Chapter One

Bang! Bang! Thump!

"So, it will be alright… Don't cry, love… He'll stop soon," she whispered as she held me tighter to her chest.

"B-but how much damage will there be before he does?" I asked, burying my head further into her shoulder.

"I don't know, Iris. I just do not know…"

All I could do was pull myself closer to my mother and cry as we hid in the corner of the small locked room.

"Don't leave, Momma… Don't leave me…"

"Why would I, my darling angel?"

Bang! Slam!

"That's why…"

Kelly Wainwright looked over at the small, blonde girl sleeping in the seat next to her. "It's always the ones that don't deserve it that are hurt the most," she thought sadly. "If only I could have done something before it reached this point… If only I had known…"

"Ma'am," a flight attendant popped up, breaking Kelly's train of thought. "Could you please wake up your companion? We will be landing soon."

"Not a problem," Kelly assured the other woman who began walking away. "Iris… It's time to wake up, hon."

"Five more minutes, Kelly," the young girl reply, her eyes fluttering up for a second before closing tighter than before. "I was dreaming of Momma."

Kelly sighed, hating to herself from tearing the poor girl from her dreams. "I'm sorry, Iris, but we will be landing in a minute."

"It's alright," Iris said with a soft sigh so full of sorrow that it made Kelly's heart constrict. "It's gone now anyway. It's over."

"That it is," Kelly replied reaching over to gently hold her goddaughter's hand as the plane began its decent into the LA International Airport.

"Hey, Fright Train," Kelly called once she saw the huge man in a black suit waiting with a sign that read 'Kelly Wainwright'.

"Hey, Kelly. This the girl?" The man known as Freight Train asked pointing to Iris who was walking slowly behind Kelly, her face void of all emotion.

"Yeah, this is my god-daughter, Iris Liathaingeal. Iris, this is Freight Train. He works for Gustavo Rocque with me," Kelly introduced, handing him her and Iris's bags.

"What do you do?" the young woman asked quietly as she started up at the man.

"In Gustavo's words, I am in charge of making people do as he says," he replied automatically, heaving the bags over his shoulder as he began to lead the girls to the waiting car.

"Sounds fun," Iris muttered to herself, knowing Freight Train could hear her.

"I'm not complaining. Now let's go before Gustavo gets annoyed."

"Hey, hey, give it all you got now. Hey, hey, isn't it a rush? Hey, hey, finish what you start now. Oh, oh, o-"

"Too late," Kelly grumbled, flipping her ringing phone open as she ushered me into the car. "Hello, Gustavo. Yes, yes we are getting in the car right now. No, I still have to take her to the Palm Woods and talk to Mrs. Knight. Ye- Gustavo! Yes, I will send the boys. I-. I wi-. Gustavo, shut up! I'll get it taking care of!"

As Kelly talked to her boss, Freight Train hopped in the driver's seat and started the car. He looked through the rear view near at the solemn girl who had merely settled into her seat and was staring out the window at the world racing by. Her demeanor whether she knew it or not spoken in volumes of her sadness and loneliness. Seeing her like this made even his heart break.

He couldn't imagine what she had suffered through, but he knew it was bad based on the vague description Kelly had given him previously. What she needed was a friend and he would be happy to be just that.

"So, you're name is Iris? That's pretty," he commented, turning his gaze back to the road.

The girl in question looked at the man briefly, her sad emerald eyes piercing him for a mere moment before they were turned back to the window as she muttered a soft thank you.

"What about your last name?" he pressed. "Li…Lithingel, that's a mouthful. What is that? Latin?"

"It's Liathaingeal actually and it's Irish," she corrected, not bothering looking away from the window this time.

"Oh, I thought Irish names were like O'Reilly or McCarthy. Does it mean anything?" Freight Train questioned.

"…Why do you want to know?" Iris asked looking again at the large man in the front seat, wariness clear on her pale face.

"Just curious," he replied with a shrug of his huge, strong shoulders as he met her eyes in the rear view mirror. There was silence between the two for a moment while they stared at one another.

Iris was the first to break, turning away from his stare. "It means 'Grey Angel'. I'm not sure of the origin – I think my dad made it up."

"Maybe he did, but that just makes it unique."

A ghost of a smile could be seen on Iris's face and Freight Train found himself almost honored to have seen it. "What about your name? Freight Train can't honestly be your name."

"Well…"

"Well, this is our stop, Iris," Kelly said, hopping out of the car. "I'll send the boys out in a minute, Freight Train."

"Alright," the man nodded before giving Iris a smile as she climbed out of the car. "I hope you like it here, girlie."

Iris gave him a small, minuscule smile and wave in return before following after her godmother who had already grabbed Iris's bag and was heading towards the entrance of the large building that had arrived at.

"Welcome to the Palm Woods, home of the future famous," Kelly exclaimed with an extravagant wave of her arms once they reached the front desk before turning suddenly to the fat, sour-looking man behind the desk. "Hello, Mr. Bitters. What's the damage today so far?"

"Oddly none, but I wouldn't be-," Just then four boys came flying through the lobby and crashed into one of the couches near Iris causing her to jump away quickly. "-surprised if they did something soon..."

Kelly slumped over with a sigh, letting her head fall in her hands. "Kendall, is your mom home?" she asked, not bothering to lift her head, or even look at the boys.

"Yeah, she's up in the apartment," huffed the tall blonde boy as he struggled to get out of the tangle of limbs.

"Good," she replied before handing Iris her bag. "The elevator's around the corner. I'll be there in a second. Just have to handle the boys."

The young girl nodded, sending the now untangled boys a wary look before walking away.

Mere seconds afterwards, the boys jumped up as if they had been electrocuted. Their shouts filled the air causing Iris to spare them one quick look before fleeing to the scene.

"No! Wait, New Girl! Come back!" James, the tall brown-haired boy of the group, shouted only to be pushed to the side by Carlos, the helmet enthusiast, who attempted to run after the girl none of the boys had never seen before, but was quickly stopped by Kelly.

"Kelly!" Carlos whined rather pathetically as James got back up and tried to bolt after Iris.

"James! Don't you dare," Kelly warned, glaring at the tall boy in question.

"But, Kelly, I must talk to that girl!" he exclaimed, pointing towards the elevators.

"Who even was that?" Kendall asked, plopping down on the couch the group had previously crashed into.

"That was Iris," Kelly huffed, shoving Carlos off of her. "She's my goddaughter."

"Since when do you have a goddaughter?" Logan asked, wide-eyed as he leaned on the back of the couch.

"Since she was born," the woman huffed, clearly annoyed. "That's not the point though. I'm going to go talk to Kendall's mom about letting Iris stay with you guys for a bit. Just until another apartment opens up."

"Wait," Carlos interrupted, jumping up off the ground where he had landed. "That girl is staying with us?"

"Yes, but-"

"Score," James and Carlos exclaimed high fiving each other before starting to wrestle one another over who would win Iris.

Kelly sighed, pulling out an air horn out of her purse. After sharing a quick look with the bored Bitters, she blew the horn next to them causing them to hold their ears in pain. "Guys, seriously listen. Iris just lost her mother and I had to go get her out of a… bad situation…."

The boys shared a worried look before turning back to Kelly.

"What kind of bad situation?" Logan was the first to ask.

"Is she alright?" Carlos added.

"I don't think… I don't think I should be the one to tell you. It's her life story, not mine. I'm only telling you guys this because I want you to be careful around her. She's… fragile right now and I am worried about her. I trust you guys, really I do, but could you maybe tone it down a bit around her?"

"What do you mean tone it down?" James asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Well, you guys can be a little intense at times…"

"Wha-?!" Logan began to exclaim before rethinking it. "Nevermind…"

"Exactly, so will you guys?" Kelly asked again and waited as the boys grumbled in agreement before continuing. "Good, now you need to head over to Rocque Records before Gustavo gets angrier. Freight Train is waiting outside."

"Hello, Mrs. Knight. How are you today?" Kelly asked pleasantly as said woman stepped aside allowing Kelly and Iris to step inside the apartment.

"I'm fine, Kelly. What can I do for you? The boys aren't here right now," Mrs. Knight asked, going back to folding up some of the boys' laundry.

"I come hoping to be able to ask a favor of you, but let me introduce you to my goddaughter first. Mrs. Knight, this is Iris."

"Hello, Iris," Mrs. Knight smiled at the young girl. "You can call me Jennifer, or Momma Knight as the boys do."

"Nice to meet you, Jennifer," Iris replied, looking sheepishly down at her shoes.

"I was wondering if she could stay with you until another apartment opens up," Kelly explained while taking a seat on the couch next to Mrs. Knight. "I would just have her stay at my apartment, but with my crazy schedule I'm not there a lot and I would feel better if she stayed with someone."

Mrs. Knight smiled brightly at Iris. "Of course you can stay with us, dear! That is if you don't mind sharing with Katie and me. Katie, would you mind showing Iris around?" she asked the small, brunette girl who was playing video games on the large screen television.

"Sure, hang on one second while I defeat the she-beast," Katie replied not taking her eyes off the screen before her.

Iris bit her bottom lip as she stared up at the screen. "Try using your boosters while kicking her."

"I don't know about th- HOLY COW! It worked!" Katie exclaimed before jumping up and doing a little victory dance while her mother laughed at her antics. After a minute Katie bound up to Iris and began pulling her out of the room and down the hall. "Apparently, you are good at video games. What about poker?"

Mrs. Knight waited until her daughter's voice couldn't be heard before setting down her basket of laundry and looking at the other woman. "So, what's the catch, Kelly?"

Kelly instantly began laughing nervously. "Catch? There. There's no catch."

Mrs. Knight simply crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow towards Kelly.

"Fine," the black woman sighed. "Here's the deal. Iris…"

"And last, but not least, this is the pool area," Katie explained, pulling Iris outside before pointing over to an empty table with an umbrella by the smoothie bar. "Why don't you go sit over there while I find some people for you to meet?"

The blonde girl remained quiet, but nodded to the eleven year old before walking over to the table. She sat down with a loud sigh and laid her head down on her arms.

"Oh big sigh, are you alright?" a brunette girl named Camille asked, popping out of nowhere.

Iris jumped slightly, shocked by this new arrival.

"I repeat, are you alright?" Camille asked, sitting down next to Iris.

"I'm fine. Thank you for asking," Iris answered quietly.

"I don't buy it," The other girl looked at her with an expression of pure doubt. "But I'll let it slide for now. I'm Camille by the way."

Iris looked around the pool cautiously before turning back to the confused Camille and warily offering her hand. "I'm Iris," she admitted in her ever present soft-spoken way.

"It's nice to meet you, Iris," Camille replied, giving the shy girl a warm smile in hopes of calming the anxious girl in front of her.

Iris looked at this girl who seemed so eager to befriend her. She couldn't help, but wonder why? Her past had ruined her for new people. She couldn't meet anyone without wondering what this person would do to hurt her, but this girl seemed different. She seemed genuine. "Maybe," Iris thought. "Maybe this won't be so bad after all."

"Dogs! Leave! NOW!" Gustavo yelled as he had Freight Train kick the boy band out of his studio.

"You really shouldn't have done that, Carlos. Do you even realize how much trouble we'll get in?" Logan asked his helmet wearing friend as he got up off the ground and dusted himself off.

Carlos shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly from his position on the ground. "Yeah, but always get in trouble anyway. Might as well have fun while doing it."

"Too true, my friend," James chimed in as he whipped out his comb to fix his hair. "And at least now we can go see that new girl."

"Yeah! Just being able to look at her will be worth the trouble we'll get in," Carlos exclaimed, jumping up.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Kendall said as he hopped up as well. "Remember what Kelly said. We need to tone it down around her."

"Yeah, that means you guys aren't allowed to go insane over her," Logan added.

"B-but," Carlos stuttered, giving the two calm members of the band a sad, puppy dog look. "She's so pretty…"

Silence…

"She will be mine!" James yelled suddenly, running back to the Palm Woods.

"What?! No!" Carlos screamed, chasing after his friend. "She's mine!"

Logan huffed, crossing his arms. "Should have seen that coming…"

"Yeah," Kendall said slowly. "Looks like Iris is going to get a big time welcome no matter what."

"So, you're telling me that I should expect the unexpected to happen while I'm here just because of four teenage boys?" Iris asked with a single eyebrow raised.

"Basically," Camille replied, taking a sip from her smoothie. "I've been here for a long time and I can personally tell that in the short time they have been here they have turned just about everything upside down."

"Wow…" Iris muttered to herself. "That's ridiculo-"

Suddenly, the boys of Big Time Rush crashed through the pool area's doors and Carlos and James almost instantly ended up pushing each other into the pool. The other two, however, rolled their eyes at their friends and walked towards Iris and Camille.

"Hey, guys," Camille called enthusiastically. "How was recording?"

"Bad," Logan said, sitting down next to her.

"We got kicked out," Kendall said with a big small, showing that he really didn't care.

"You know, one of these days Gustavo just won't let you back in," Camille scolded playfully before point to Iris. "Guys, this is Iris. She just moved here to live with her godmother."

"Yeah, we know," Kendall butted in. "Kelly's her godmother."

"Really? You didn't tell me that," Camille said, looking at Iris with surprise.

"You didn't ask," the blonde girl pointed out with a small smile.

"Details, details," Camille huffed in annoyance.

"I'm Kendall, by the way. And that's Logan."

"Nice to meet you two," Iris said softly, thankful that she felt so at ease with these boys like she did with Camille.

The boys shared a quick smile before the sound of loud splash filled the air.

"Found you!"