A/N: Sorry that I haven't updated in a while. I am hooked on catching up with Degrassi and working on my non-fanfiction stories.

Disclaimer: I do not own any familiar characters from Stand by Me.

P.S. This looks better if you put it in ½. There's this button at the top that says ½. Click it. It looks better. (:

Chapter Four

Shit.

The word that I just thought describes what I am in. You want detail?

Deep shit.

It was a harmless day. I had a quickie with my boyfriend, Ace Merrill, and then we walked over to my best friend's house, Eyeball Chambers. As I was getting sprayed with a hose, I got yanked away by my shit-headed boss.

"Leave her alone!" Chris Chambers shouted out, trying to be my knight in shining armor. I sighed and looked up at my boss. He scoffed and started walking off, me flailing in his arms.

"Stop squirming or I'm going to cut your neck," he hissed in my ear. I stopped squirming instantly and let him drag me wherever he wanted to.

"Ace!" I heard Chris' faint voice shout. With that, my boss threw me over his shoulder and started running; well as fast as he could with my added weight. He took me into a building, threw me onto the floor, and locked a door. I hit the concrete floor, getting scraped up and dirt in my hair and new cuts. I felt him turn my body and I looked up into his face that was shielded by the lack of light.

"Let's make up for lost time," I'm going to spare your virgin ears and not explain the details but what I will tell you is that it was horrible; not fun.

When he was done with me, he threw me onto the sidewalk and walked away with a huge smirk on his face like he had done something that would change his life. Tears cascaded down my face as I stayed on the sidewalk, curled up into a little ball.

It felt like forever until somebody noticed me. I swear this kid really is my knight in shining armor.

"I found her!" I smiled at his voice. "I found her guys! She's crying! Stop crying Minnie…," he hugged me, trying to make me stop crying. I wiped the tears from my face and kissed his cheek.

"Chris you are so adorable," I said as he held onto my body tighter.

"Chris, you're gonna hafta let go," Ace said, trying to pick me up and get me off the ground. Chris hesitantly let go of me and Ace picked me up, cradling me against his chest.

"Ace he hurt me," I whimpered. He shushed me and kissed my hair. I closed my eyes and fell asleep against his chest.

"Ow!" I shouted as he cleaned up my scrapes. He poured some more peroxide on a rag and dabbed my cut a little harder. I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes tightly, trying not to scream out.

"I'm almost finished," he said, dabbing one last cut. When he was done, he threw the rag into the hamper and helped me stand up. When he let go of my hand I instantly fell down but he caught me before I could hit my head on something. My legs hurt from all the abuse and my back was aching from all the scratch marks running down it. "Do you need some help in the shower?" I nodded my head and he helped me undress.

"Why do you put up with all my shit?" I asked him as we stepped into the shower, the hot water hitting both of our bodies. He looked at my brown eyes and put some soap on a rag and washed both of our bodies. He put me under the water and rinsed it off.

"Because I love you," he put some of my strawberry shampoo in his hand and washed my hair for me, not missing one strand of hair. He washed the shampoo off his hand, covered my eyes, and rinsed it out, making sure that none of it got in my eyes.

"I can do my hair by myself," I said, reaching for the conditioner and putting it in my hair. I stood there, making sure that it made my hair really soft. He pulled his body to mine and held me tightly, not wanting to let go. "Why do you love me? There's nothing special about me," I don't know if it was a tear or not but it trickled down my face and dropped to the shower floor, running to the drain.

"I love you because you're different. You put up with my shit. You're beautiful and smart and caring and nice. I always spend my time with you because I can't stand to be away from you. Minnie, I love you," I looked up into his warm blue eyes. I smiled and wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head on his chest.

"Ace I love you too," I mumbled, letting tears fall down my face. I broke away from him and washed the conditioner out of my hair, running my fingers through it. Ace took a step closer to me and wrapped his arms around me. I turned the shower off and he reached out of the shower to get our towels. He dried my hair and wrapped the towel around my body and he wrapped his towel around the bottom half of his body. He stepped out of the shower and picked me up, cradling me to his chest again. He walked to my room and set me down on my bed.

He picked out a pair of my pajamas: a white tee-shirt and long blue plaid pajama pants and a pair of boxers for him. He got dressed first and then helped me get dressed. Once we were all dressed and tired (well I'm tired), we crawled under the covers and rested our heads on the pillows.

"You're a really good boyfriend. I'm a terrible girlfriend. I don't do shit for you," I said, turning around to face him. I put my hand on his chest and looked up into his eyes. He put his arms around my waist and pulled me to him.

"Don't say that. You wanna know what you did for me?" I nodded my head, hoping that the answer wasn't sex. "You made me love you. You made me a better person," he said, smiling a true smile. Not his smirk that either pissed people off or scared them but a smile.

"Minnie! Minnie! Daddy wants you!" Ray shouted, bursting into my room. I sighed and sat up in bed, groaning as I did so. I looked at Ray as he stood there, a scratch on his arm that was bleeding.

"Shit," I jumped out of bed, forgetting about my bruised body and ran over to Ray. I held his arm up and he looked down at me, tears spilling down his face. "Ace can you clean him up? I have to go deal with my dad," Ace got out of bed and tried to stop me but I was already half way down the stairs.

"Dad give me the beers," Roger said, trying to take the beer out of dad's hand. Dad took a swig from the bottle, put it down, and looked at Roger before punching him. I gasped, forgetting about the whole rule when dad was drunk. You never interfere when other people are getting beaten because then your punishment will be even worse.

He stopped punching Roger and turned to look at me, growling a little.

"Get your ass down here," he scowled at me. I slowly descended the stairs, wincing every time I took a step. I stopped at the end of the stairs and slowly made my way to where Roger and dad were. Roger was bleeding from his nose and mouth but he let it run, trying not to show weakness in front of dad.

"Yes daddy?" I asked and mentally slapped myself. Never call him daddy; never.

He scowled at me and backhanded me, a little blood trickling from the corner of my mouth. I held my cheek and turned to face him again, trying not to cry.

"You all were mistakes, did you know that?" he told us this every single night. We weren't mistakes actually; we were all planned. "I'm waiting for your mother to come home so she can punish you too. I'm getting tired of this," he sat down on his recliner and drank his beer. Roger and I looked at each other and almost cried. Mom was up in Togas and dad just couldn't grasp it. That's why he got drunk every night. We couldn't visit her everyday and when he did visit her, he would come home really happy and no drink at all. The days where he couldn't visit her he came home and drank himself to death.

"We have to be quiet…," Rose's voice rang through the front door as she and her fuck buddy for the night came in. Rose saw dad in the chair and instantly froze. My heart went out to her as she stood there, motionless. Dad got out of the chair and made his way over to her. She put her short blonde hair on one shoulder and stared at dad with her blue eyes, trying not to cry out as he slapped her.

"What makes you think you can walk into this house and be a whore, huh?" he slapped her once more as she looked at him. Her fuck buddy was very smart, not intervening. I looked at Roger and into his brown eyes. Dad hated Rose because she looked the most like mom. Roger, Ray and I got our looks from him but not her.

"I'm sorry," she cried. This time, he backhanded her so hard she fell to the floor, blood flying out of her mouth and onto the floor. Dad turned his attention to her fuck buddy.

"Get the fuck out of my house before I beat the shit out of you," he didn't waste any time; he scrambled out the door and down the sidewalk, not looking back once. "Get the fuck to bed," he walked back to his recliner and sat down, draining his beer bottle. We all clambered up the stairs and ran for our rooms. I got back to my room to find Ace sitting on the bed.

"I put him in his room," he said, referring to Ray. He didn't ask me what happened downstairs because he knew. I sighed and walked to my bed and laid down next to Ace. I rested my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and his chest heave up and down.

"I love you," I said, closing my eyes. Before slipping into unconsciousness, I heard four words slip out of Ace's mouth.

"I love you too."

A/N: Hey guys. Hope you enjoyed that update. Ace is being very protective and very caring. (:

Ace isn't being a jerk because it's three years before the Ray Brower trip.

Yes, I am turning this into a series. It explains it all in my profile.

Review please!

~Emma