I'm so sorry! I didn't get this up yesterday because it wasn't finished because I went shopping with my family and got chased out of Kohls by a goose.
Anyways...please review if you enjoyed it, and I hope to have another chapter up soon!
Ace didn't trust Lyle, not one bit. Sure, his idea was to the benefit of every child under their roof, but Ace had a feeling Lyle had an ulterior motive to get Mary busted. He wasn't positive, and had no definite proof, but it was simply a feeling he had.
Lyle never revealed anything that would make people suspect he had any other agenda, so Ace was left wondering if it was merely his imagination.
Time passed so slowly there. Minutes seemed like hours, and hours seemed like days. Waiting a month was like waiting for a lifetime. Luffy stopped wanting to play, and Ace stopped indulging him.
Lyle only briefly went over the plan, because it was incredibly simple. Ace was to slip into Mary's office while she was out, and call the police. Lyle informed him that the plan would be executed at noon, and Ace was so on edge, Luffy was getting incredibly concerned.
Ace sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. If he was caught, he didn't know what Mary would do. So far he hadn't seen her beat anyone or starve them, just a lot of yelling.
He also had to consider what would happen to Luffy if things went badly. It was a hard fact that Luffy couldn't really survive without him. He never defended himself, not from anything, and he was still so emotionally fragile, not that their current circumstances helped at all.
Ace opened his eyes, halfway expecting Luffy to be sitting in front of him and staring up at him with his big eyes. He wasn't. Ace did a quick survey of the room, and he felt his heart skip a beat.
Luffy wasn't there.
Ace cursed mentally. How was Luffy so quiet? He stood up and poked his head out of the room. "Luffy?" he called. There was no response. Panic coiled around his heart and squeezed.
Suddenly, he felt a familiar tug on the hem of his shirt. Ace looked down to see Luffy standing there, and he started. "Jeez, Luffy! You scared me," he scolded, and Luffy flashed him a small smile.
"Where have you been?" Ace asked tersely, and Luffy pursed his lips, but didn't say anything. Ace found that oddly puzzling, but before he could repeat his question, he caught sight of Lyle creeping downstairs.
"You ready?" Ace nodded, and Lyle shuffled towards them. "So, before we start, there's a favor I gotta ask you." Lyle didn't look nervous, per se, more apprehensive then anything, which set off alarms in Ace's mind.
Lyle said, "You know that I need to create a distraction, yeah? Well, I need to, erm, borrow your brother." Ace stared at him for a few seconds, digesting what Lyle had just said.
"Excuse me?" Ace asked in a low voice, and Lyle sighed. "Look, I'm not going to do anything to harm him in any way. All he has to do is make a distraction." Ace raised his lips in a silent snarl.
"No way! What if this goes wrong? I'm not dragging him down with us; he's not participating-" Ace raged, and Lyle cut in. "I've already talked to him about it, and he agreed."
Ace's eyes blazed with anger. "You what?" Luffy tugged on his pants again to draw Ace's attention. "I wanna do it," he whispered, and Ace gritted his teeth.
He looked back at Lyle. "If anything happens to him, I'll kill you." Lyle, without missing a beat, met his gaze and replied, "I would expect no less." Not ten minutes later, Ace was crouched in the shadows barely five feet from Mary's door.
He sat back on his haunches with his hands resting on his knees, trying to breathe evenly and ignore his muscles screaming in protest to sitting there for minutes on end.
Ace had to wait, in silence, for Lyle and Luffy to draw Mary out.
Suddenly, he heard a bloodcurdling scream, so long and loud that he thought it might have shaken the very foundation of the house. Ace could feel his bones tremble. It was an anguished wail, full of longing and sorrow and Ace recognized it instantly.
Luffy.
Children upstairs began yelling in protest and confusion, and the louds thuds of footsteps told him people were coming to investigate. He waited, and sure enough, he heard the magical sound.
The creaking of a door, and it swung open. "What's going on out here?" Mary cried, striding out of the room and into the hall. She began peering into rooms, trying to find the screaming child.
Ace dove into her office, pulling the door partway shut. He turned on his heel and quickly took inventory of the room. On the right, tucked in the corner, was a bed. In the middle of the small room was an old desk, covered in soda cans and cigarette packages.
Mary had two dressers side by side on the left, also covered in trash. Notes and random scribbles were everywhere, on scraps of paper and less-dirty-than-other places on the furniture.
In the back were two windows that, judging by the looks of the hatches, opened outward. Which meant, if it came to it, Ace had an escape route. His dark eyes scanned the room for anything that could even resemble a phone.
His breath caught when nothing came up, and he took a few steps farther inside. Panic bubbled up from deep within his chest, and Ace could hear his own pulse pounding rhythmically in his ears.
Ace looked again, and once more found nothing. Then he saw it, a metallic object partially sticking out from under the covers of Mary's bed. He surged forward, stumbling and falling to his knees as his hand reached out to grab it.
His fingers fumbled on the buttons, and he clumsily raised the phone to his ear. "This is 911, how may I help you?" a woman asked as she came over the line.
Ace nearly sobbed with relief, and his eyes prickled with tears. "P-Please, you have to help us," he whispered, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone was there. He could still hear Luffy screaming, but they were growing quieter, both worrying him and encouraging him to go on.
"How can I help you?" the woman repeated, remaining completely calm, and for a brief moment, Ace had the urge to scream at her.
"M-Mary has dozens of children locked up here, w-we don't have enough food. Please," he stammered, and he breathed in and out. He knew he had to calm down or the woman wouldn't be able to understand what he was trying to tell her.
The woman seemed taken aback, and she quickly asked, "Where are you? What's your name?"
Ace inhaled sharply. "M-My name is Ace. I don't know where we are, not exactly. It's a house, it's old, with two stories...uh, i-it's by itself on the street. Oh, it's white too. Please, you've got to help us. I don't know if we can survive. I can't- I don't know if I can do this," he gasped, face crumpling as hot, wet tears rolled down his cheeks.
"It's going to be alright. Please stay on the line, Ace. We trying to find you." Ace shook his head before he remembered that she couldn't see. "N-No, I can't do that. She'll be back any moment. I'm sorry, I have to go. Just- please. Get us out of here," he begged, his voice cracking on the last word.
He inhaled sharply and hung up at the sound of Luffy's screams tapering off into silence, a warning of how little time he had. Ace slipped the phone back into its' place and crept to the door, peering out to see if anyone was nearby.
Ace didn't see anyone, and he slipped out of the room and down the hall. He waited several minutes, until he heard the tell tale sound of Mary's shrieking, followed by the slam of the only door in the house.
He breathed in a sigh of relief, and he made his way back to the dining room. Luffy was sitting on the floor, looking a bit shaken, but otherwise unharmed.
When Lyle saw him, he was on his feet in a flash, an unspoken question in his eyes. Ace nodded, and a grin blossomed on Lyle's face. "We have ten minutes," he breathed, and Ace frowned.
"It takes ten minutes for police to respond to a call, and no matter what, we have to catch their attention when they come looking." Ace licked his lips, brows furrowing slightly.
"How are we going to do that?" Ace asked slowly, and Lyle shrugged, throwing his hands into the air. "I don't know! Scream, yell, bang on the windows; it's doesn't matter!"
Ace ran his fingers through his hair as adrenaline began to once again flow through his veins. "We, uh, we have to tell the other kids, they can help," he said, and Lyle nodded.
"Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Okay," he said hurriedly, "Stay here. I'll start telling people." He took in a breath. "If you see them, yell as loud as you can, okay?" Ace nodded, and Luffy quickly did the same.
Lyle dashed up the stairs, and Luffy looked up at Ace. "Are we leaving?" he asked in a small voice and Ace grinned although he was so amped up his entire body was trembling.
"Yeah. We're leaving."
Everything from that point forward seemed to both have passed in the blink of an eye, and gone in slow motion.
Ace felt like the universe was finally, finally giving them some reprieve when he saw the beautiful lights of red and blue. He screamed and pounded on the windows so hard, he half expected them to shatter under his palms.
Children flocked to the windows, yelling as loud as they could and making as much noise as possible.
Mary had panicked, screaming and trying to force the kids away from the windows. Ace had grinned when the police finally broke the door, their eyes widening at the sight of the children.
The first officers inside arrested Mary immediately, the rest escorting the kids outside. Some broke down into tears when their feet touched grass for the first time in months.
Others simply looked dazed, as if they had never seen the outside world before. Children were pushed into ambulances, and Ace held Luffy's hand in an iron grip, wondering if it could possibly be the best day of his life.
An EMT came up to the two and asked if they needed help. Ace reassured the man that they were fine, and that he would find him if they needed anything. Apparently the guy had a million other things to do, because he accepted the answer and scurried off to another child.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ace spotted Lyle leaning against the side of an ambulance with his hands buried deep in his pockets, watching Mary get loaded into the back of a police car.
Ace weaved through the crowd with Luffy in tow, slowing only when he reached Lyle's side.
Mary was going to prison, that he knew. There were not only dozens of eyewitnesses, but plenty of material evidence to convict her. Lyle seemed happy, to a degree, yet sad at the same time.
"Why did you want her arrested so badly?" Ace asked softly, feeling Luffy press to his side for warmth in the cool air, and Ace instinctively wrapped an arm around the smaller boy's shoulders.
Lyle smiled grimly, and Ace thought he might have seen the sheen of unshed tears in his eyes, but it could've been his imagination.
"She's my mother."
Ace's eyes widened, and he turned to look at Lyle, though he had no idea what to say to such a statement. Lyle, however, was already walking away, his shoulders hunched and his head down.
The police car holding Mary pulled out of the driveway, and for a split second Lyle and Mary locked eyes.
Mary looked away first.