gun at Ace now.

"Rose, breath. Whatever's going on we'll get you out of this." Aces voice is thick with worry, but not for himself, only for me.

As the officer is locking the last cuff around Ace, another cop car pulls up. "About time you showed up." The officer pulls at Ace's arm, getting him to stand up, only to shove him towards the two officers who just got out of the new car.

"They need to be checked for weapons." He informs.

They lead him over to the back of the squad car to search him.

"It's your turn." He points the gun at me, I stare down the barrel of the gun and my lungs stop working.

"Get out of the car." He yells, but I can't move.

Flashes of memories start flicking behind my eyes.

"Get a move on it, bitch." My brother laughs as he takes a swig of beer from the bottle.

"Come on now, why do you look so scared?" His sinister voice taunts me. He has me cornered in the living room, beer in one hand, pistol in the other.

My feet won't move, scared that if I make the wrong move he'll shoot me.

"I told you to get me another beer! Move!" His face is red, veins popping out on his neck as he screams the words at me. No matter how hard I try, I can't move my legs.

"Fine, have it your way." He shrugs, his finger moving to the trigger. He smirks at me as he pulls the trigger. Click. "What the fuck?" He mumbles as he looks at the gun that didn't fire.

He smacks it against the table then points it at the wall next to me and pulls the trigger again.

BAM.

I flinch, hands covering my ears as they ring.

Two feet to my right there's a bullet hole in the wall. I thought for a second that it was all just some sick joke when it didn't go off the first time.

But it wasn't, it just malfunctioned. He really just tried killed me.

My hands tremble as footsteps walk closer to me. I force my eyes off the wall, he's right in front of me now. The grin that haunts me spread on his face. He presses the warm barrel to my head.

"I'll give you one last chance. Go get me a beer." I nod my head and run for the kitchen, his laughter filling the room.

A hand grips my arm, I'm yanked out of the car in one harsh movement.

"No!" I scream terrified. I think it's my brother at first, and that sends my brain into a frenzy.

I'm thrown to the ground as he grabs my arms, yanking them behind me to cuff them.

"Hey! Get the fuck off her!" Blake yells furiously. He jumps off the curb and tries to run to me, but one of the other officers restrains him before he makes it very far.

I feel the cold metal clamp around my wrists, my face digs painfully into the road. My lungs refuse to breathe properly causing everything to go fuzzy.

"You're hurting her, you asshole! Stop!" His voice pleads, but somehow still sounding threatening. Ace must be in the squad car already because I can't see him, and both officers are holding the other two boys back.

"Rose! It's ok baby! Just breathe." His voice is soothing and warm as he talks to me.

"Get off her! Please." Blake pulls against the officer who's retraining him, desperate to get to me.

"Ian! Knock it off." The officer holding Isaiah shouts, his eyes scanning over my pale face.

I keep flashing back to that house, and when the flashback ends I'm pinned to the ground underneath a man whose face I can't see.

Fear ripples through me, I try to tell myself it's not my brother. But what if it is, what if he found me? My shoulders ache from when he yanked my arms behind me.

I can't move, the officer's knee is on my back pinning me down. I need to move, I need to get out of here. Please, let me go.

"Get the fuck off her! She's having a panic attack." Blake croaks.

His voice is in pain, his eyes full of sorrow. He looks at me, pleading with his eyes and I can almost hear the words they speak.

When the officer gets off me and pulls me up to a standing position I can finally suck in a proper breath. But then he starts pulling me away, and the officer holding Blake tugs him in the opposite direction.

"Blake!" I scream, panicked. What are they doing to us, something isn't right.

A hand clamps around my mouth muffling my screams.

"Shut the fuck up. Your voice is making my ears ring." Officer Ian growls out.

The tears streaming down my face does nothing to tame down how officer Ian is manhandling me. I'm not trying to resist, I don't mean to cause any trouble but he refuses to see me as anything but the scum of this earth.

I should be used to it, I was treated like that my whole life. But I'm not, it still causes panic to swell within me as each harsh word or hard grip is directed towards me.

"Get your filthy hands off her!" Blake yells.

He's tugging violently in the officer's grip trying to get to me. Isaiah screams a list of profanities at Ian as the officer who has him pushes him inside the squad car. His voice is so loud that after the door is shut I can still make out the threats he's spewing.

"Fine." Officer Ian smirks as he opens his squad door. He removes his hand from my mouth and uses it to shove me into the back seat. My feet trip over one another, head barely missing the top of the car as I crash onto the seat face first. The wind knocked out of me, I couldn't break the fall with both hands cuffed behind my back.

I suck in a breath, a sharp pain tearing through my shoulder from the buckle it landed on. Blake is yelling things at Ian that would make me cower if they were directed towards me.

He's not making threats, he's making promises.

"Keep this up and once I'm out of these cuffs you better sleep with one eye open." Blake grits.

The officer scoffs and kicks my legs into the car. I struggle to sit up correctly without my hands, but once I do I'm able to get a glimpse of Blake's outraged eyes.

I've never seen them so dark, he looks ready to kill. It sends a shiver down my spine, but not in fear. I know he looks like that because he's trying to protect me, and it gives me an odd sort of comfort.

I want to tell him that I'll be ok, but words still aren't working properly for me. And he won't take his glare off of Ian. Blake is shoved into the squad car with the other guys as the door on mine is slammed in my face.

I rest my head against the cool window, focusing on calming myself down. I've realized recently how bad I am in situations like this. I've always thought of myself as someone who can handle themselves just fine.

But I'm constantly panicking, being transported back to the times when I felt utterly useless and unable to protect myself.

I need to be stronger, get a grip before my panic starts so I can protect myself better. I'm not in that house anymore, I have to stop letting it control me.

The squad car with the boys takes off, mine follows.

Ian tries to talk to me, well more like harass me. He spits insults the whole ride to the station, I want to fight back. The panic is now gone and in its place is a heavy load of anger boiling inside me.

Just because he's a cop he thinks he can talk to me like I'm trash, but I bite my lip and keep quiet.

He obviously can treat me like that or he wouldn't be employed as a cop anymore. The way his fellow officers reacted made it seem like this isn't the first time he's done this.

⇿♡⇿♡⇿♡⇿♡⇿

I've been sitting in an interrogation room for hours. I haven't seen any of the guys since we arrived. When I got here they took all my belongings and stuffed me in a room without any explanation.

I'm extremely outraged at this point, I even resorted to pounding on the door demanding answers but no one opened the door.

I don't know if Blake and the guys are doing ok, and it's pissing me off.

I'm hungry, I need to use the restroom and I'm really close to trying to break out of this room.

There's a vent on the ceiling and according to the movies Isaiah made me watch, it's either a good escape route, or there's a fan at the end of it that will turn on and suck me in and chop me into tiny bits.

I'm tempted to risk it though.

I'm glaring at the camera in the side of the room as the door opens.

"Sorry about the wait." A feminine voice says as a woman walks into the room with some paperwork.

"This is all just a big misunderstanding. I'm sorry you were detained, but you've been cleared and you're free to go." Her voice is sincere.

I want to yell at her, but she had nothing to do with the arrests so I force myself to be nice.

"What was the misunderstanding?" I question, making my voice soft and void of all the anger that was just coursing through my veins.

"We got a call that the rig you were in was stolen at gunpoint. Officers were dispatched under the instructions that whoever was inside was armed and dangerous." She says, annoyance heavy in her voice.

"We've since discovered it was a prank call. If you can even call it that, whoever did it should be put away for a good amount of time. These aren't the type of things one should joke about."

A prank? No way, it wasn't a prank. It was Conway trying to get us locked up, or at least Blake.

He probably figured Blake would freak like he did, and then get an assault and resisting arrest charge. All because I couldn't keep myself from freaking out.

"What about my friends? Are they free to go?" I ask, concerned.

"Yes, they'll be released shortly. The officer who arrived at the scene first is trying to press charges against them for resisting arrest. But it won't stick." She opens the door for me to walk out into the hallway.

Press charges against all of them? What a jerk, they were totally compliant until he dragged me out of the car and tossed me to the ground like a used cigarette.

"Why?" My eyes creased as I walk past her.

"He pulls this shit all the time, he needs another officer at the scene to back him up and they've already declined." She follows me down the hallway.

I feel the tension start to ease knowing that the guys will be released soon.

"He was cruel." I shiver as the words leave my mouth, I can still feel his hands on me and I hate it.

"I would love to say I'm surprised, but I'm not. He's a heartless man who needs to be taken off of the force. He unfortunately has friends in high places that save his ass every time he fucks up." The woman grits, the papers in her hands slightly crumble when her hands turn to fists.

We make it to another door, she passes me and enters the code opening it after the light turns green. "If you feel up to it, come back here and file a report. Don't get your hopes up though, because most likely nothing will come out of it. So I understand if you don't want to put yourself through it." She speaks with a fire in her eyes.

"I'm here during office hours on the weekdays, if you decide to come see me. Here's my card." She hands me a business card with her name on it and I slide it into my pocket before stepping out into the main area.

"I'll do that, thank you." I smiled at her. I'm not sure what filing a report would consist of, but I'll talk to the guys about it and maybe we all could do it.

"No problem. Again, I apologize for what you went through today. Susan at the desk over there will get you your belongings. I have to go speed along getting your friends released." She pointed to a lady sitting behind a large desk with glass reaching up to the ceiling. Probably for protection reasons.

"Thank you." I turned to say, but she had already disappeared into the hallway once again.

I walk up to the glass, Susan behind it shuffling through paperwork and typing away to the computer.

"Hi." I say shyly. My nerves about talking to new people suddenly decide to take over. Her eyes flicker up towards me and she smiles, easing some of the nerves.

"One second darling, let me finish this email then I'll grab your stuff from the back." Awe her voice is so cute, it has a little rasp to it that I find adorable.

"Ok." I nod my head.

Not knowing how long an email would take to finish I'm not sure if I should take a seat or just continue standing here. So I decided to do the awkward thing and stand slightly off to the side looking out of my element.

"Ok, done. I'll go get them- sorry let me grab this." The phone rings interrupting her, she picks it up and listens intently to the call.

"Yeah, she's here- oh my really? I'll fill her in. Thank you Mr. Hurst." She hangs up the phone.