Chapter One
"Come on, baby girl."
The five-year-old girl picked up her Barbie bookbag and took the hand of the man standing in front of her. David Garrison, more affectionately known as Davie G, was her mother's boss and the manager of what her mother deemed the "high-class drinkery" where she worked. Davie G was in his mid-thirties, a decade older than the single mother, and still looked good; he stood around six foot, still well-built both from college football and keeping the peace within his establishment. He dressed well and held himself as though he worked in a four-star hotel, while both Davie and the girl's mother knew it was far from thus. Davie was a man who treated his workers with respect and his customers with courtesy, unless they broke his rules. He was also, however, a man who would sit down and watch kiddie movies with the five-year-old when the establishment was in good order.
She laughed as he picked her up by the hand and carried her thus to where her mother stood, already out of her work clothes and into something more comfortable. Kathleen Jenkins was a pretty woman, tall with her 5'10" height with a very feminine frame. Her skin seemed to glisten and her hair fell in blood red waves onto her shoulders and beyond. And not only that, she was a dancer – though the child had never seen her dance at work (she stayed in the back room while her mother was working), they danced to songs on the radio all the time at home.
"Time to go home, baby," Kathleen informed her daughter as she balanced the five-year-old on her hip, picking up her own backpack and slinging the strap over her shoulder. "Thanks again for the night off, Davie. I owe you."
He walked over to give both mother and daughter a brief kiss on the cheek, making the latter giggle. "Big time, Kitty-Kat. But you go home and have fun; I'll see you tomorrow anyway. Are you going to the barbecue this weekend?" He removed the cat ears from Kathleen's head to place them on the child's, smiling and wiggling his ears as he did.
She swayed back and forth almost melodically as she ran her hand through her daughter's ginger hair soothingly. "Wouldn't miss it for the world, babe. Now, I need to get going… Bye Davie. Tell the girls I said to have fun." She winked at the man as she strode towards the back exit; she never came in through the front. None of the girls did; Davie said it was bad for business.
"Sure thing. Bye Kat; bye sweetheart," he called out to them, waving to the little girl who watched him over her mother's shoulders.
The mother and daughter pair advanced into the dark evening, and the five-year-old loosened her hold around her mother's neck. She liked the nighttime when it was still in the middle of summer; when the winds that blew at night were still warm. The moon was high in the sky and was very big; it was close to a full moon. She wasn't outside a lot during the night, because her mother said that it wasn't safe, especially if she wasn't there. One night, after a barbecue her mother and her coworkers had, they were all in Davie's backyard and laid on the grass to look at the stars. She'd loved that night.
Kathleen placed the child in the passenger seat and buckled her up before throwing their bags into the back seat. After doing a quick walk around the car, she settled into the driver's seat to start the car and turn on the radio. Instantly, the youngster started bobbing her head back and forth to the music, a playful smile slinking onto her face. "Why're we leaving so early, Mama?"
The adult put on her seat belt with one hand while she backed out of her parking spot. "Tomas said he's got some surprises for us, Reagan. And I don't know about you, but I love surprises. Do you, baby?"
A childish grin set forth on the youngster's face. She loved surprises. Her mother, and some of the women who worked with her mother, had given her a surprise party last year for her birthday, and she'd gotten lots of presents. And Tomas's presents were fun. He'd gotten her a copy of one of her favourite movies, The Mighty Ducks, and her mother had let her play it every day for that week. Tomas spent a lot of time at her house, although she'd only met him recently; within the past month. He was about 6', but more slender than Davie was; he also spoke with an accent that Reagan couldn't place, although she knew a couple other people who spoke like that. He was really nice, though; he once brought over his dog to let her play with him all afternoon.
Kathleen and Reagan sang to various songs on the radio as they set forth towards their home. Reagan loved to sing as much as she loved to dance. Davie always said she was just like her mother because of that. Since it was just her and her mother at home for her entire life, and she was her mother's daughter, this would come as no surprise to her when she was old enough to truly understand that comment.
Pulling into their driveway, it came as no surprise to the pair when they saw the black Taurus parked in front of their house with the Hispanic man leaning against its driver's side door. Tomas was all smiles as he approached their beat-up El Camino, a shopping bag obviously hidden behind his back. He walked over to Reagan's side first, opening the door for her and undoing her seat belt as Kathleen exited the car. Taking the child's hand, he walked over to his 'girlfriend' to greet her with a gracious hug and a discreet kiss on the cheek.
"Hello to you too, baby," Kathleen replied as she picked up her daughter and balanced her on her hip before starting up the walkway. "You're lucky I got off tonight. Becca had originally called in sick and Madeline is out of town at her brother's wedding, but Davie called Alice and she said she'd go in. God bless that chicky. So…" They paused so she could unlock and open the door. "What are these surprises you have for us, hmm?"
He smirked at her and winked as they entered the house. It was far from a dream home, to be sure, but it was the girls' home; they loved it. "You'll see." He passed them to leave the porch, heading for the kitchen to lay the bag down. When he returned, Reagan was on her feet, removing her shoes meticulously, and Kathleen was hanging up their jackets. He leaned over the woman's shoulder, placing his lips by her ears, and whispered, "You go up and put Reagan to bed, and then go into your room and get comfortable. I got that movie for Reagan; I'll go in and put it on for her after you go into your room."
She couldn't help but smirk as she picked the shoeless child up in her arms. "Come on babe, upstairs we go," she informed the child in a playful tone, ascending the staircase at a regular pace. When Reagan queried about why they were going upstairs, why they weren't down in the living room waiting for their surprises, the woman replied, "You go and get into bed, and then you're going to get your surprise, baby."
With that comment, Reagan squirmed out of her mother's arms to land with ease on the upstairs landing. "I'm going!" she announced, loud enough for Tomas, who was still downstairs, to hear. While the two adults chuckled quietly, Reagan hurried down the hallway towards her bedroom, changing into her pajamas at a rapid pace. She was just grabbing the arm of her teddy bear when her mother entered her room to tuck her in. "Nighty-night Mommy. I love you."
Kathleen bent over her daughter and kissed her four times; once on each cheek, once on her forehead, and once on her nose. "Nighty-night baby girl. I love you too. Sleep tight." With that, the woman tucked her daughter in snugly and left the room, keeping the door open and the light on, to venture down the hall to her own room.
Moments later, to the child's glee, Tomas entered the room, bag still hidden behind his back. She half-squealed in delight, but managed to stay relatively still. He crept up to her almost comically, before rapidly extracting a VHS from behind his back. "SURPRISE!"
She fully squealed this time, reaching out towards him to take the movie from his hands. However, he pulled it out from her reach, telling her, "Nope, you can't have it. Not yet." Smirking, he turned around slowly… but instead of leaving the room, he headed for the small television Kathleen kept in the child's room, and began to set the movie up. Reagan cheered from her bed as he turned the volume way up – high enough that she wouldn't be able to hear what was going on in the room next door. Hopefully. "You have fun now, kiddo," he directed her as he really left the room this time. He heard her call out a thank-you before he closed the door, heading towards his girlfriend's barely ajar bedroom door.
"Ever'body! Ever'body! Ever'body wants to be a cat!" Reagan hollered with the movie, half-dancing in her bed with her teddy bear. She wasn't tired yet, despite it being nearly eleven at night; she'd been up later than this many times before, without a new movie to watch. After all, she and her mother didn't normally leave her mother's work until two or three in the morning, so their internal clocks didn't exactly operate on the norm.
She watched as the three kittens were put into bed on the movie, the volume decreasing significantly. It was then that she heard a loud thud from the room next to hers; her mother's room. Confused, she sat still for a moment, looking at the wall. When there was another thud, she extracted herself from the sheets and crept slowly towards the wall, teddy bear dragging on the floor beside her. Once at the wall, she pressed her ear against it, and heard yelling from within the room.
Not knowing what was going on, or what she was to do, she did the only think she could think of – went to get her mother, to ask her what to do. Hugging her bear to her chest, she walked towards her door, not bothering to turn off the movie, and proceeded down the hallway to her mother's room. Since her mother didn't have a lock, Reagan simply opened the door, and then froze as she took in the sight.
Her mother was on her bed, clad only in a pair of shorts and a bra, a few red marks on her face and arms that would surely become bruises, and some blood on her lip and by her eyebrow. Tomas was standing at the foot of the bed, his boxers the only thing covering him, and his hands clenched into fists. He saw her first, and a smirk overcame him as he started towards her. Kathleen was frozen in shock for a moment, her eyes wide at the sight of her daughter, her jaw dropping slightly when she saw Tomas moving towards the little girl. Reagan, still confused, stayed on her spot, clutching the teddy bear she'd gotten for her third birthday.
"Hey baby girl," he growled in a fierce, rough voice as he harshly grabbed her arms and forced her against the wall so that they were eye to eye, the force of the slam causing her to drop the teddy bear to the floor. He proceeded to allow his hand entry into her pajamas and somewhere further, him licking his lips while the little girl cried out in pain and anguish.
This broke Kathleen's trance as she launched herself at the pair. "Let her GO, Tomas!" she screamed, her voice cracking somewhat. Her hand flew out to smack the man in the side of the head, with enough power behind it that he dropped the girl to the floor and stumbled sideways. Unfortunately, as the child fell, she smacked her arm against the doorknob of the open door, making her scream out in pain again. Kat dove over her daughter, absorbing the force of the kick as Tomas' foot flew at them. "Reagan, baby, it's okay, we're gonna be okay, alright ba –" Her reassurances were cut short as Tomas grabbed her hair and wrenched her from her child, landing a kick on the child that made the little girl roll out into the hallway. "Reagan, RUN! Get out of the house and run!"
Reagan half-rose so that she was on her hands and knees, watching her mother with fear and confusion conquering her countenance. When she saw her mother, tears in her eyes, elbow the man before getting thrown to the floor, something in her understood. Grabbing her teddy bear, she scrambled to the stairway and managed to climb down them without falling. After hearing another plea from her mother to run, she wrenched open the door without grabbing her jacket or her sneakers and ran – she didn't know where she was going or what was happening, but her mother had told her to run so she was running.
She didn't know how long she was running – since it had been nighttime when she and her mother left work, there was no change in light amount – but she soon came to an almost-deserted street far away from where she lived. None of the buildings were recognizable, and neither were the two guys on the other side of the street. One was dark-skinned, and probably a teenager; the other had lighter skin, and seemed to be a bit younger, but still a teenager. A beat-up car rolled slowly in her direction on the other side of the street, and briefly she thought it might have been her mother's – or worse, Tomas' – but those possibilities were dashed when she realized it was a blue car. Both her mother's and Tomas' cars were black, so it couldn't have been them. Davie owned a red car, so it couldn't have been his, either – therefore, she ruled out the idea that it was somebody coming to get her. Still, for fear of being brought home to Tomas, she turned into an alleyway and ran to the end of it, curling up in a ball in the shadows with her teddy bear clutched to her chilly body.
Out on the street, the dark-skinned boy was finishing up his 'conversation' with the younger boy. After carefully counting the amount of money recently placed in his hand, he shoved it into his pocket and handed over a plastic bag. The two nodded and said a few words before the younger boy turned and walked down the street, and the darker boy whirled around to face the car. "Time's up?"
"Yeah, it's eleven o'clock," the teenage boy in the car replied, turning down the volume of the radio. "Did you see that kid run by?"
The dark-skinned boy nodded. "Little kid? Probably five or six or somethin'. No doubt did something to piss of their parents." Once the white boy in the car popped the trunk, he went to the back and tossed in his bag before shutting it. Sliding into the front passenger seat, he queried, "Should we wait and make sure the parents find 'em? Little kid like that, who knows what'll happen if somebody like Derek Hopkins finds 'em."
A nod was made by the older boy. "That's probably a good idea. Kid that young'll probably end up doing something stupid, like go home with Derek if he found 'em." He turned up the radio again, sitting back in the seat to watch the sidewalks and the entrance to the alley. They sat there, silently, for ten minutes before observing a Hispanic man walking down the street purposefully, calling out something. The older teenager exited the car and leaned up against it, observing the man skeptically. "Yo, dude!" he called out. "What are you doing around here?"
The man stopped for a moment before looking over at the teenagers, as if considering his options. After a moment, he wandered over to the boy, demanding, "What's it to you, punk?"
"Depending on what you're looking for…" he looked the man over, "I may know where to get it."
Tomas stepped forward and glared down at the teenager. "Where is she, you psychotic pervert? What did you do to her?"
Pushing off from the car to come to his full height, still a little shorter than the adult, the teenager almost came into contact with the man. "If I'm a psychotic pervert, what are you? Huh? Pedophile or parent?… Maybe both?"
"Don't put me in the same category as you, asshole." He continued his glare for several moments before allowing it to dissipate, an almost pleading look replacing it. "That's my girlfriend's daughter. You give her back to me right now or I'll have you arrested faster than you can say 'kidnapping'."
The teenager rose his hands to Tomas' chest and pushed him back. "Hold up, dude. Did I say I had this chick? Nah, I said I might know where she is. Damn. She's over there. In the alley." He pointed to the appropriate location before leaning back against his car. "What'd she do, anyway?"
Tomas turned away, quickly crossing the street in the direction of the alleyway. "None of your damn business," he called over his shoulder before entering the dark alley.
Rolling his eyes, the young man returned to the interior of the car, turning the volume of the radio up a tad as he did up his seat belt. "Crazy-ass Lat," he grumbled, moving forward a bit before maneuvering the vehicle into a U-turn to head back towards his house. Before he drove off, however, the Latino man and the little girl exited the alley. The man was saying something to her and looked angry; the child was crying and struggling in his tight grip. As the car began to inch forward, the older teenager watched the pair in the rear-view mirror, and saw her struggling persist. He also noticed her reach an arm out towards them. Cursing, he halted the vehicle and looked to his passenger. After a quick breath out, he queried, "You with me?"
The African-American boy smirked. "Be a fool not to."
"Alright." He shut off the car and grabbed a revolver from the compartment between the seats. "Grab yours. Let's go." After receiving a nod, they simultaneously exited the car and jogged up to the man and the child, the older boy ahead. "Yo, homes," he called out, "what'chu doing?"
Tomas rotated about on his heels, the child in his arms now facing away from the boys. "I'm taking my girl's daughter back home, that's what. Why don't y'all head back to whatever crack house you're staying at?"
Reagan tried kicking at him and smacking his back with her fists, but her attempts at injuring him were highly ineffective. Crying, she screeched, "He hurt Mommy! He was hurtin' my mommy!"
The adult chuckled gently, covering one of the child's ears and pushing her head into his shoulder to shield the other, at the same time muffling her crying. "She came in when I was bangin' her mother and freaked out. Her mama's a screamer."
She wrestled her head out of the crevice of the adult's shoulder, continuing her feeble attempts at injuring him. "He hurt my mommy an' he started hurtin' me an' my mommy saved me! Lemme go Tomas!"
In a swift motion, Tomas squeezed the girl's arm hard, making her scream out, as he turned to make a run for it. However, the elder teenager was just as quick and, in one moment, had the barrel of his gun pressed into the man's thigh before he'd fully turned. Taken by surprise, Tomas froze long enough to allow the white boy to wrench his arm from around the girl, giving the child the opportunity to escape. Reagan did so, swinging down to the ground and at first landing on her knees, but she quickly got to her feet and ran for the alleyway she'd hidden in before.
The white teenager went to hit the man in the head with his gun, but Tomas caught on quicker than he anticipated and knocked the revolver free from his hand, causing it to hit the ground several feet away. Recovering quickly, the white boy launched himself at the adult, yelling for the other teenager to join in. Discarding his firearm, the black boy obliged, and together they managed to get the man unconscious and fairly bloodied up. The white boy had what would later become a black eye, while his comrade had received a busted lip and two scraped-up arms from being tripped and pushed to the ground; however, both were more fortunate than the man lying on the ground.
"Come on, man, let's get out of here," spoke the dark-skinned boy while he gathered up the two weapons. "Mama's gonna have our heads, man." He reached down briefly to wipe the blood on his arms off on his pants before walking towards the car. "Getting into a fight… how are we going to explain this to her? You were supposed to be picking me up from Evander's, man…" Reaching the door, he hauled it open and hid the guns in the glove compartment before looking up. "Bobby, you rea – Bobby?" He looked back around in search of his accomplice, to find the older boy headed in the direction of the alley. Heaving a sigh, he slammed the door and jogged up to him. "Bobby, what are you doing?"
He didn't stop and face the other teen, but replied as he kept walking. They entered the alleyway and saw the little girl at the dead end, and as such slowed their pace. "I'm going to bring the kid home. Ma can take care of her."
Eyes widening significantly, the black boy grabbed the other's shoulder to both halt him and make them face each other. "What, so dude can get us for assault and kidnapping? This is crazy, man. You know exactly what this is going to look like to the cops, and you know ain't no way the damn pigs is gonna believe us! I can tell you something right now, Bobby, and that's that Mama don't want us rotting away in no fuckin' cell."
"Oh yeah, and do you think Ma would want us to leave this kid here? She's not old enough to do nothing, Jere, what's gonna happen when dude wakes up, huh? She can't defend herself against him. Ma wouldn't have us leave her here, Jere. Plus, the cops are going to come after us anyway, man. At least this way we got a good fucking argument for doing what we did." He gestured for the younger boy to stay where he was, and Jeremiah obeyed, reluctantly. He stayed on the spot, looking around reluctantly and rapidly as Bobby slowly approached the young child, attempting not to look intimidating. "Hey girlie. What'chu doing hiding back there in the corner?"
She backed up a little where she sat, hugging her teddy bear close to her. It was covered in dirt and its arm was almost detached, but she clung to it like a lifeline. "He's gonna come and get me. I'm hiding so maybe he won't see me."
He bent down, resting on his toes so that he would have been eye level with her had she been standing. However, he refrained from advancing towards her, to keep from scaring her off. "He's not going to come get you. Com'ere, kiddo." He held his arms open for her, not retracting them when she didn't budge. "I'm going to bring you somewhere safe. He won't be able to get you there. If you want to come, I mean."
Reagan rose to her feet, keeping her teddy bear in one arm, yet still held close. Her face was tear-stained and her legs were scraped up – as she was wearing the shorts she always wore as pajamas, this was quite evident. "What's your name, Mister? 'N who's he? Are you going to take me back to my mommy? Are you going to make sure Tomas doesn't come back?"
He smiled gently as she took a cautious step forward. "I'm Bobby, and that's Jerry. We're going to make sure that guy back there never touches you again, alright?"
She nodded slowly before running up to him and launching herself into his open arms. Although the teddy bear was between them, she clung to the collar of his shirt and kept on crying. They stayed there for a minute, Bobby not daring to put his arms around her for fear that she would run. After a moment, however, the girl detached herself to stand in front of him. She looked down at her right arm and sniffled. "My arm's hurtin'," she informed him.
"We'll make that better, don't worry," he assured her. She nodded before going up to him and snuggling her head into the space where his neck met his body. "Alright, let's go." He picked her up in his arms and carried her back to the car, passing Jerry without a word. When they reached the car, he supported the girl with one arm, but she would not let go of him when he tried to put her in the back seat. She snuggled into him further, and he sighed, climbing into the passenger seat with her in his lap.
Jerry looked at him in disbelief. "Bobby, man, you know I can't –"
"Bull. You can sure as hell drive. Get in the car and drive us home, man. This kid ain't gonna let go of me, so I can't drive. And if you're so worried about what Ma's gonna say, the quicker the better."
So, what did y'all think? Good beginning? It's fairly long, which I didn't realize until I was almost done; the rest of my chapters probably won't be up to this length. But, anyway, review, please? I tend to write more when I get reviews. And I've got a lot of notes written for this story, which I'd like to put to good use. If all goes well, I'll have the next chapter up by next weekend; possibly even mid-week. The title is only a working title, as I promised my friend I'd post this tonight and I couldn't come up with anything half-decent. Any title suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Ciao!