Be Mine, Always

chapter twenty

Xander’s POV~ Six Years Ago

        Stomach churning nausea plagued me the moment I left Melody’s house. A skin prickling and hair raising sensation worsened my nausea. I should have taken it as a sign to turn around and beg Melody’s forgiveness and call the police. I should have trusted my instincts and maybe if I had things wouldn’t have turned out the way they had. 

        The walk from Melody’s house to the decrepit house of a young college girl wasn’t long, five minutes at the most. Our town was a mix of nice houses and dumps like this. There would be a mansion built beside a crumbling and dilapidated house and that’s exactly what the street I arrived on looked like.

        Darkness had taken over the sky and it was eerily quiet. A soft glow illuminated a room on the top floor, revealing a bedroom with a young girl at a computer. The summer air was cool causing goosebumps to pebble my skin and I leaned against an abandoned storefront and waited for Evan. A look at my phone told me I still had about ten minutes before he was supposed to come. 

        I hoped and prayed he wouldn’t show up, maybe I was wrong about him. If Evan didn’t do this he wouldn’t become a member of our father’s gang and we could turn them in together. He probably knew more than me about their activity and that could help in any investigation against them. I just hoped tonight went smoothly and I could go back to Melody with no harm done. 

        The woman in the window, stood from her desk and stretched, turned the light out and went to bed. This would be when Evan would come and take her. My stomach turned at the thought of how he would achieve such a feat. Did he groom the house before he came to make it easier on him to break in? 

        Doubts crept into my mind. If Evan was capable of such premeditation intentions, maybe he was too far gone for me to save. I pulled out my phone and hovered my finger over the buttons to call 911. 

        Just as I was about to press the green button to call, red and blue lights flashed and when I looked up he was shocked to see two cop cars. As I went to slink off in between two buildings but the car closest to the storefront shined a light on me. 

        That gut churning feeling returned in earnest and my heart clogged in my throat. I thought of the unease I felt on the way here and how wrong the whole situation felt. Not even just because Evan was supposed to kidnap a girl, but it just felt off. 

        I raised my hands and two cops came out, one pointing a gun in my direction and the other approaching me with cuffs. Could Melody have found out and called the police? She assumed I was on a drug run. 

        She wouldn’t do this to me, would she? 

        One cop cuffed me and led me to the car. “You are being arrested on the grounds of suspicion of gang activity. You have the right to remain silent…”

        My hearing went muffled as he read me my rights. This is a fate I spent seventeen years trying to avoid, yet despite my best efforts I’ve ended up right where I supposed I was always meant to be. In cuffs on the grounds of gang activity. I cursed myself. They must’ve thought I was Evan. Maybe he blabbed to someone and they tipped off the cops and Evan was running late, leaving me the only suspect. 

        It doesn’t help that my father is a known gang member. People around town have pitied me, abandoned by my mother to be left with a gang member father, left to someday go to prison and inevitably become my father. 

        Everything was a blur of events after I was seated in the back of a police cruiser. Words were spoken and I must’ve answered because my mouth moved, but all I could hear was the loud tha-thump of my heart in my ears. A head rush flooded my head making all my extremities go cold and tingly.