The Leather Jacket

Mother's home

"I can't believe you could be this irresponsible Viola! I thought I raised you better than this." My mum gestured round the room at the bomb site that was supposedly out kitchen. All of the guys and Dani stood behind me sheepishly, lined up against the wall. I felt really quite sorry for them, they were just having a good time, like they could all do normally at their own homes. Whereas here, it all had to be spotless and clearly the most dangerous game we were allowed to play was twister. In fairness, we were planning on playing twister later, but I don't think mum would approve of twister on the roof.

"I'm really so-"

"It's my fault ma'am." Shane cut me off, making my heart skip a beat at him sticking up for me. "I started the food fight."

"No ma'am, it's my fault, it was me who wanted to make cookies." Danny stuttered, clearly scared of my intimidating mother.

"No, it was all my fault, I was the one who wanted all the pancake sauce," Ben continued, winking slyly at me.These guys were so sweet to me.

"No ma'am, it was my fault, I started the pile on," Zach cried, wanting to join in the fun.

"No it was-"

"Enough!" My mother cried, her head in her hands. "Seen as it's all of your faults, you can all help clean MY house, then get out. And Vi, you're grounded." With that, she walked back out of the front door, only here for a fly in visit. I moaned, scared all my friends were going to hate me for my mum making them clean. I turned round slowly, waiting for the fists to come flying at me.

As I turned round though, I saw only amusement on my friends face. I saw Dani's hair, still congealed with flour, honey and mint sauce, then Ben with a sugary looking kiss mark from where Shane had repaid him for the fight earlier. Then to the rest of the guys, all with their war marks. We all sized each other up. Then just exploded.

My sides felt like they were burning, I couldn't catch my breath.

"That," Ben started, trying to regain his breathing,"was brilliant! You should've seen your face." I had to admit, if this hadn't been happening to me, I would've found it funny too.

"But ergh, now we have to clean up." I groaned, annoyed that my mother was making us do it and not just leaving it to our maid. I know I sound like such a snob, but that IS what she's paid for!

"No we don't!" Shane said incredulously, looks at me like I was mad. " I'll just get Walter in, he loves to clean."

Walter, I later found out, actually did love cleaning. It was bizarre. He was the guys' maid, and seemed like a really nice bloke. We left him there, happy as anything with the duster and polish, and went back to the big house. After all getting showered and redressed (me borrowing a top from Shane and Dani from Ben), we decided to continue watching the Orphan, which thankfully the boys had a copy of. But we soon all got bored, and I was sick of being scared right now.

"Why don't we just go to the lake?" Zack asked, making me sure I wasn't the only one bored.

"What lake?"

*

"Don't you dare Shane Carter!" I squealed, standing right on the edge of the huge rock above the smooth surface of the lake. He was about a foot away from me, and I could see the evil glint in his beautiful eyes.

"But why ever not Miss Adams?" The devil asked innocently, giving me a playful smirk. I could give him a million reasons. One, I was wearing just his top and my underwear, which unfortunately was quite skimpy. Two, although it was a scorching hot day, I dipped my toes in earlier and it felt iced. Three, it looked way too shallow to be harmless. Fou-

"Charge!" Shane roared, launching himself at me. Much as I tried to fight, I still began to topple. However, I did manage to achieve one thing: he came down with me. I clung to him as we fell, then squealed as the water slapped my back with a sting-

*Flashback*

"Ouch, stop it!" I cried, as pain thrashed through my body, sobs radiating through me. This only made him bring the whip down harder, tearing away huge chunks of my flesh as he did so.

"Shut up!" He screeched, his wrath shown through the thrashing him gave my bare thighs.

"Stop it!" A male voice cried, as it clearly killed him to see me in such pain. "Hit me instead! Just please," he begged, getting down on his rope bound knees, "don't hurt her!"

*End of flashback*

"Vi, speak to me Hun!" Dani voice cut through my fogginess, returning me to the real world. I blinked open my eyes, to see all of their faces come into view.

"Sorry," I replied, annoyed at myself for blacking out. Dani just sat there and held me, rocking me back and forth.

"It'll be ok."