Life After Claire

Life goes on

*this chapter is unedited

Cole

*Toss on the left side

*Toss on the right side

*Flip pillow over to the cold side

I can't sleep, the thought of someone putting to grubby, filthy hands on my sister makes me sick. No one should never hit a girl no matter of what they did. As soon as I see him, he's dead.

I get up because, there is no way I'll be able to sleep tonight, and walk to Shane's room. He never sleeps anyway so I know he'll be up.

I don't brother knocking so I just walk in. "Cole, hey is everything okay?" Shane asks, he's watching tv in the dark and he may have almost be asleep. "I can't sleep, I fell sick to my stomach." I pace back and forth in his room.

He lets out a sigh, "Yeah, I know what you mean. Come and sit down, man." He turns on his lights. "I can't take this! Why would anyone wanna hit a girl!" I whisper-yell at my brother. "Cole, I know I'm feeling sick about it too." He says calmly. "Shane! You're acting like you don't even care about him beating our sister!" Shane's eyes go wide,"Cole, don't tell me I don't care." He says to me, I stay quiet "I've thrown up twice." he runs his hand through his hair.

"I'm sorry." I whisper to him. He nods, he clearly doesn't want to talk about.

"Where's  Adam?" He asks. "He's sleeping on my floor, that's how he deals with things." I tell my brother and lay back on his bed. "I think we should just go to the police." He tells me. "I know." I say, even though that's not the way I wanna take things.

Shane and I sit watching Stepbrothers when we hear Claire start talking on the baby monitor. "It's three in the morning, why is she awake?" Shane says and curses under his breath. "I got this one. I think I owe you." "Thanks man." He says with a thumbs up.

I walk into Claire's room and she smiles at me, "Uncle!"

"Why aren't you sleeping?" She sticks her lip out and starts pouting."Claire, honey, It's late and you need to go to sleep, you're really tired." Claire starts bawling, a clear sign that she's overly tired.

"Hey, if you go to sleep right now, I'll get you a surprise tomorrow morning, Okay?" She nods her head excitedly and lays back down. "I don't want to hear one peep Claire Alyssa Juliet Cooper." I tell her and I walk into the kitchen for something to drink and to check on Sapphire, who's sleeping on the couch.

"Hey." Sapphire says and scares me half to death.

"Sure, scare me half to death why don't you?" 

"Oh, sorry." She says softly.

"I think I'll live, so it's alright. You want anything?" I ask her.

She shakes her head at me.

"Does anyone know you're here? My mom, your dad, Presley?"

"Presely and I talked about it, if one of us doesn't come home were probably here."

"We're the safe house, I get it." She nods back at me. "We have school tomorrow, are you going?"

"I haven't thought about it..." She whispers at me. "You don't have to, it's okay."

"You can go in Shane's room and watch tv with us, if you can't sleep." She picks up the blanket from the couch and wraps it around her and walks with me down the hall. "Why were you in Claire's room?" My step-sister asks me. "She wakes up a lot in the night and Shane didn't want to get up again." I laugh.

"We gained a person." I say to Shane as Sapphire snuggles up to him and I sit on the other side of her.

"More the merrier." Shane says with a fake smile. He's got other stuff on his mind besides his sister.