I turned to Phoenix and quietly asked, “Those snakes are going to be here, inside the clubhouse?”
“Yeah, doll face, they are, but there’s no reason to be scared. One, I highly doubt those snakes will get out again today. Two, even if they did escape again, they’re ball pythons and won’t hurt you.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“I am. A lot of people have them as pets. They’re non-venomous and they aren’t big enough to kill humans by constriction. Well, they might be able to kill a baby, but we don’t have any of those around so it’s not an issue.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” I said hesitantly.
He grinned and reached into his pocket. “Here,” he said and handed me his pocket knife. “Keep that with you. If one of the snakes gets out and wraps around your neck, use my knife to cut it.”
My eyes widened in surprise. Phoenix just laughed and said, “Trust me, doll face. We won’t see those snakes again during our visit. Copper and Bronze have been begging for pet pythons for the last two Christmases and they know their mom will make them get rid of them if they escape again.”
I believed him, but I still jumped and flinched with every unexpected touch, from an actual person or when my clothes wrinkled against my skin for the next few hours.
When we sat down for dinner, I felt much more comfortable with the bikers surrounding me. I was amazed at how easily these men of no blood relation formed a family. And that’s what it was, a family. A family I looked forward to being a part of.
I joined Phoenix’s family for New Year’s as well. I don’t know if my mother didn’t realize I wasn’t home for any of the major holidays or if she was too out of it to realize it was the holidays. Either way, I enjoyed the holiday season for the first time in my life.
After the holidays, my life at home was marginally better. My father continued to drop in unannounced every two weeks or so and my mother continued to drink herself into a coma on a daily basis. I often wondered where she got the money since she wasn’t working that I knew of, but ultimately figured I was better off not knowing.
As the months passed, I fell more and more in love with Phoenix. We spent many evenings and nights with just the two of us making our plans for the future. He would join the Marines after graduation while I would stay in Croftridge and continue to work at the shop with Gram. I was hoping to get a scholarship and take some classes at the local community college while he was away. When he returned home after his first deployment, we would get married and I would either move to the base with him, move in with Gram and Pop, or maybe even share an apartment with Macy—anything to get me away from my parents until Phoenix and I could be together all the time.
Little did either of us know, we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for him to return to Croftridge. No, after his plane took off, our plans crumbled in the wind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Annabelle
Phoenix had been gone for a little over three weeks and I was dying to talk to him. I needed to talk to him. He told me he wouldn’t be able to call often and it was even more difficult for me to talk to him because I didn’t have a phone. The two times he had called his Gram’s shop, I hadn’t been there. Those two times had been on a Tuesday. So, when the next Tuesday rolled around, I was bound and determined to be in the shop.
I opened the front door, ready to climb on my bicycle and pedal to work two hours early, to find a familiar yet unexpected guy standing on the front porch, poised and ready to knock. “Octavius, what are you doing here?” I asked.
I remembered him from school, though I didn’t know him very well. We weren’t friends, but we did have one or two classes together. Still, there was no reason for him to be at my house.
“Hello, Annabelle. I’m here to speak to your father.”
“He’s not here right now,” I said, confused as to why he would be asking for my father.
“Yes, I am, stupid girl,” my father grunted from behind me, causing me to jolt in surprise.
Octavius cleared his throat. “May I come in?”
“Get the fuck out of the way and go to your room, girl,” my father ordered as he shoved me toward the hall.
“I was just leaving. I have to work today,” I said quietly.
“Go to your fucking room,” he bellowed.
My father had never raised a hand to me, but I highly suspected that had more to do with the fact that he was rarely ever home and less to do with his moral compass. Regardless, I wasn’t going to test my theory, so I scurried to my room as ordered.
My stomach churned as I waited in my room. I could hear Octavius and my father talking, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I had a bad feeling and no amount of pacing or nail chewing was doing anything to alleviate it.
The knock on my bedroom door startled me. Before I could walk across the room and open it, my father flung it open and barged into my room. “You’re coming with us,” he told me and grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”
Instinctively, I pulled against his grip. “Let go! What are you talking about?” I yelled.
“Stop fighting me and get your ass in the car!” he bellowed as he drug me out of the house kicking and screaming. I was certain he was on some kind of drugs. We didn’t even have a car.
