castaways

~14~

*two months later*

                   Things seemed to be running smoothly at the first glance but for Stacey, things were secretly making her regret giving birth to hazel in the first place.  She hasn't told anyone, but the amount of threats and blackmail that has came through her letterbox is unreal and it's all aimed at hazel, most of them give out warning like; 'give up the snitch and we'll spare your baby' or 'I'll smash your windows in, just hand over the kid'.  Now of course she didn't want to single handedly pass over her eldest daughter to drug dealers and criminals but all of this was getting too scary and it was putting her youngest daughter at risk, let alone herself and her husband.

                    She knew the right thing would be to tell the police about the messages and get hazel into a safer home but she knows how it goes, 'snitches get stitches, then end up in ditches' and quite frankly she didn't want to wind up dead, she knew she was being pretty selfish by thinking like that, but then again she was thinking about her new family and her new life which she didn't want to jeopardise. That's why she found herself sat on the couch waiting for hazel to come home from school, she had a plan, and it wasn't in the teenagers favour.

Hazel walked through the front door, "hey mom" she smiled and placed her bag down. Stacey looked up and nodded, "hey haz, come sit, we need to chat" she smiled weakly and pointed to the couch in front of her, hazel frowned, "okay..." she done as she was told. Stacey sighed, "I was thinking of taking you to the nearest sports centre and trying you out for the volleyball team, I know how good you were at it last year" she smiled falsely. Hazel smiled widely, "I'd love that" she nodded excitedly. If only she knew that wasn't the real plan... Stacey felt bad but nodded, "great, go change into kit and we'll get going in 10" she checked the clock on the wall. Hazel wasted no time in getting change into her bike pro shorts and her long sleeved volleyball kit, just like she used to wear it. It looked a little bit like this:

                    She ran back downstairs to find her mom waiting by the door for her, "let's go" Stacey smiled and opened the door.  Hazel nodded and smiled, so excited to be back in sports after so long out of it, but she wasn't going to try out for the local team, she's going elsewhere.  The car drive was interrupted by the car 'stalling out', "ugh! Can you got pop the trunk for me hun, I'm gonna check the hood" Stacey groaned.  Hazel laughed a little, "sure" she got out of the car.  She walked around the back of the car but before she could pop the trunk to see if there was anything wrong with the car Stacey put her foot on the pedal and sped off.

                     Hazel jumped back as a black cloud of smoke left the cars exhaust and left her coughing, she stood there in complete shock, did her mom really just leave her in a sketchy neighbourhood?  She felt her world shatter once again, of course she'd fall for it, of course she would suspect nothing was wrong.  She let her eyes well up with tears but there was nothing she could do, she was stood in the middle of the road, in a sketchy neighbourhood with nothing to her name.  No phone, no money, no idea where she was, absolutely nothing.  She quickly got off the road and ran into an alley where she sobbed for a while, why does no one stay in her life?  She really thought this was it... clearly not.

She soon realised how vulnerable she was right now; one, she was stood in her volley ball gear which was somewhat revealing in a non sport setting, two, she was a teenage girl in the middle of nowhere, and three, she was alone with nothing or no one to her name, no idea where she was and terrified. She was snapped out of her thoughts when a group of boys walked down the alley with their pants barley staying up and their caps on backwards, almost looking like wannabes, "pretty mama looking fine as helllll. Dayummmm" one of the boys cooed at her. She immediately stood up and began running in any direction possible until she couldn't see them anymore, what's she meant to do know? It's not like she can knock on someone's door on a block like this...

                  Stacey got home and immediately ran upstairs to splash her face with water, "oh god..." she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw a monster staring back at herself, "I'm so sorry haz..." she shook her head.  Talking to herself was the only form of reassurance she would get at this point, she's just literally dumped her high targeted daughter in the middle of nowhere with nothing to her name, "so so sorry..." she added but snapped out of it when her husband closed the front door and began talking to their baby.  She instantly remembered why she dumped hazel in the first place and went down to see their prized possession as if nothing had happened and everything was perfectly fine.  But in reality everything was far from fine...

                   Her husband looked around, "where's hazzie?" He nodded, that's his nickname for her, Stacey shook her head, "she's on a field trip for today and tomorrow then she's staying at a friends house when she gets back. We'll have the place to ourselves for a while" she laughed.  The tall man laughed, "lucky girl, and lucky us" he planted a kiss on his wife's forehead.  He's completely oblivious to the evil act she's just gone through with and she was sure that he would end up leaving her if he found out, or even worse, going to the cops...