Hello my lovely readers,

I wasn't sure if I let you know. I posted Chapters 10 AND 11 on the same day. I'm not sure if many of you think I just posted this chapter, but I didn't. Hope you readers enjoy these two chapters. Please comment and review.

Thank you,

M.

Chapter 11.

Drama

The alarm woke me up the next morning around six o'clock and I groaned as the horrible sound filled my room. Thank god I wasn't hungover; with another twenty-four-hour shift starting at seven-thirty, I don't know what I would have done. I wasn't too thrilled about it, if I was being honest. The one good thing about going to work was I could leave my personal life at the door. One of the many reasons why I loved going to my job after a rough weekend; I got to forget about it for a few hours – in this case it was twenty-four – and I really needed to forget about this one.

I finally got the motivation to turn off my alarm and slowly roll out of bed. Five minutes of wasting time I got myself in the bathroom and stared at my tired reflection in the mirror. I had dark circles under my eyes and they were also red from crying yesterday. Not really how I wanted to go to work but some of it was an easy fix. There was something I could really do about the redness of my eyes, but when it came to the dark circles under them, I could put a little makeup on them and call it good.

Once all that was done, and I was dressed for work, I took one last look in the mirror. With the circles gone, I looked like my old self, or at least the person before everything started falling apart. The bruises were gone from my upper arms, but it was like they were still there because I knew they had been. Nothing was going to take that day away out of my mind. Then everything else going on; I feel like I'm going insane, I didn't know how to get through it all. I was going to have to take it one situation at a time.

Putting my thick, red, curly hair up into a professional bun, I called everything good. I wasn't trying to impress anyone, that was for sure. Opening the my bathroom door, I then made a dash around my room to pick up whatever else I needed. After I was done I stood in the middle of the room making sure I had everything I needed; going through it in my head was what I normal did. I didn't want to be driving to work and remembering I had left something at the apartment.

The last thing I grabbed was my gun and put it in my purse. I looked at it carefully for a few seconds, trying to decide if I even wanted to carry it anymore, but thought that I should, so I stuffed it in. The only other people who touched it both hurt me in two different ways and I wasn't sure if I could use it anymore; then I knew it was for the best to carry it around with me. Who knows, I might need it someday.

Going through the checklist in my head once more, I figured I had everything and opened my bedroom door. I jumped ten feet in the air, because standing in front of me was Adam with his fist raised in the air like he was just about to knock. It took a few seconds of staring at him to get my blood to boiling; not how I wanted to start my day.

I stepped around my brother, not even bothering to talk to him. After everything he has did this last week I can't believe he had the balls to show his face today. He should have known to stay away from me for at least a few days. But then again, we had never been in this big of a fight before. So I don't know how long it would be before I didn't see red every time I saw his face. It surely wasn't today, because I could definitely still feel my blood still boiling in my veins.

"Roe," he muttered. "Wait please."

Not bothering to answer him I made my way to the kitchen to grab something fast to eat. Looking in the freezer I pulled out a hot pocket, shrugging my shoulders, thinking it was good enough for now. I opened it and put it in the microwave, Adam watching me the whole time. As I moved around the kitchen making coffee, I hoped maybe he would take the hint that this wasn't a good idea and go away…

Sadly, thought, he didn't.

"Sis, please," he sighed. "I'm really sorry."

Before I knew what had happened, I had snapped. Turning around I produced the meanest glare I could and laid it on him. His eyes were wide, and he looked at little scared. As he should be after all the things, he had done this last week, he was going to see just how made I was.

"How dare you!" I yelled, my hot pocket long forgotten. "How dare you say those words to me. After everything you've done."

"All I did was give–" he began, but I cut him right off.

"That's not all you did. There is a list of things you've done that you had no right to do."

"Oh really? And what is that list?"

He was getting angry now, just like I was and again he had no right to be angry. I wasn't the one who hurt him; it's the other way around. I would have never done anything like he did to me… never. So, I was going to lay it on him and he was going to listen.

"So, you want to hear the list huh?" I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Yes," he nodded.

"Okay then, you asked for it. First, you don't believe me that someone is following me, when I'm scared out of my mind. Second. you tell someone I liked hanging out with to stay away from me. And lastly, the icing of this whole cake, is you give our grandmother's, engagement ring, after you knew damn well and well she had left it to me, to someone I don't even like."

"Why don't you like Wendy?"

"That's not what this is about."

"It's part of it."

"No its not. The point of this is you gave her the ring that grandma gave to me and you had no right to do so."

He paused for a second and I could see the wheels turning in his head. This was something he had done since we were little. At this moment he was grasping for straws at the moment because he knew I was right. I didn't understand why he had to be the one who was right all the time. I guess it was just a man thing and nothing was going to change. It never did.

"You weren't using the ring," he finally threw out there.

"But what if in the future I was going too?" I questioned.

"We both know you would never use it."

"But she gave it to me Adam. Me, not you. How would you like it if one day I took our grandpa's pocket knife? I know you keep it in your sock draw. So, what if I took it and you found out? What if I said you weren't using it and you never would, that's the reason why I wanted it. How would you feel then?"

Realization came into his eyes and he could see that I was really hurt by this, but that didn't mean I would forgive him for it. The damage was done and by the looks of it, nothing could repair it at this moment in time. At least we got one of the problems out of the way. It wasn't the biggest, but it was a start.

"And as for you telling Jay to stay away from me," I began, breaking the silence, "you had no right."

"I was just looking out for you," he stated. "Dad and I are already cops, and that's dangerous enough. What if–"

"What if nothing. I have a lot of friends that are cops, why is hanging out with Jay any different… Oh wait let me guess, it's because he's single, isn't it?"

"Exactly."

"We're just friends. At least we were until you got your nose into it."

Again, the realization shown in his eyes. The stubbornness was still there but I could see he was understanding this better than he had before. I felt a little better now, but the one thing that bothered me was him not believing me when I was scared out of my mind. He was going to hear it whether he liked it or not.

"Now for the first thing you screwed up," I muttered.

"We already went through this Roe," Adam groaned, rolling his eyes.

"To hell if we did. You concluded that the car wasn't following me when it was."

I was yelling again, and I didn't care. For some reason I knew Wendy had something to do with this, but I wasn't going to bring that up now. Right now, this was me trying to make him understand why I was so hurt.

"Because it wasn't," he said.

"Yes, it was Adam," I growled. "You weren't there with me when I spent a good half hour trying to get away from it, and just because it didn't stop when I did doesn't prove it wasn't following me. Do you want to know what the saddest part of the situation is?"

"What's that?"

"Someone who barely knows me, believed me over my own brother?"

"Oh, really and who was that?"

"Your boss."

That caught him off guard. This was exactly the reaction I knew I would get. He didn't believe me, so he thought no one else would and it was only a surprise when he saw he wrong.

"You mean Voight?" he finally asked.

"Yes Voight," I answered, "and you know it's pretty sad when someone who barely knows me believes what I saw, and my own brother didn't."

"Roe–"

"No don't Roe me. I'm done talking about this. If you want to keeping thinking everything you did was justified then go right on ahead, but I don't want to hear it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to work."

Leaving my hot pocket in the microware, I walked out the kitchen and towards the front door.

"You forget your food Sis," Adam called from the kitchen.

"I'm not hungry," I stated, as I closed the door behind me.

Making my way door to my truck I did my best to hold back the tears. I didn't want anyone at work to know I had been crying. There would be questions and that's not what I needed at this point. I want to leave my personal life at the door like I always did and forget about everything for a few hours. Sadly, I don't think that's how it was going to work this time around. This was definitely not how I wanted to start my day.

~J&M~

I managed not to cry on the way to work, and I was also on time to work, which was a good thing. The moment I sat in my seat I was bombarded with so many calls. It was one after the other and it was hard to keep up with them all, but I did pretty well. At least it got my mind off the fiasco with Adam this morning. If it didn't, I don't know what I would do.

About five hours into my shift I got a call that I had never got before. It was so different, I don't know how I kept a professional voice and attitude to be honest.

"911 what's your emergency?" I asked.

"Hello ma'am yeah," a woman's voice answered. "I… you see I'm cooking something here. I was wondering how much trouble you could get in for uh… meth?"

This floored me for a few seconds. I had never gotten a call from someone asking me how much trouble they could get for cooking something illegal. In the short amount of time I had to answer I called Dawn over to come listen to it. Once she got her headset on, she nodded her head.

"And you called the police to ask how illegal meth is?" I questioned the woman.

"Well yea," she muttered. "I figured if anyone would know it'd be you guys?"

Dawn glanced at me with a "is this woman for real" expression on her face. I nodded my head in agreement and watched as she rolled her eyes. Soon she was on the scanner with whoever was closer to the scene. I started typing on my computer getting a location from the call was coming from. This lady was making this easy; soon I got a location and a name.

"Is this Chelsey Cunningham," I probed, "of South Mozart Street?"

"No," the lady stuttered. "Uh… Chelsey's not here right now can I take a message?"

I held back a sigh and rolled my eyes. Dawn looked over at my computer and told the person on her end where to find out meth cooker. When I knew she had sent someone I turned my attention back to my dumb lady.

"The police are on their way, Chelsey," I told her.

"Aw shit, nuts," she cussed. "I mean yeah that's fine cause nothing's wrong here 'cept me just cooking some meth. Awe double nuts, I said it again."

"See you soon sweetie."

"Alright it was great talking to you."

Shaking my head, while holding back a laugh, I couldn't believe how stupid some people could be. Chelsey had to be high as a kite right now, from all the meth fumes. At least she was nice and made my day with her dumb call.

"It was great talking to you too," I grinned.

"Alright see y'all in a little bit," she said, happily.

She didn't even want me to stay on the line with her I guess because she hung up. I glanced over at Dawn. She was already staring back at me and once our eyes met, we both started cracking up laughing.

"I had never heard a call like that for as long as I worked in this profession," my supervisor confessed.

"That was the best call I have ever had," I answered. "I can't believe she called and asked how illegal it was to cook that stuff."

"I know right. I mean, what sane person does that."

"To be honest, I think she was very high."

"That had to be it."

The two of us laughed about it for a few more minutes before Dawn got up and went to see if anyone else needed help with a call. Not soon after I got another call. This one was less funny, and I couldn't help wishing Chelsey would call again to ask where the cops were.

~J&M~

A few hours after the funniest call of my life, I was taking a short break at my station when I heard a commotion at the front of the building. Turning my chair around to see what was going on – like the rest of my coworkers – my blood ran cold. I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched my own father stampeding through the building and yelling at the people, I worked with… looking for me. My first thought was to run and hide, but then I started getting mad again. He had no right to come to my place for work and start shit like this. If I did something like this, I would have gotten my ass kicked and served on a silver platter to my mother. Yet here he was yelling at my coworkers demanding to know where I was. This was not how a normal adult should act.

I took off my headset, jumped up out of my chair, and charged over to him. When he saw me, his face turned red, and walked over to meet me halfway. He lifted a finger at me and put it in my face.

"How dare you," he growled. "How dare you walk out of family dinner."

"I know when I'm not wanted." I told him. "We both know it. So why act like it's such a big deal. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm at work."

"Don't use that tone with me young lady."

"You know what dad, how dare you come into my work and start drama that doesn't need to be started. You need to leave."

"I'll leave when we're done talking."

The blood was boiling in my veins and I feel my face getting hot. I had to guess my face was as red as my father's. At least we knew where I got my temper from. I knew I should be afraid of him, like I had been a million times before, but enough was enough. Considering I wasn't a little girl anymore, he couldn't push me around. I match his glare and his face got redder.

"This is my place of work," I hissed, "and you need to leave. If I did this to you, I would get my ass beat for it."

"You're getting smart Monroe," he muttered. "You know what happened when you got smart as a child."

"So, what are you going to do dad? Are you going to hit me in front of my coworkers? If you are, go on ahead and do it. I have a good dozen people sitting here. You won't be able to hide behind our walls at home like you used to. I'll have witnesses and don't think they'll keep their mouths shut like mom did. They'll defend me in an instant. So, go ahead, I dare you."

My father's face turned a shade of purple, if that was possible, as his jaw dropped. I had never, in my life, talked to him like this. If there weren't people watching the whole thing, he would have back headed me. He looked around at everyone watching – all the phones ringing were forgotten at the moment. As he glanced at every face in the room, he knew I was right and wasn't going to risk getting in trouble.

When his eyes landed back on me, I could see the hatred in them. At one point in my life I would have been hurt to see such a thing in the eyes of someone who was supposed to love me. Now, I could really care less. He didn't like me, no one in my family did except my brother and nephew. Why try to change something that couldn't be changed?

"Don't come to the house ever again," he finally said. "You're not welcomed there anymore."

"That won't be a problem," I answered. "Now leave."

He took one look at everyone in the room, straightened his shoulders, and then turned around to walk away. I watched him leave and then went back to my station where the phone was ringing like there was no tomorrow. Dawn started making her way toward me, with a worried look on her face, but I waved her off. I didn't want to talk about what had happened just now. I needed to do my job and that's exactly what I was going to do. When she stopped, I took it she got the hint. I picked up my headset, putting on my head I pressed the button and answered the call. So much for leaving my personal life at the door.

~J&M~

The next morning my shift was over, and I made sure I was the first one out of the building. Dawn had tried to get my attention at lunch, but I told her I wasn't ready to discuss what had happened. To be honest, I didn't want to ever talk about it. My world was falling apart in front of me and I didn't know what to do about it.

When I got home, I didn't even bother making myself dinner. All I did was change into my pajamas and brushed my teeth, then I jumped into bed. I had to get up around six the next evening for my night shift. I didn't care; if all I did was work for the rest of my life, I would be more than happy to do so. As long as it kept everyone away from me, that's all I asked.

My body was physical and emotionally drained, so it didn't take me long to fall asleep, but that didn't mean my dreams weren't plagued with nightmares of unknown figure beating to an inch of my life. Who knew if this was going to my life from now on.