Inferno Part 3

~175~ Paperwork

Raya's POV

When we get home, Ethan is looking more and more nervous. Jake is talking with Sarah, still wearing his workout clothes from working at the gym all day.

"Hey guys," he says as he hugs Ethan and Zoe, and then smiles at me.

"Well?"

"I had a good day. Nolan is in every single class, so he showed me around."

Jake blows out a big breath and nods. "Man I'm relieved. I've been thinking about you all day."

"Really?"

He grins as he nods, and I smile back. Nobody has ever cared about how my day went before.

"Upstairs, kid," Jake says to Ethan, changing his tone immediately.

Ethan quickly walks up the stairs, and Jake looks back at me. "You know what's gonna happen?"

"He told me," I nod.

"You wanna talk about it first?"

"What's there to talk about?"

Jake sighs as he sits across from me at the bar. Sarah hands me a bowl of fruit, and I immediately start munching—I'm starving.

"You're going to hear me spank him, and you're going to hear him cry. I just don't wanna lose all of the progress you and I have made."

"We won't"

He looks at me another minute, and then nods as he stands up and starts walking up the stairs.

"Hey Jake?"

"Yup?" He asks as he turns around.

"Luke told me that this school has a spring volleyball team for girls too. Care if I try out?"

"Go for it," he grins as he continues walking up the stairs.

Sweet. I like volleyball almost as much as I like basketball.

I get kinda nervous the longer I'm down here, because I'm not hearing anything. He didn't really kill him, did he?

"Why is it so quiet?" I whisper to Zoe.

She looks up from her homework, and pushes her glasses up.

"Dad always talks for an hour beforehand."

"Why?"

"He calls it a lecture, but it's more like another form of punishment—It's boring."

Sarah laughs as she puts a lasagna together. "I'm gonna tell him you said that."

"I didn't lie—It is boring."

Sarah bites her lip to keep from laughing, and continues making dinner. After another couple of minutes, I hear a slapping sound.

I look at Zoe, and she looks at me with a small smile. He must be hitting pretty hard if I can hear that all the way down here.

It's a steady rhythm, with a slapping sound about every two seconds or so.

"Why is he going so slow?" I ask. I've never heard anyone get spanked before, but this just seems slow and drawn out.

Zoe rolls her eyes. "Isn't it stupid? I asked him once after we heard Gabby get spanked when we were at Nolan's house—Alex was going so much faster. He said it's because whenever he got spanked as a kid, the ones that hurt the worst were the slow ones—Gave the burn time to sink in."

"It's very thought out," I mumble as I start my Biology.

"In this family, they have it down to a science."