23 hours.

23 hours since Rayland had been seen by any of the Brown brothers.

23 hours since any of the brothers had gotten a wink of sleep.

All of the brothers anxiously waited for the arrival of their father and his wife. They didn't know what they were going to say to them when they discovered the new edition's disappearance. All of their stomachs dropped when they heard jiggling of their Dad's keys in the doorknob.

Seconds later the door opened revealing their father and his wife, permanent smiles etched on their faces. The brothers knew their smiles would drop when they heard the news, they decided not to tell them until they had to.

"Hey boys." Their father happily exclaimed, his arms wide open. All of the brothers hesitantly pulled their father into a group hug. He seemed to notice the absence of his stepdaughter quicker than the boys expected.

"Where's Rayland?" They all stiffened at the name, of worry and jealousy. Paul was never very observant of his children, he believed they could take care of themselves. He was always caught up in work, he never noticed all the stress all of his children were going through.

"She's... she's asleep upstairs. Yeah, asleep." Micheal stuttered out, his brothers refrained from facepalming.

"Oh okay. I'll get dinner started and we can wake her up." He said, not noticing the uncertainty in his oldest son's voice.

Once he made it to the kitchen, all the brothers worriedly glanced at each other. Paul finished cooking dinner and headed upstairs.

"Heyyy, dad. Whatcha doing?" Jaylen asked, stretching out his words. His Dad would be suspicious but Jaylen's personality was suspicious enough.

"I'm going to wake up Rayland, can you get your brothers for dinner?" Paul asked the youngest triplet. Jaylen panicked, he could not let his Dad step foot in that empty room.

"Wait." Paul stopped abruptly in his tracks with his eyebrows furrowed. "Jaxon needs help... walking... the fish." Jaylen immediately regretted what he said as soon as it came out of his mouth. Paul couldn't help but laugh at his son's attempt at abn excuse. "Good one son." He laughed and continued upstairs.

Jaylen sprinted into the living room to find his brothers watching television. He grabbed the remote off of the coffee table and quickly turned it off. Despite the protests of his brothers, he quickly explained the dilemma he faced. All the boys quickly rushed upstairs but they were too late. Their father was standing in the doorway of their stepsister's room. They all visibly paled and waited for an ass whooping. To their surprise, their father quietly stepped in her room, stepping closer towards the limp figure coddled in a blanket.

He took another step forward before carefully plopping on the bed. He carefully rubbed her back in circles to wake her up. She quickly sat up, almost as if she was never asleep. The boys rushed in which startled the girl. Noticing the girl's fearful eyes, Paul asked all of sons to leave the room but he didn't realize this made her even more frightened. If he tried anything with his sons in the room, at least there would be witnesses. She tried not to let fear show in her face but her emotions betrayed her.

"I'll be right back." Paul said as he left the room. He came a few seconds later with a white bag in his hands. He hands the bag to Rayland as she carefully eyes the bag. She takes a peek and is immediately shocked by its contents. She pulls out a black phone box and a black phone case. She promptly handed her stepfather the bag back, constantly repeating she couldn't accept it. Paul shakes his head and chuckles at her.

"Please take it." Paul pleaded. After five minutes of arguing, she finally accepted the gift. She found the piece of paper with all of her step-family's contact information and placed all the numbers in her new phone.

"Happy late birthday." He muttered lowly so she couldn't hear.

She headed downstairs to the dinner table, all of the family was seated leaving a seat available near the end of the table. She hesitantly took a seat at the table, sniffing in the scent of pasta and garlic bread.

I took a plate, placing a small amount of food on it. Everyone glanced at me before turning back to their own plates.

"Is that going to be enough food for you?" My step-dad asked.

"I'm not that hungry." I responded.

"Anorexic ass." I heard Jayden mumble. Apparently, everyone else did too. The whole table looked between Jayden and I in shock. I shrugged and hesitantly picked up my fork, shoving strings of spaghetti in my mouth.

"He's right you know." My aunt said to me in Spanish. I didn't know if anybody at the table understood what she said, by the confused looks, I assume they didn't.

"And yet you were the one calling me fat last week." I said smugly in Spanish. She looked at me in disgust.

It's quiet, ain't no back talk.

"Why the fuck would you go in the house you dumb bitch?" I almost screamed at the main character in my book. She thought it would be a great idea to go into the abandoned house on Halloween. A knock on my door interrupted my reading.

I ignored the knock and continued reading until the door swung open revealing four brown haired boys, Jaylen, Jaxon, Liam, and Micheal. Jaylen was holding a brown jewelry box in his hands.

"What's the point of knocking if you're going to come in anyway?" I grunted.

"You didn't answer." Jaylen muttered, staring at the brown box. "I'm sorry about selling your stuff, even if you did trash our rooms, it was strong to use your sentimental items against you." He handed me the box. I furrowed my eyebrows, trashed their rooms. The other three had guilty looks on their faces, I motioned for them to speak.

"We..." Micheal motioned to Jaxon and Liam, "We thought you took drugs so we trashed our brothers' rooms so they thought it was you." What correlation does drugs have with trashing their room? Almost reading my mind, Liam started.

"We didn't want you to be a bad influence on the boys, it doesn't justify our behavior at all."

"Wait, is that where my pills went?" I questioned. They looked down, guilty. Well that answers my question. All the nightmares, the sleepless nights, the nausea for what?

"Get out." I calmly stated. They all turned to leave but Micheal reached in his pocket, put out the pills, and placed them on my desk. He mumbled something under his breath and sulked out of the room. After they left, I sat silently on my bed praying for this dream to end.

This dream would soon turn into a nightmare. Literally.

"Looks like it's just us two now." He smirked at me. I slowly backed away before running to my room before locking the door behind me. I grabbed my office chair and barricaded the door with it, panting out of breath.

"I just want to have some fun sweetheart." I can hear the smirk in his voice. Soon he started banging on the door. I scrambled around the room trying to find a place to hide. The closet and under the bed was too obvious. The door would surely bang open and hit if I stood behind. I ran to the window sill, opening the window quietly, jumping out of the window as soon as I heard the door open.

I tried to run away but the crunch of leaves would give away my spot. I could hear him searching every inch of my room before leaving, slamming it closed. I let out a relieved sigh, before sliding back in my room.

"Found you sweetheart."

I woke up panting from the memory, not even remembering that I fell asleep. My breathing was uneven and I was about to have an asthma attack.

"Hey, Rayland. Can you help me with my- woah are you okay?" Hayden ran up to me holding a piece of paper.

"Inhaler. Drawer." I wheezed out. He hurried to the drawer handing me over the inhaler. I took deep breaths out of the device slowly regaining my breathing pattern.

"Thanks." I sighed.

"No problem but I'll be right back." He runs out of the room before returning with a room temperature water bottle. I thanked him and he scurried away.

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1428 Words.

Any thoughts?

This chapter was kinda boring but on a good note, thank you for 300 reads!