24. 24

24

Ember

I ’d like to say we slept in after our late night, or that we woke up gently at least, but we didn’t. Someone was banging on the door and yelling, and as we both shot upright in the bed, our eyes met, and I saw the horror I felt reflected on Ethan’s face.

I recognised my dads’ voices, and I knew he did too. How the hell did they find us? Oh my god, they’d kill him.

I wasn’t as na?ve as they seemed to believe. I knew my dads weren’t normal dads, and I knew they had dark sides, because it was impossible to live in a house with them, and not be aware that they had darker souls than they tried to let us see.

“I swear to god, if you don’t open this fucking door, I’ll kick it down,” dad Gray yelled, and I gasped, hopping up from the bed, and running for the stairs.

“Em! Don’t open it, they’ll kill me,” Ethan hissed, running after me, before he stopped at the top of the stairs, while I was already at the bottom.

“Actually, you should let them in. I deserve whatever they choose to do to me, for what I did to you.”

Idiot. Why were men such idiots? I reached the door and banged my fists on the inside of it, hoping it’d shut my dads up for a few seconds. It did, but I knew they were probably a heartbeat away from kicking their way in.

“Go away!” I yelled into the brief silence, hearing one of them curse in response.

“Open the door, Ember.”

“That’s not going away, is it, dad? I don’t want you to come in.”

I heard them murmuring to each other for a moment.

“Is he forcing you to say this? If he’s got a weapon on you, just stay silent, and we’ll know.” What kind of stupid plan was that?

“Of course he doesn’t have a fucking weapon!”

“That’s exactly what someone would say, if they had a weapon on them, Dory.” Ugh, typical!

“Language, Em,” Ethan said from behind me, and I rolled my eyes at the pointlessness of that little warning from him.

“You’ve met my family. You know we all curse a lot, Ethan, you’ll have to just suck it up.”

“Ember, you need to open the door. We need to see that you’re okay. You know your mum won’t understand if we leave you here,” dad Dory said, probably trying to sound reasonable, but again, I knew them both better than that.

I went to the window in the living room, and drew the curtains back, tapping on the window to get their attention. They crowded the window, and that’s when I realised Blaze was with them too.

Oh god, it was worse than I thought. I looked back at Ethan, who’d frozen in the middle of the walkway between the living room and kitchen.

“What?”

“Blaze is with them too. Ethan, they’ll literally kill you.”

“Let us in, Ember! This isn’t going to keep us back. You want us to trash this little shithole, we fucking will.”

It wasn’t a shithole. I looked around the fairly simple home, but I could see that my dad was wrong. And dammit, he was distracting me.

The front door suddenly crashed open, and my dads swarmed into the space, one of them punching Ethan and knocking him to the floor, before they both stood over him, threatening him to stay down. Blaze caught my eye, staying in the doorway to block the way out, I guess.

“You okay, sis?” He looked worried rather than angry.

“Yes. How did you guys even find us?”

Dad Gray turned to grin at me, a devious look in his eyes.

“You think we didn’t have more trackers on your mum’s car than the ones you found? Give us a bit more credit than that, sweetheart. People don’t get away from us unless we let them.” Okay, that sounded uber creepy, didn’t it?

I saw him kick Ethan in the ribs, and I ran to try and help him, but I knew my dads, and I knew they wouldn’t stop until they killed him.

The razor blade on the table caught my eye and I snatched it up, running past them to the hallway.

“Ember, get back here,” dad Dory yelled, and that’s when I turned and glared at them.

“Let him up, and leave him alone!” Their heads lifted from glaring down at the curled up form of the man I loved, to see what I wanted them to see; the razor blade I held to my wrist, right over the scars from the last attempt.

“Ember,” dad Dory warned, but Blaze shoved past both of them.

“Em, let’s just calm the fuck down, yeah? You don’t want to do that, especially over this fucker. Look at him. He’s pathetic. He’s clearly not man enough for you. Probably can’t even get it up.”

“Blaze, for fuck’s sake,” dad Gray snapped, slapping the back of his head.

Ethan groaned, as he writhed in pain on the floor.

“You’re too late,” he gasped out, and I froze. No. Don’t tell them, you idiot.

“Too late?” dad Gray demanded, glancing at my other dad, before he reached down and grabbed Ethan’s throat. No. Oh god, don’t hurt him.

“Did you hurt her? Did you hurt our little girl?” dad Dory was demanding, but my eyes were now on Blaze. He had that knowing gaze on me. He always knew things before any of us. Could he tell what happened here?

He glanced at Ethan, then back at me, mouthing the words ‘you fucked’ at me. I nodded, hating that I even trusted him with that information, the very words that could get Ethan killed right in front of me. My dads were threatening Ethan, but Blaze took a step closer to me.

“You want to stay with him?” he whispered, and I nodded, wishing he’d give me a fucking clue on how to fix this mess. He glanced behind him, then pointed to the blade in my hand, and pointed to the side of his throat, nodding at me, like I was supposed to follow his gestures. He rolled his eyes and pointed again, pretending to hold a knife at his own throat. Oh . Duh. Of course.

“Leave him alone or I’ll do it!” I screamed, lifting the razor blade to the side of my throat, just as Blaze had directed.

“Fuck! Em, okay, just calm down. Dads, you need to do what she says.” But they were already backing away from Ethan, even though dad Gray managed to sneak another kick in on his way back.

“Baby girl, this isn’t the time to do something dangerous. This man hurt you, so we’ll dispose of him. You’ll never have to see him again,” he said, like he thought that was somehow what I wanted. Dad Dory caught dad Gray’s arm, and pulled him back another step.

“Ember, this isn’t the man you want. He’s a predator. He should be castrated and shot.”

“We don’t have guns, Dory, but I’ve got this knife,” dad Gray said, suddenly wielding that super sharp knife he always had tucked in his pocket, already unfolded, and ready to kill.

“NO!” I screamed, pressing the blade against my skin. I wanted to do it. I wanted to feel it slicing my skin. I didn’t want to kill myself, not right now, but the blessed peace I’d feel, as the blade sliced through my skin, would ease my panic over this whole situation. My fear. The niggling thought occurred that I could finish that bottle of vodka too, and really ease my pain.

“Dads, I think we should listen to her. If she slips with that thing, she’ll be dead before we can do anything,” Blaze warned, winking at me before he turned, to try and ease them further away.

Ethan groaned, and swiped blood away from his nose, as he sat up against the counter behind him.

“Ethan, are you okay?” He glared at me, gesturing to my dads.

“Ya think?” Smart-ass. I stepped closer to him, keeping the blade at my throat. If I didn’t watch my dads carefully, they might try getting at him to try and threaten me to back down. This delicate balancing act could go in either direction.