Family Fanasty Pt One: Found and escape {ON HOLD}

Chapter 3- Talking to Charlie

“We’ll meet you up there, ‘kay?” Justin said, I didn’t look at him when he handed me my overnight duffle.

          “Mmm.” I mumbled, I grabbed the duffle and waited for him to walk out the door.

          “Okay, um, see ya.” He said, leaving me alone in my now empty room. I looked around one last time, savoring the feel of home then, with my Hillsdale Hornets Boxing hat on and my black sunglasses, I sighed and slung on my boxing duffle and left the room. I tightened my grip on my overnight duffle, on the side pocket was the Beretta Dave had given me when I first came to live with him; I remember the conversation very clearly, as if it had just happened.

          ‘”Why are you giving me this?” I had asked, I just looked at the gun Dave was holding out to me. “Because, I won’t be able to protect you all the time Anna.” He said, I was still hesitant but I took the gun. ”It’s fully loaded, all you have to do is pull this back.” He gestured to the small looking lever at the top of the gun by the butt end “and squeezed the trigger.”

He said, I nodded. “Plus, there’s your boxing tournament up in Ann Arbor. I want you to be able to protect yourself in the city’s Ghetto when you’re not boxing.” He said, I smiled but didn’t say anything. “You have a lifetime supply of rounds, so I don’t think you’re gonna use the excuse that you ran out.” He said, I nodded and got the feel of the Beretta in my hands and the weight of it; then Dave and I went to a private sound proof shooting range and practiced on my aiming skills and my technique.’

          I went outside where the school bus was waiting to take me and my team mates to Ann Arbor for the boxing tournament. Once I had climbed on I immediately heard the hooting and whoops “yeah, Valdez! Ready to go and kick some Ann Arbor ass?” Charlie Cunningham asked, I smiled but I didn’t say anything; I went to the way back and sat in an empty seat with my eyes closed. And it’s not that I was doing it to be rude or anything but for one I didn’t get much sleep last night.

I had had the Jaden dream again and two I usually did this before games or tournaments to get into the game, get into the Valdez-Badass-Boxing mode. Everyone on the team knew this but they still sat around me even though my eyes weren’t open I could still sense them around me.

“Do you think she’s sleeping?” I heard Gavin Bordner ask after about ten minutes, I opened one eye and looked at him.

          “She’s trying to, she didn’t get much sleep last night.” I said, I leaned my head back against the window. Brandon came up to my seat, he pushed my legs that was up on the seat onto the floor and flopped on the seat; he looked at me, smiled a mischievous grin and winked.

          “’Sup beautiful?” He asked, I frowned and didn’t look at him. I usually would have come up with some snide remark but when he said it like that he reminded me of the way Jaden used to say that in greeting whenever we would go over to his house; before he went into the army. I sighed and I must’ve showed that I was sad or depressed because Charlie took Brandon’s place.

Charlie was sort of like a third brother to me, I had had two, Caleb and Kevin, great brothers they were about three years apart. Everyone else went back up front while Charlie draped his arm over my shoulders and squeezed.

          “You had the dream again, didn’t you?” He asked, I just nodded and laid my head on his shoulder.

          “It’s always the same, bombs going off, people running and screaming. The News announcing the people who were critically injured, who were fine they were just in shock, and people who died” I said, my voice was cracking now and I felt a tear slip from the corner of my eye.

Charlie used his fingers that were draped over my shoulders to wipe it away. “Why couldn’t Jaden be the one who was in shock or in critical condition? Why couldn’t he have been the one to come home?” I asked, I was asking myself more than I was asking Charlie; but he just shrugged not really knowing what to say.

          “I remember asking myself that all the time during Sara’s… passing.” He said, he still had a hard time saying it. It had been two years since Sara, Charlie’s half sister, died defending our country. It was something we shared, both of our stepsister’s were killed in war; it was just in different places. Even though I was never close to my stepsister, Mollie, I still feel sad whenever someone refers to that name or talks about her.

I still held onto her most recent picture, it was taken at the airport when she was wearing her army attire. She had her green army bag slung on but she wasn’t smiling, who would be when you were going back to a war zone after a short, final, visit to your family back in America. That was the last time I ever saw her, my stepsister, my other role model, my second hero.

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