Afire Love (#Wattys2016)

13. Dangerous Exchange

Chapter 13 – Dangerous Exchange.

It was dark in the house. No lights were shining and no sound was heard. I had an ill feeling in my stomach and felt like I needed to go to the kitchen to grab some water. All the doors were opened upstairs but nothing could be seen inside since it was too dark. I heard silent rustling causing Goosebumps to crawl over my skin and suddenly all doors were slammed closed at the same time causing me to jump from the loud sounds. I practically ran down the stairs fleeing from the danger that was apparently vivid upstairs, searching for security in the living room. Everything was dark here as well, only a little bit of light fell through the door leading to the kitchen and I suddenly heard a dark husky laugh coming from there. Slowly I stepped forward not feeling too good about what was going to greet me at the other side of the door. I silently sneaked up to the door and peeked through it trying not to make a sound. My eyes widened at the sight in front of me. Marcus was sitting at the kitchen table smirking while flicking some poker chips into the middle of the table. The other three people playing against him had dark hoodies on that made it impossible to see their faces or make out their figures. Suddenly on of the men took out a stack of money and handed it over to Marcus. My uneasy feeling increased. I felt like I had experienced this situation before but I couldn't quiet put a finger on it. After counting the money Marcus took out a small, brown paper bag from underneath the table and handed it over to the man. He slowly opened it. Suddenly he stopped dead in track. "We have a surprise visitor I see." The man said with a rusty voice slowly pressing the top of the bag together causing it to crunch. My blood ran cold as all heads turned towards me. The men's faces were covered with the shadows formed by their hoodies. Only Marcus angry face could be seen. "I told you to never disobey my rules!" He screamed and rushed over to me trying to grab me and I screamed.

I woke up with sweat covering my body and I felt dizzy trying to orientate myself. It was the second night I had this dream after we saw Marcus apparently dealing with drugs. Jayson had still not been home and Marcus was very angry about it. He tried to call Jay to tell him that he needed to get home but he didn't answer. Marcus hated to lose control over him or any of us in general, but Jay's phone was turned off which added to Marcus' anger. He got very ruff with my mother and also shoved me down the stairs to do the dishes yesterday as I moved to slowly for his liking, which left me with a few small bruises; he was very strong. He probably compensated his loss of control over Jay with pushing us around. Luckily Marcus was out most of the day; sometimes with my mother, sometimes without her. The only big Problems were the evenings. My mother got even more silent now that she was Marcus' punching bag mostly verbally but also physically since Jay had been to the hospital. He was quiet smart and always acted out when Jay wasn't home since he would have tried anything to stop Marcus but I saw my mother's reaction and noticed her bruises, even if I wasn't with them when it happened. She flinched away with every movement he made always expecting to be hurt.

I got out of the bed and went into the bathroom to get showered. I looked at my pale and tired reflection in the bathroom mirror. My dark blond, tangled hair fell over my shoulders in a lazy way while my light blue eyes looked at me tiredly. I was worn out by the constant worrying about Marcus actions and fearing that he would hurt us worse than he already did. It was not just physically but mentally exhausting. Jay not being here to support me made it even harder. It had never been this way. He normally tried everything to help and protect us. Him just leaving now was unusual for him.

I hadn't told Amy or Ben about the current situation. Instead I told them that everything was going fine at home and that I wanted to ignore what we had witnessed just two days ago. The truth was that it occupied my thoughts all day long and I had gotten headaches from overthinking what we had seen.