Spiraled ⚪⭐⚪⭐ (A Brollins Novel)✔

EPISODE TEN

Quinn's Mansion. Los Angeles, California.

"Becks, we are home."

Rebecca's eyes open to Ashley's face staring down at her with a soft smile, hand stroking her hair. Rebecca stifles a yawn that threatens to escape her lips and straightens in her seat, eyes wandering around the seats of the limousine to find them all empty. Through the black tinted windows of the limousine, she catches glimpse of the sky, pitch dark above with stars littered in millions twinkling, and the towering image of the mansion ahead.

She's left a bit surprised Ashley referred to the mansion as home a few moments ago. Her friend never does that. Ashley loves to keep boundaries in anything and everything she does and although she considers all of them her family—and they're the only family she still has—she never refers to the mansion as her home and always resorts to acting like a guest rather than a family member.

Hearing her say home, Rebecca, in her unconscious mind assumed she was at Ashley's house instead of her own. How desperately she wish she is. At her friend's house, she can whine and cry all she want without her brother or mother nagging her or making unnecessary enquires about why she's crying in the first place. The ache in her heart is increasingly becoming unbearable.

She's more than relieved when she steps out of the confines of the limousine. The journey back to Los Angeles was exhausting to say the least. Her mother had done nothing but shower her with kisses and hugs, praising God for bringing back her daughter safe and sound. Beside Ashley, her brother glared at her as if she has cost him a business deal while Ashley kept pestering her with questions about the person she was with.

It was then her eyes welled with tears as she thought of Colby. Steeling herself, she managed not to blink a tear and when her friend saw she wasn't going to answer her questions, she stopped asking and left her alone.

The lights around her doesn't help the uneasiness settling into her stomach, its dazzle making her eyes hurt. After spending time at Daniel's house where the surroundings are more of nature than man's handiwork, it feels strange to be standing on cobblestone instead of lush grass. The very air buzzes of electricity; the extravagant, exquisite structure of the mansion promising her a luxurious king-sized bed and a bathtub filled with hot water. She gives Ashley a small smile as she throws a fur coat around her shoulders, muttering to her about how cold the night is. Although the night isn't as chilly as Ashley is exaggerating it to be, Rebecca holds the coat tighter around her, fighting the sadness which threatens to consume her. She wants to race to her room and sleep forever but for some inexplicable reason unknown to her, Ashley keeps her beside the limousine with her arms draped around her shoulders. Her mother and brother stand a feet away from them talking to some men she hasn't seen before in her life.

Once she stops dwelling on her sadness and pondering, she notices more of these men spilled around the perimeter of the mansion, in the garden, beside the large swimming pool near the gazebo, in the courtyard and among the coconut trees lining the entrance. There are at least two dozen of them—from what she can make out—dressed in fine black suits with dark sunglasses framing their faces. She sees guns tucked inside their pants when they turn, their eyes busily scrutinizing every smallest detail including her. There's no doubt in her mind what these men are but why in everything that's good on this earth does her family need this many bodyguards? And to guard the mansion at nights?

Mostly when they hire bodyguards, they hire at least four to six men to accompany her mother and brother to social events to make bold appearances when needed and necessary. Their main purpose though, was to ward off and prevent the media and journalists who used to swim at the gates of the mansion early in the morning, pleading and shouting for interviews, from entering the mansion forcefully. But after the matter of her father's death and 'the ruined wedding of the century'—as the gossip sites loved to call it—died down, her mother personally sent most of them away, depending more on chauffeurs and a single bodyguard for protection instead of many. Just like her mother, Rebecca doesn't like bodyguards patrolling the house or guarding her everywhere she goes. Not in the slightest, so why this many bodyguards now when they don't need them at all?