Reassure (Jay Halstead x OC.)

1

The knocking was unnervingly loud.

"Rei! Reign! Come on open up!"

A groan emanated from beneath the dark tussled sheets on the bed in the corner of the room. A head of knotted, light-brown curls suddenly sprang from beneath the mountain of pillows.

"Coming!" She called, her voice heavy and hoarse with fatigue and latent sleep. She blearing wiped her eyes and clumsily untangled herself from the sheets.

Her long, bare slipped from beneath the covers, her feet hitting the cold, hard wood floor beneath her sending a shiver down her spine. The long, over-sized shirt she'd slept in the night before was slightly crumpled across her torso as she stood up and moved quickly across the room.

Her sleep daze making her bump unceremoniously into her sofa's left arm as she bent herself around it. "Just give me a minute!" She yelled a frustrated sigh leaving her lips as she dragged her hand through her nest of hair and grasped for the old handle to her door. The knocking persisted.

"What?!" She finally got the door unlocked with a click before she threw it open, glowering at the person beyond it's frame. "What could you possibly want thats so urgent!?" She demanded, making dead eye-contact with her youngest three siblings especially Debbie who had no doubt been behind the yelling and knocking.

"Well?!" She demanded.
"We need a ride to school." Debbie explained and Reign's glare hardened. "You're kidding? Debs I'm on shift at eight. Your school is on the other side of the neighbourhood at half past and I gotta get to work- I can't take you guys to the firehouse." Reign wasn't angry at the kids, just pissed they didn't have parents to do this stuff. It was bad enough she had to financially support all six of her siblings in their old home as-well as pay for her own apartment's rent but she also became the glorified nanny.

"Can't you guys walk or....or catch the L or a bus....if you need fair-."
"Fiona said after the shootings last week, she wants us to be with you or her if we're not at school." Carl replied a bored expression on his young face.

The shootings had been because of some sort of gang dispute, one that had caused mayhem at the firehouse when they were constantly getting called out to aid the police in crowd control and with small gang related fires. The south side was currently a war zone.

"She shoulda called ahead." Reign sighed again before she stepped aside and pointed into her apartment, "but fine.....you can ride with me.....and I'll call and ask chief if I can drop you guys off after I clock in."

Once the 14, 12 and 6 year olds had been corralled into the small apartment, the two older kids put down their bags and slipped out of their old winter coats. "Is that Lips or Ian's?" Reign nodded at her second-from-youngest brother who shrugged nonchalantly, "dunno?....Fi kinda just threw it at me, cause mine had holes."
"Yeah cause you poked them into it, dumbass." Debbie muttered and Reign shot her a look. "It's too early for this shit." She clearly hadn't slept well with it being so cold outside.