Emerson

Chapter 4.

Emerson's POV

I have a dad. Of course, I have a dad, biologically everyone has to have a dad. I have a dad who didn't ditch my mom. 

The social worker told me that my parents got divorced when I was younger and my mom ran off taking me with her. My dad was supposed to get custody due to my mom being verbally abusive and neglectful to her other kids. Yes, other kids, I apparently have siblings. 

My dad is coming to the station to come get me. I'm sitting in this office on a stiff couch waiting for anything. I end up staring at the wall for a while thinking of different things. Where does he live? How many siblings do I have? My endless questions are interrupted by the door creaking open. I look over to see a tall man enter the room. 

He stands at the entrance staring at me while I stare at him. Neither of us said anything. Eventually, he speaks up. 

"Hello." He says, I nod at him waving my at him awkwardly. "I'm your dad. Reece." He says. This is the most awkward interaction I've ever seen/experienced. The social worker comes in after a few minutes of silence. 

"Mr. Stone I just sent your paperwork in. You should be receiving a letter when the paperwork is finalized." He nods. "You two are welcome to leave whenever now." She smiles at us leaving the room.

"Do you need to grab anything else from your house?" He asks me. I shake my head. "Well then are you ready to go?" I nod and stand up grabbing my backpack. We awkwardly leave the police station together, him leading me to a black car. Some random person drives us to an airstrip where a plane is waiting. 

He leads me up to the staircase to the plane. He has me sit down while he walks off. He comes back a few minutes later with a notepad and a pen telling me the plane is going to go off. He sits down across from me and stares at me. 

"I'm sure you have questions." He slides over the notepad to me. I take it writing down my first one. 

Where are we going?

"California." I nod. We spend the next few minutes going back and forth. 

How many siblings do I have?

"6 brothers. You're the youngest." 

How long is the flight?

"About 40 more minutes."

I stop asking him questions and look out the window. I've never been on a plane before. It's not bad. 

We sit in silence with him typing on his phone and me looking out the window. The plane lands eventually and we get out. There is a car waiting for us as get out. Dad, Reece, whatever he drives us to about 20 minutes to this giant house. 

There's a black metal gate leading up to the property with a large driveway. The house is black with large windows and black trim. 

He parks the car and turns towards me. 

"I want to warn you. They were all pretty excited to hear about you." I nod. He leads me into the house. He opens the door and walks in first. I follow him holding my backpack on my shoulders. He shuts the door behind me and walks.

We go into a living room where a red-haired woman is sitting on the couch watching TV. Reece clears his throat, she turns her head towards him and her eyes widen when she looks at me. 

"Where are the rest of the boys?" Reece asks her. 

"Around the house." She shrugs, who is she? Reece said I had 6 brothers he never mentioned a girl. 

"Boys!" Reece yells. I flinch a little jumping away from him. I straighten myself out looking towards the stairs. Two guys walk out of a door downstairs, and 4 more come down the stairs. All of them stop staring at me. 

We stood there for an entire minute, I counted the seconds, before Reece told us to sit down. We all sat down, they sat down on the two couches while I sat down on a chair. One of the guys wrapped his arm around the woman's shoulder. 

"Emerson these are your brothers and Veronica, Atlas's wife." I nod at Reece. "Boys tell him your name and age." 

"I'm Atlas, I'm 22." Atlas looked very intimidating. He was obviously tall, he looked very similar to Mom. The same green eyes and the same brunette hair we all seem to share. He has tattoos traveling down his arms and creeping up his neck. 

"Knox, I'm 21." Has blue eyes like me and tattoos like Atlas. His voice was quieter and held less authority than Atlas' and Reece's. 

"I'm Leon, I'm 20." Leon looked the same as Knox and me with the same tattoos. Taking a quick glance at everyone only two of the boys didn't have tattoos.

"Blaine, 19." He kept his introduction short, his voice was raspy and held a tone of anger. He resembled Atlas more but had tattoos covering every sliver of skin showing in his jeans and black tee. His knuckles were scarred up, some with tattoos covering them some had cut into the tattoos. His eyes were set in a subtle glare but that might just be his face.

"Saint, I'm 17." He waved at me a little. He seemed nice in comparison to the prior brother. 

"Hi, I'm Griffin and I'm 16. It's very nice to meet you." Griffin smiled at me. He was definitely the kindest of the brothers and seemed to actually not mind my sudden presence. 

"Like Reece said, I'm Veronica, Atlas' wife. It's very lovely to meet you." She smiled at me very sweetly, it was a huge contrast to her husband who stared at me like I was an enigma. 

"Well everyone this is Emerson, I'm sure you all know he is 15," Reece told them for me. "I need you all to listen to me very carefully, Emerson is selectively mute." He tells them. The nicer ones looked at me in alarm while the others continued to stare at Reece. 

"So he can't talk?" Griffin asks tilting his head a little. I shake my head while Reece talks. 

"He can but he chooses not to. You all are not to pressure him and let him warm up to us on his own terms." Reece looks at them in a warning. 

"Veronica, would you and Griffin mind showing Emerson his room? We can give him a tour tomorrow." Both of the two nod and stand up. I follow them out of the living room. Veronica leads the way while Griffin walks next to me talking about the family. 

"Atlas and Veronica don't live here but they are usually here a lot. Don't mind Blaine he can be a dick but he also takes a while to warm up to people." 

We walk down a hallway to the very end. 

"This is your room. The whole side of this hallway is our rooms but Dad's is on the first door on the other side along with the guest rooms." Griffin places his hand dramatically on the door. I nod at him and he opens the door. 

The room opens up to a gray room, the bed is up giant the farthest wall with a black comforter. There are two doors inside the room and a huge window with black curtains. 

"The door closest to us is your bathroom and the second one is your closet. Dad just had us set this up today, we didn't know what you would like so we can always change it later." Griffin says. I walk inside the room taking note of it. The overall design is simple which is expected but it was way more than what I was used to. The bed had sheets and wasn't on the floor, so that's new. 

"We'll leave you to get settled. I'll come up and get you for dinner, but feel free to come down and roam around before then." Veronica says, I nod and watch as the two leave me alone in here shutting the door behind them.