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Chapter 26

The weeks passed and she was miserable. Her father was always out of the house and her mother just slept all day. Every morning she dreaded leaving the house. Going by the owner's house, Tony, with his scary dog, always whistled when she walked by. That day he was with his friends when she walked by and he stepped on her way. "Hello there, cutie. Off to work I see."

"Yes, excuse me." She said, trying to pass by him.

"I need to speak to you. You see, you guys are living for free at my place. I need some type of compensation."

"I... I don't have much. But how much do you want?" She asked nervously as his friends laughed.

"Oh, you're so cute. I don't want your money."

"What do you want then?"

"Let me show you a good time." He said winking.

"I'm sorry. I can't. Now, excuse me. I'm going to be late for work." She said walking by him, but was yanked by her arm.

"No, you listen to me. I'm getting something out of this arrangement. Now, you do it willingly or I can go get it anytime I want. Remember, I own where you sleep. I can go in anytime I want and take you." He said getting close to her face. She stumbled away from him and ran away as all his friends laughed.

At the bus stop she called Mike. "Hey, I only have a few minutes, what's going on?" He answered.

"I need to get out of here, Mike. The guy that owns the house just threatened me." She said looking back to see if anyone had followed her.

"What happened?"

"He wants payment for us staying there. But he doesn't want money. I'm afraid, he said he has the key to the place that he can just go anytime he wants and take me."

"I wanted to surprise you, but I will be there tomorrow. I'm not telling you to move in with me, but you can stay with me until we find something, okay? Just hold on, one more day and you'll be in my arms again."

"Really? I can't wait!" She said excited as the bus got there. "The bus is here, I have to go. See you tomorrow!"

All day all she could think about was seeing Mike. At the end of the day as she was grabbing her stuff to leave her uncle, Thomas, came hurriedly to her desk. "Good, you haven't left." He said out of breath.

"What happened?" She asked, concerned.

"Your mother called me. She said for you not to go to the house."

"Why? What happened now?"

"She told me to take you somewhere else. She gave me an address. Are you ready to leave? She caught me just in time, I was on my way out."

"Yes, I'm ready." They got in his car and drove through a nicer neighborhood than the one she currently lived in. They got to an apartment building.

"Okay, so she said for you to go to third floor apartment 304." He said, handing her the note he had written down.

"And you were supposed to just drop me off here?"

"Yes, you know my sister and I don't see eye to eye. If she's there I don't want to see her." She said goodbye and got out of the car. She got into the building and climbed the stairs to the third floor. Then she looked for apartment 304. When she got there, she slowly knocked.

Her mother answered, looking like her old self. "Alice, sweetie. You're here, come in." She walked into the spacious clean apartment.

"Why am I here?" She asked, confused looking around.

"You won't believe what happened today. An old client of your father's from his lawyer's days heard about what happened and I guess he felt bad and offered him one of his properties for us to stay in and gave him a job at his company as a janitor."

"We are going to live here now?" She asked excitedly.

"Yes and you get a bigger room, with a closet. And the weirdest thing happened as we were packing our stuff to leave."

"What happened?"

"You know Tony, the fellow that let us stay in his property?"

"Yeah, I know him."

"Well, the police got there and raided his place. They found all types of drugs and guns. And apparently he ran illegal dog fights too. They arrested him. They checked the few boxes we had and let us go. I'm so glad to be out of that dump. And I'm thinking of asking for my old job back."

"At the university?"

"Yes, what do you think? Things are looking a lot better."

"Yes they are. I'm glad mom, you look happier." She said hugging her mother. Her mother showed her to her new room where her boxes awaited her.