Annabelle
Phoenix had been gone for a little over three weeks and I was dying to talk to him. I needed to talk to him. He told me he wouldn’t be able to call often and it was even more difficult for me to talk to him because I didn’t have a phone. The two times he had called his Gram’s shop, I hadn’t been there. Those two times had been on a Tuesday. So, when the next Tuesday rolled around, I was bound and determined to be in the shop.
I opened the front door, ready to climb on my bicycle and pedal to work two hours early, to find a familiar yet unexpected guy standing on the front porch, poised and ready to knock. “Octavius, what are you doing here?” I asked.
I remembered him from school, though I didn’t know him very well. We weren’t friends, but we did have one or two classes together. Still, there was no reason for him to be at my house.
“Hello, Annabelle. I’m here to speak to your father.”
“He’s not here right now,” I said, confused as to why he would be asking for my father.
“Yes, I am, stupid girl,” my father grunted from behind me, causing me to jolt in surprise.
Octavius cleared his throat. “May I come in?”
“Get the fuck out of the way and go to your room, girl,” my father ordered as he shoved me toward the hall.
“I was just leaving. I have to work today,” I said quietly.
“Go to your fucking room,” he bellowed.
My father had never raised a hand to me, but I highly suspected that had more to do with the fact that he was rarely ever home and less to do with his moral compass. Regardless, I wasn’t going to test my theory, so I scurried to my room as ordered.
My stomach churned as I waited in my room. I could hear Octavius and my father talking, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I had a bad feeling and no amount of pacing or nail chewing was doing anything to alleviate it.
The knock on my bedroom door startled me. Before I could walk across the room and open it, my father flung it open and barged into my room. “You’re coming with us,” he told me and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”
Instinctively, I pulled against his grip. “Let go! What are you talking about?” I yelled.
“Stop fighting me and get your ass in the car!” he bellowed as he drug me out of the house kicking and screaming. I was certain he was on some kind of drugs. We didn’t even have a car.
He roughly tossed me into the back seat of a large SUV. Inside, I found my mother in her drunken haze sitting beside Octavius, who was creepily smiling at me.
I pushed myself up and dove for the still open door. My father slammed it shut, narrowly missing my face, and then I heard the unmistakable sound of the doors locking.
I whirled around. “What in the hell is going on?” I screamed.
My mother didn’t so much as twitch, despite my screaming. Octavius, however, casually leaned back in his seat, propping his elbows beside the headrests. “Allow me to explain, Annabelle. You see, your parents borrowed quite a large sum of money from me and have been unable to pay it back. As per our agreement, your parents must work off their debt on my family’s dairy farm. To prevent people from trying to skip out on their debt, I require them, as well as their families, to live on the property until the debt is paid off.”
No. No, no, no, no, no. “What about my stuff? I need my clothes and all of my other things!” I was grasping at straws, but I thought if I could get him to let me go back inside the house, I could figure out a way to get away from him. If I could just get to Gram and Pop, they would help me.
“I’ll arrange for some of my men to pack up your belongings and have them delivered to your room on the property.”
“What about my job? I have to be at work in an hour!” I shrieked.
“You won’t be working anywhere other than the farm.”
“No!” I screamed and lunged for him. I wrapped my hands around his throat and managed to get in two good shakes before I was pulled away and forcefully placed in the rear row of seating.
Octavius cleared his throat and smoothed his rumpled shirt. “I would advise you not to try anything like that again. This is your only warning.”
“Fuck you,” I spat.
He sighed in exasperation. “Fine. Have it your way.” He raised his hand in the air and made some gesture. Suddenly, two men came at me. Asshole One cuffed my hands behind my back while Asshole Two placed a gag in my mouth and fastened my seatbelt.
“You’ll learn, Annabelle. If you do as I say, things will go smoothly, but I will not tolerate disrespect from you or anyone else.”
Well, I was in for a bumpy ride because there was no way in hell I would ever respect a little weasel like him.