A/N: Here is the first chapter of Her Protector. Please comment and let me know what you think.
Disclaimer: I don't owe anything except for the characters I've created.
Approximately eight hours later...
It was thirty minutes left until her alarm would go off when Candice decided it was as good time as any to drag herself out of bed and get a head start on her first day back in school after an eventful – to say the least – last day of summer vacation.
With little enthusiasm, she kicked off her covers and swung her long, toned legs over the side of her queen-sized bed, and padded barefoot over to the bathroom across the hall. She gripped the cold rim of the porcelain sink, her legs feeling like rubber, and slowly raised her head to look at herself in the mirror, instantly regretting it.
Her lack of sleep was evident by the dark circles under her slightly bloodshot eyes, but moreover, the mirror reflected just how emotionally drained Candice was feeling.
Candice had been lying awake in bed all night, incapable of closing her eyes for even a second without her head being bombarded with the images of the dead body she and her cousin, Reed, had found in the woods, just the night before. The body had belonged to a girl, who couldn't have been much older than twenty years old, with twigs and leaves in her light brown hair, and her pale naked form stained with a mixture of dried blood and dirt.
Apart from the empty, dead stare, the most shocking and disturbing part had been when they had realized the girl had been cut in half, and the lower half of her body wasn't anywhere in sight.
As Candice had laid awake in her bed she had tried to distract her thoughts by concentrating on the sound of her little brother's snoring through the thin walls of her bedroom, but it hadn't been working for her. Every now and then she had cast a glance at the alarm clock on her nightstand, feeling as if it was taunting her by how slow it was ticking off the seconds.
At 11:49, Candice had received a text message from Reed. Stiles Stilinski had apparently come by her house. He had overheard his dad, who so happens to be the Sheriff of this town, get patched in because two joggers had found half of a dead body in the woods, with emphasis on half. So of course, Stiles and his partner in crime, Scott McCall, were heading out there. Reed hadn't told them that it was in fact she and Candice who had found the body and called it in, but Candice imagined it was just a matter of time before she did.
Reed had also asked if Candice wanted to come with them in search of the other half of the body, but Candice politely declined with a 'no thanks'. It was her intention to never go out there ever again, and she texted Reed back saying she didn't think she should either, especially when they hadn't caught the killer yet.
But Reed was never one to listen to reason. Besides, Scott was going and Reed had had a crush on him since the second grade when he'd shared his lunch with her after a bully had shoved her, subsequently making her fall and dropping her tray.
Candice hadn't had the energy to argue with Reed, so she'd simply texted her to be careful and to send a text when she gets back home so that she'll know that she's safe.
Turning on the faucet, Candice doused her face with cool water, wishing she could wash away the horrid memories of the previous night. She then returned to her bedroom and changed into a pair of jeans and a grey sweatshirt, ignoring the cute skirt she had laid out on the back of her desk chair before she had gone to pick up Reed. She no longer had any desire to make an effort to look extra pretty for her first day of senior year.
She slung her backpack over her shoulder and went downstairs, and was pulling her blonde hair up into a ponytail when she entered the kitchen, expecting to find everyone at the table already. Instead, she saw her little brother sitting at the breakfast table by himself, shuffling cereal into his mouth, the volume on his in-ear headphones was loud enough Candice could tell which song and by what artist he was listening to. Currently, Malcolm was listening to Why We Thugs with Ice Cube, and Candice couldn't help but smile in amusement at her thirteen-year-old brother.
As she passed him into the living room she ruffled his mass of blonde tousled hair. He begrudgingly slapped her hand away but when she glanced over her shoulder at him he was smiling.
The old hardwood floor creaked under the weight of her foot as Candice came up to stand behind the couch. Her mother stiffened when she noticed her and was quick, but not quick enough, to reach for the remote and switch the TV off. She'd been watching the news about the murder victim in the woods, who they were yet to identify still.
Renée Atkinson shot up from the couch and went to stand in front of Candice. "How are you holding up?" she asked, her tone full of concern for her daughter.
"I'm fine," Candice lied, cursing herself when her throat constricted and tears began to sting in her eyes. She swiftly took a step back before her mother could wrap her arms around her in a hug, pressing her lips together to keep them from quivering. "Don't."
"Oh, sweetheart..."
Candice angrily wiped her tears away. "I'm fine."
"I still think it would be better if you stayed home today, maybe get some rest-"
"No." Candice shook her head. Staying home was the last thing she wanted to do. She needed to keep busy or otherwise all she'd be able to think about was last night. She swallowed the lump in her throat and changed the subject. "Where's Dad?"
"Your father already left. There was some kind of emergency at work."
"Right," Candice replied dryly, not feeling entirely surprised. "Been a lot of those lately," she commented, restraining herself from rolling her eyes.
Her father had been acting strange the past couple of months, always in a hurry to leave the house, and never in a rush to come home. Last time he acted this way it was because he had been having an affair with a woman he'd met in the grocery store, that one time Renée had asked him to get something she had forgotten to check off her list when she had been at the store earlier.
Conrad Atkinson is a terrible liar, therefor instead of risking being caught in a lie, he avoids the people he wants to hide said something from. In this case, it's his family. That way, he can hide from his problems, instead of facing them head-on.
He was caught the last time when Renée had found a pair of women's underwear in the backseat of his car when she was searching for his wallet since he couldn't remember where he'd put it.
Candice was eavesdropping on them when her mother confronted her father. She had heard her father confess to the affair, and how it had started and his promise to end it with the other woman. Katherine, was her name.
Candice had listened to sound of her mother's crying, feeling overwhelmed with sadness and disgust at the new circumstance. Sad for her mother, for herself, and Malcolm, for their whole family, and disgust at her father's actions.
"I promise, Renée," Candice recalled him telling her mother. "I will be a good husband, and a good father to our children. All you need to do is forgive me. Things will be back to normal."
The sadness Candice had felt for her mother had vanished in thin air when she'd heard her agree with him. "Okay. I forgive you."
Candice never looked at either of her parents the same way again after that.
"Don't start," her mother told her sternly, a sharp warning in her eyes.
Candice lifted her hands up in surrender and huffed, disappointed in her mother for not acknowledging what they both knew was happening.
Right in that moment, Malcolm barged into the living room.
"Candice, come on!" he complained, frowning slightly when he sensed there was a tension between his sister and mother.
Candice stepped around her mother and feigned a reassuring smile at Malcolm, placing a hand on his upper back and steering him towards the front door.
"What's going on?" he asked her as they were walking down the driveway.
"We were just talking about what happened last night." Candice felt bad for lying to him, but their parents hadn't wanted Malcolm to know about the affair. It would only make it harder to go back to how things were, they'd reasoned. The only reason Candice knew was because she had been at home, helping in the search of the lost wallet, whilst Malcolm had been at a friend's house, playing video games.
Malcolm looked as if he wanted to argue she wasn't telling him the truth when their mother called her name from the porch of the two-story house right as they reached the car. "Have you had anything to eat?"
Candice pulled out a pack of gum from the outside pocket of her backpack and popped one in her mouth and smiled at her mother before getting into the driver seat of the red Mini Cooper. Malcolm slid into the passenger seat and buckled his seat belt while looking at her expectantly.
"It's nothing," Candice denied and started the car.