STOLEN

Chapter 27

*Author's Note*
Hello guys! It's Tuesday again, so here is another chapter!
First of all we have surpassed 9k reads, and 10k is closing in! I am so so thankful for you guys and for the fact that you WANT to read my story. Thank you, especially to my loyal readers, who tune in twice a week to read my chapters! Ily guys!

Without further ado, let's get this party started! See you Friday!

-

Jason's POV:

A lot was at stake here, especially if Milo's friend was going to end up dying in that hospital in West Virginia. They would start looking into it, contact the police, and if they'd get their hands on Milo I'd be over. Everything would be over and there was nothing I could do about it.

This was bullshit. Everything was bullshit. How did this even happen in the first place? Overdose? Probably, but if someone decided to trace the drugs back to me? Hello life behind bars.

I couldn't let it happen. I had been told too many times that I was good for nothing to let this happen. Too many times I had been told that I would either wind up dead or in jail before the age of twenty. At least I made it past that milestone. Two years past and I bet the next bet was on twenty-five.

I thought back on the nights in a little dark room full of bunk beds that smelled like mold. Andrew in the bunk right across from mine. The nights where we'd talk about getting out some day at eighteen, because we knew we wouldn't be the next ones to leave.

Thornwall's home for orphans.

None of us ever really got out of there. Families rarely visited.

I balled my hand into a tight first and tilt the glass back, emptying the liquid down my throat, washing the memories away.

Jason? He's never going to be anyone.

He's bound to either die or spend his life behind bars. He can't behave.

You're nothing kid, get used to it.

Their words never got to me much, but at times, like now, they'd haunt me. Haunt my soul and awaken a slight doubt in myself that I never recognized, because I knew it wasn't real. It was illusion they created in me.

I was never going to be anyone? Sure I was never going to win a Nobel price or end world hunger, but I was someone. I thrived with my boys. Our business was expanding under the radar.

Chelsea was here. She went back with me, so I had to be someone to her.

I saved her life. I wouldn't call that being nothing.

"Jason?" Speak of the sun, Chelsea's voice eased from the top of the stairs. Tiny footsteps came down and I knew she was going to come and ask me what I was doing down here. My jaw clenched at the thought.

Wall, Jason, wall.

"You're drinking again." She declared much to my surprise and stood at the end of the table, watching me as I traced my finger around the perimeter of the empty glass.

I nodded a little and furrowed my brows for some unknown reason. "Yea, I guess I am." I looked up at her as she stood there, her eyes pooling over me with concern. My head felt light, and I don't know if it was due to the alcohol or her.

"What's troubling you, Jason?" She asked and left the end of the table to stand next to my chair. My attention retires to the empty glass and I try to forget her calming presence by not acknowledging it, because I wasn't going to tell her anything. I didn't want her dragged into all this.