Her Safe Haven

Prologue

(Autumn, 10 years ago — 3 months and 1 day after "the incident")

"Get away from me, you stupid mute!"

As far as she could see, they were all laughing at her.

She had been pushed to the ground; her knees scraped, ankle sprained. She was crying. She wanted to scream, to fight back — but of course, she couldn't. How could she?

The whistle her older brother had given her just last month was gone — snatched away by them, leaving her quite literally powerless and surrounded by seven of the most vicious, heartless people she had ever known.

It was just so expected from her father — that two weeks after the kidnapping incident that had left her voiceless, her entire family had moved to another country, in another continent, just to get her away from the cause of her trauma.

And again, it was just so expected that even on her first weeks of school in her new town, she had attracted enough attention from her schoolmates to get her in trouble; being unable to speak and all. And even though her family's status and power might just be enough to teach those kids some lessons, to six-year-olds, money and power still meant less than candies and ice-creams.

"I still can't believe she's Gray's twin sister!" one of them yelled, pointing an accusing finger at her. "You must be an embarrassment to him! Hahaha!"

She tried to remember her name. Amy, was it? She remembered seeing her and some other girls chasing after her brother at school.

Her brother, of course, had ignored all of them. "Shameless and irritating," he had called them.

Ah, her brothers. She felt even more tears rolling down her cheeks as she realised that this time, her brothers were not there to protect her. She tried calling them in her heart, silently cooing for them to come to her rescue.

But of course, that was impossible.

So when one of the bullies — the tallest boy — stepped forward to swing his palm at her cheek, she could only squeeze her eyes shut and wait for the sting.

Only, it never came.

Laughters slowly turned to gasps and whispers as she slowly opened her eyes. She had expected to see her brothers in front of her, shielding her, but instead of a pair of brunettes, she caught a glimpse of blond as the other children shouted and scampered away.

"You better run!" he yelled, punching his fists to the air for effect. As he turned back, she saw that he was grinning at her, his blue eyes wide in pride. He offered a hand to help her up, and she took it gratefully, silently sniffling and nodding her head, 'thank you'.

As soon as she stood up, she fell again. He caught her midway and grabbed her shoulder to steady her. "Whoa, careful!" he said, pulling her side. "Are you hurt?"

She didn't make a sound, but he got the hint as soon as he saw blood trickling down her shaking right knee.

"That seems very bad... Are you able to walk?" he murmured, his eyebrows creasing in worry as he tried to support her.

She reluctantly shook her head, never saying anything.

He carefully observed her.

She had thick dark brown hair pulled into two disheveled ponytails — probably a result of earlier occurrences. Her skin was fair even though there was dirt smudged all over it. He had to inwardly gasp as he caught sight of her eyes — they were a brilliant, mesmerising colour of black. As he scanned over her body for any other injuries, he noticed a small symbol next to the word "McHalen" embroidered on the back of her clothes and his eyes widened.

He gulped. "You're the McHalen..." It came out as no more than a whisper.

She glanced sideways, carefully nodding her head. She didn't know why people were afraid of her family. She had expected him to run away from her and curse her when she heard a familiar voice calling for her.

"Winter!"

The blond turned his head to see two figures running towards them. The taller one had dark brunette hair that had grown a bit past his neck, obviously too long for boys his age, the other one has short, bristly brown hair, and only seemed to be as old as the blond himself.

They slowed their paces and slowly approached their sister, eyes wide with curiosity. Upon seeing her brothers, the girl opened her arms wide and she was quickly lifted up by the older one – the one with the too-long hair. He cradled her carefully and eyed the blond.

"Thank you," he said, his lips slowly curving into a small smile, although his eyes showed apprehension. "Always getting into trouble, this one. My name is Caleb," he offered one hand to the blond.

The boy took his hand and nodded. "Jonah," he said, shaking the hand firmly. "My family just moved here yesterday. I was walking around the neighbourhood when I saw her being shoved around by—"

"Leon's gang," the other boy, the one his age, added in. "Tall guy with ugly braces, ridiculous bandanna."

Jonah nodded.

"They always picked on her at school," the boy explained to his older brother. "They acted nice every time I was with her, but when they thought I wasn't looking, they bullied her." He turned to look at Jonah, "Thank you for helping my sister. My name's Gray."

"Gray, we should go. Winter's bleeding and I think she sprained her ankle," Caleb called.

Winter whimpered and nodded in agreement. She buried her face in her brother's shoulder, trembling as Caleb smoothed his hand over her back, trying to soothe her.

Gray nodded before offering a fist to Jonah. "I'll see you around."

The blond seemed surprised by the gesture, but quickly grinned and bumped his own fist onto Gray's.

During that same week he had learned that Gray, Winter, and himself all went to the same primary school.

And he was told that Winter was mute since three months ago when she was kidnapped and they did something to traumatise her into silence.

And he and Gray had become fast friends.