Enticing Disaster

Chapter 12 - Andrew

Emma falls on her knees, shaking her head. She stares at the screen one more time before anger fills her and she chucks her phone across the wall, smashing it to pieces.

I grab her hand and place it against my chest where my heart is. "It's okay," I say. "We'll get through it together."

My natural instinct is to protect her. To go to her father and smash his face against a glass door. I know Emma wouldn't want that though.

How could a father do this to her own daughter? According to the text from Lucy, Emma's father has set her marriage with a guy named Dwayne. Not because Dwayne is a nice guy or that he cares for Emma. No, he set it up because Dwayne's father owns a big company back at Williams Square and they're willing to merge and become business partners if he gives Emma to them. He's literally sold his daughter, like she means nothing to him.

Emma looks up at me, tears ruining her mascara. "You don't know what my father is capable of," she says. "I can't risk your life for my sake."

I give her hand a squeeze before grabbing her chin and pulling it in the direction of my face. "We're in this together. Don't worry about me."

She blinks for a second before resting her head against my chest and wrapping her arms around me. I run my hand across her hair before kissing the top of her head and whispering calm words to her.

Emma stands looking back at the wall, her phone having caused an indent against the wall. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'll fix that."

I wave my hand in the air as I pull her body against mine. "Don't worry about it."

A rapid pounding against the door sparks our attention. I point in the direction of my bedroom and she hurries off. I swing the door open and the pounding of my heart that was there a second before stops when I see Richard.

I'm about to take a deep breath and relax when he pushes me inside and locks the door. "They're checking inside the houses. You need to hide because her mum has given a description of you and the picture the sketch artist has drawn looks identical to you. I just saw it down the street when I was making my way here."

Emma takes a few steps forward when she hears Richard's voice and then comes and joins us when she realises there's no trouble. Well at least for now.

"They've shown your picture to quite a few people and everyone has denied seeing it before. They asked Gabby about you too and she said she'd never seen someone like that before," Richard says in panic. "Everyone in town knows you're in some kind of trouble and they're trying to protect you, but you have to hide now."

The sirens go off outside and Emma and I look back at each other. I hold her hand and pull her to the back door signalling Richard to join us. We exit the back door to our garage.

"There's small door under the garage, we can hide there. You just need to reverse the car so we can get in and then drive the car over to door so we can hide again."

My father had made that when he built this house. He would always say that I. Such a small town, it was vital to have a place to hide in case something went wrong. He never used it and today I get that chance.

When Richard reverses my dad's ute, I pull the door open that leads to an underground room. Richard throws a torch down to me and disappears before reappearing with a bag of food. He then drives the car over the door.

I grab Emma's hand and walk down the stairs, shining the torch against the floor. When we get here, Emma stares around in shock.