Son

14 conditions

I reached up and battered something away from my hair. I tried to roll over but cried out in pain when I rolled back clutching my shoulder. I opened my eyes painfully and slowly. I looked around to see my old room. Exactly as I left it. I tried to sit up but groaned. My shoulder, did I sleep on it funny? I looked over to see myself topless and bandages covering it. I looked around again and only just noticed my dad sitting next to me on a chair by my bed. "Dad?" I asked and he smiled. "You don't know how happy I am to have you home" Darius Falco grinned. I hugged him and he hugged me back careful of my shoulder.

Then it all came back. All of it. Reggie. Robbie. Kenny. Mr Clark. President Mcarals. Brentha.

I pushed him back in horror. "It was you? You ordered them to come and get me?" I said hurt. "Yes, I needed you home and Rachel said you said it was dangerous" he leaned forwards trying to make up the gap. I hopped out of the bed and walked backwards.

"Kenny? You killed Kenny" I said accusingly. He didn't deny it "it was an accident. I had to bring you home and he was just in the wrong place wrong time." He said gently. I shook my head in disbelief. "YOU DON'T EVEN CARE" I shouted and he stood up "I DO CARE, I CARE ABOUT YOU" He shouted back coming towards me. He tried to put his hands on my shoulders but I ducked underneath him and ran out of the room. I darted down the corridor and tried to find a way out. But then I remembered I couldn't. This place was as much of a prison as the whitehouse. As the school. I've not been free in a long long time. I ended up finding a store cupboard I used to hide in as a kid. I just sat in there amongst the mops and the buckets thinking about how this could have all been different if I'd never met Wolf or in fact Darius Falco. The decision I made all those years ago will be the death of me.

The door gently opened and closed again. Rachel slid down beside me with a plate of freshly baked cookies. "Hey there hun, I know you get hungry when you're thinking. Have some warm cookies" she smiled but I just rested my head against the wall "I'm not hungry" I muttered and she sighed. "So this is where Jakes getting all the stubbornness from huh? You know only the the other day he said, mumma I'm a man now" she smiled into the nostalgia "Well he soon bucked down when I said that men don't eat cookies drink milk and sleep with teddies" she giggled. I smiled up at her. "Thanks Rachel but I think we've finally found something that can't be solved with cookies" she smiled gently. "Huh, too good for my cookies?" I looked over to see her teasing smile. "I just want to be normal Rachel. Why can't I just be normal?" I asked leaning my head back against the wall. "Well you're the only person who thinks you can't. Every decision you make takes you somewhere. You've still got decisions to make, but it's up to you to make them." She said putting her head on my shoulder. I sighed "one of my dad's is a international drug smuggler the other is the president of the United States. Sounds like a whole lot of choice to me" I groaned sarcasticly. She smiled "but you've got the choice, you've always got the choice. He'll you a rich white teenage boy, you can't get more privilege than that." I laughed at that. "Rachel if I leave I've got no where to go, every time I leave or try to run away people die." I put my head in my hands. "Then don't run, leave and say you're leaving. You think Mr Falco will really stop you? He loves you too much to trap you like that" she said sagely. I sighed and stood up "I don't know, I don't know anything anymore" I shrugged and she smiled at me softly as if I was China doll who could crumble at a single careless touch. We emerged from the cupboard, I had given in and eaten a cookie along side Rachel who complained about her figure. "Honestly you boys eat trucks and I have a single cookie and I bloat like God knows, you watch I swear you laugh now but wait till I come after you with a broom" she said and I grinned.

"To think I come to work to deal with you then I go home to those terrors, I don't know who's worse." She said mostly to herself.

"Uh, I've got be back in a second" I said suddenly running towards my dad's office.

I explained to him my plan. That everything could work okay if he just let go a little. I explained everything and after a long period of thought he agreed; with his conditions.