My Dark Secret

Chapter 9: Pushed me into a pile of cow manure*

 Chapter 9: Pushed me into a pile of cow manure

“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. Look at your 3 best friends. If they're ok, then it's you.”

        -Rita Mae Brown

Caydon’s POV

“Pipe down everyone!” I yelled over all of the chit chatter in the meeting hall.

Okay so your probably wondering what is going on right now. I am at the headquarters for the gang and we are having our weekly meeting. The meeting hall is about half the size of a football field. It has about 15 rows of tables that seat 8 people on each side of the room to hold a grand total of 480 people. Now we can hold about 600 people once the table and chairs are taken down. It looks like your normal meeting room, but just ten times larger and louder. The walls are a crème color with a gymnasium type of floor. There is a medium sized stage at the front of the room where a podium is at there is an overhead projector and a white board up there as well.

Once everyone was quiet I continued, “Okay so for those of you who don’t know exactly what is going on, we will be having a new member coming aboard. Now this isn’t going to be our normal recruit. It is a girl, some of you might have heard of her on the news a few years ago.” I grabbed the remote to the projector and clicked the button to show the headlines of when Grace’s parents died.

“Quiet down!” Cameron yelled to stop the talking once again.

“You are probably wondering why this is up here right? Well as you all know that their daughter Sophia-Grace has lived with us ever since her parents were murdered.” I clicked the button again to show a picture of the person who allegedly killed her parents. “Supposedly the murder of her parents was caught and put in prison. It has been brought to my attention that some of the information onto the case didn’t match up to the alleged killer; also some things have gone missing. With that being said, I have talked it over and we will be bringing her onboard for her safety.” I hear collective groans come for the crowd; I just rolled my eyes at them.

“Now I know that some of you are probably thinking that you are going to babysitting a whiny, bratty, rude, wimpy, and arrogant chick. Well you are wrong, her father was 2nd in command before he died, and some of the older members already know this.” I changed the picture to her dad in his military uniform and a picture of him and my dad in front of the firm. “For those of you who don’t: he was best friends with our old leader and my father. He was a highly decorated marine, a recipient of two Purple Hearts and a Medal of Honor. He was also one of the town’s best lawyers, working alongside with my father. She has grown up around a military background and doesn’t act like a spoiled rich kid from MTV. She knows some basic self-defense, but she will need some training.” I was cut off by my Cam tapping my shoulder I turn to look at him, “Yes”

“Let me say something, dude” he says in a hushed whisper.

“go ahead?” I say in more a question.

“Hey y’alls” Cam starts off, grabbing the projector remote from my hand, he changes it to a picture of Him, Grace, and I at the bonfire last summer.

“The girl in the middle is her. Now let me tell you, I have grown up around this little madam. Don’t piss her off, because she will make your life a living hell and she is like the master at pranks. Now I know how some of you all just love to play pranks on each other and on the newbies. If you do plan on pranking her, you are on your own.”

“Why don’t you give them an example” I interrupt his little speech. A chorus of yeah’s can heard around the room.

“Fine, I’ll tell you the one that goes along with this picture. This was taken the first day we were at the lake last summer. We all had taken our friends up there for a week filled of fun, parting, and of course pranks. For you who need to know, the very first day at the lake, we all sleep outside complete with fireworks and a huge bonfire to start off the week. So being the opportunist that I am, I had oh so patiently waited up for the gal to fall asleep, dragged her out of her tent, put her on an air mattress and set her a sail out into the lake at five in the morning. She fell into the lake clothes and all. I thought that she was going to murder me, literally. She didn’t retaliate for like 3 days. I thought that she wasn’t going to do anything, so I let my guard down. Just as I did that, she got me good and she got me good.”