Lost

Chapter 16 - Late Night Call

Whew, this one is going to be a tough one...

"Jesus fucking christ." Ace swore when he phone wouldn't stop ringing.

He had already had a terrible night with his father coming home and disrupting his, Caleb's, and Jodee's dinner and now someone wanted yet another thing out of him. In Ace's world, people just took — they didn't give and they didn't help other people. They just took and took and took until there was nothing left to take and then they moved onto someone else to take from.

After Ace brought his sleeping sister inside his house he brought her to his room because every time she was pulled away from him, she subconsciously started whimpering and grabbing back onto her brother. Plus, he knew it would be bad for both of them right now if they slept apart. Ace was pissed that someone was waking him up, but he was also pissed that this phone might potentially wake up the sleeping 5-year-old. He did not want that. She needed her sleep.

Ring ring ring! The phone rang again.

"For fucks sake!" The boy swore again, reaching over to grab the phone off of the bed side table.

He turned the phone over, his eyes just barely able to open to the bright light. With his other hand, Ace cupped his little sister's head so that she wouldn't hear the call or be bothered by the bright light. Although, he doubted she would wake up.

Jodee had always been a pretty heavy sleeper, and whenever she was sleeping in her brothers bed with her brother or not she rarely ever woke up until Ace woke her up forcefully and told her she had to get up. Her brain just knew that she was safe and it was okay to sleep in. 

The phone lights up, showing the callers name, mom.

Ace's head lit up with alarm, he swiped on the call to answer and pick up. Shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck! Ace's head started to curse himself. He would estimate that the phone rang about five times before he had gotten annoyed and picked it up. That means that his mother called him five fucking times until he had the decency to pick up. 

This scared the boy quite a bit as his mother never called him or ever wanted anything to do with him. But the fact that she called in the middle of some random night meant that something was going on with her. Something bad. 

 "Mom? Mom?" He spoke into the phone right away, his voice giving away the panic his head was feeling.

Although he was attempting to keep his voice low and quiet to not wake up the little girl, the panic and confusion would not allow him to hold back his volume. So, Ace settled for whisper shouting.

"Ace? Ace is that you?" A masculine voice spoke back through the phone.

The boy in question's eyes immediately narrowed as his lips moved into a scowl hearing that voice. "Todd." He deadpanned. "What the fuck do you want? Where's my mom? Why the fuck do you have her phone?" He fired off question after question at the man. 

Ace was pissed. He didn't know why fucking Todd Winters was calling him from his mothers phone in the middle of the night. And he did not want to talk for this sorry excuse of a human.

Todd was Katherine's lazy-ass boyfriend and he and Ace did not get along. Todd was much older but Ace was taller, stronger, and smarter than Todd. He beat Todd in every way but in the way that his mom preferred Todd over Ace and always chose her boyfriend's side and not her son. Maybe due to that and that fact that Ace did not want his mother to be around men like him, they were always at odds and had had the odd fist fight in the past.