The Situation

TWENTY ONE

Ariabella's POV

I'm not gently woken up from the sunlight or the cool breeze or even by Harry or the boys. I wake up to the sound of the back door being slammed close. I am frozen stiff, it has to be my imagination. I stare holes into the bedroom door and try to listen for any other sounds that would happen if he was really here, but I don't hear any.

I gently move out of Harry's hold and tiptoe to the window. And sure enough I can see the vehicle beside Harry's jeep. What do I do? I'm praying with everything I can that he will go straight to bed, but I can't take that chance. As fast as I can I rush to the bed and shake Harry awake, but then something in me stops all movements.

I can't let Harry see.

I tiptoe to the door as quietly as I can. I have no idea what I'm gonna do, but one thing I know I have to do is direct him away from the room. First I need to make sure he's really here and to do that I need to follow the noise.

His truck's here but sometimes he passes out there. With a shaky breath I open the door and gently close it behind me. Here we go...

I creep down the hallway towards the living room. When I get to the end I peek my head out to see if I can see anything. It's pitch black. I force myself to continue. I round the couch then head to the kitchen. I see him leaning against the bar with an empty bottle in front of him staring at me. I'm paralyzed. Maybe he didn't see me. After my head gets out of my ass I slowly start backing up.

"Run," his evil voice taunts.

It's like the dumb blonde in the horror movies, the ones that look like their feet are glued to floor and can't move. That's how I feel right now. At this moment I am part of the house because nothing in me is moving at all, I can't even feel my heart beating.

It's like everything is in slow motion as he stumbles forward and jerks my arm to pull me from where I am glued to the floor. My head is glitching out, but my body knows it's in danger as it scrambles away from him. Then everything comes crashing down in my mind so I run like my ass is on fire.

I can hear him walking away from the kitchen and into the hallway after me. His shoes are scuffing uneveningly buying me more time to come up with a plan. I know for a fact he always checks the door to see what I'm doing, especially when he's drunk.

I dash down the hallway to mom and his room, the room I rarely voluntarily go in. I swing the door open, smack the light switch on, then run to their bathroom. Hopefully he'll see the light and follow me instead of going to find Harry in 'my bed'.

I turn the shower to the hottest setting. I grab the shower head to point it to the curtain so when he opens it the hot water is aimed at his face. I then grab the bottle of shampoo and cover the tile floors with it and the countertop so when he grabs it to pull himself up he'll slip. As I carefully maneuver out of the bathroom I open the bottom cabinet drawers so hopefully he falls on that, then lock the open door.

I run over to mom's side of the bed and dive under the bed just as I hear him enter the room.

I hold my breath as I move slightly to get fully under the bed. My heart skips a beat when my hand touches something cold. I strain my eyes to see what I'm touching and I realized he moved some guns under his bed!

I see the shotgun, his revolver, 22, and the rifle... all fucking loaded!

I could easily grab the hand gun and finish him right now, but that scares me just thinking about it. Not shooting him, I've had to slaughter animals for freezer meat or put animals down and I would go huntin all the time. The part that scared me is that I thought about shooting him, I scared myself by not being scared to do it.