by Vi Lily
He almost laughed at the memory and gave her a little squeeze. “I love you,” he said, a reminder so that she wouldn’t forget, no matter what came their way. And he was sure it as a whole load of stuff.
“I love you too,” she breathed as they watched a man exit the SUV.
“Are you Benjamin Penn?” he asked.
Just me, not Beth, Ben thought. His free hand clenched into a fist at the thought that her family probably wasn’t even looking for her. Just more confirmation that they sucked.
“Yeah,” Ben said on a sigh of resignation.
The man nodded, like he knew the answer already. “Got a report you were missing. Found your Jeep back at the Handley Creek parking area.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, toward the west, where he’d left the Jeep.
Ben sighed again. “Yeah. Got stuck in the storm while out on a hike. Had to hole up here.” He jerked his own thumb over his shoulder, toward the cabin.
The man nodded again. “Glad you’re okay. Your mom is looking for you.”
Ben frowned in response. Mom? No way. That woman had been so absent for the past few months that he’d practically forgotten she existed. Pretty sure she’d forgotten all about him and his sister too.
He wondered if Gwen had called the authorities, looking for him. She could have pretended to be their mom, hoping to get more response than a sixteen-year-old girl would have. That made sense, more sense than their freaking mother calling in a missing person’s report. A missing person couldn’t call in another missing person, for Pete’s sake.
He didn’t miss the way Beth stiffened next to him. He knew it was because the guy hadn’t said anything about anyone missing her and the thought that she was in pain because of it made him want to choke the crap out of her entire family.
They’d talked about what they were going to do, how they were going to survive their screwed-up family situations. Beth told him of her townhouse and how she’d planned on taking online classes to finish high school. She’d timidly asked him to move with her to Stevens. And she’d even included Gwen in the equation.
“I have two bedrooms, so there’s plenty of room. We can all do online school, or Gwen can go to high school there. Just not sure how we’d enroll her though, without a parent.”
While he’d lose any chance at a soccer scholarship if he transferred to an online school, Ben had thought hard about the idea and it had started to really appeal to him. His dad had made everything about soccer, even though he’d also played lacrosse. Ben’d had to eat, sleep, breathe, and live soccer since he was a toddler. Now that he had the chance to do something different, the idea was… seriously appealing.
They’d also decided to look into Ben filing for guardianship of Gwen, since they had absentee parents. The only worry was that the authorities might take her away and stick her in foster care until a hearing.
Ben had decided to talk to his brother as soon as possible. Glen was much more likely to get custody, and, even though he and his wife probably didn’t want another kid, at least Glen would be able to legally make the decision to let Gwen stay with him and Beth and then they could get her enrolled in school.
It was a lot to think about and consider, but Ben was just thankful that he had an option other than homeless shelters or quitting school to work at a low-end job for the rest of his life.
Plus, there was the awesome bonus of living with Beth. Having her by his side twenty-four seven. Hell yeah.
The ranger radioed in that he’d found them, then took them to the Jeep after they made sure the fire was out and the cabin was put back in order. Beth left a note with Ben’s phone number so that the owners of the campgrounds could get in touch with them so they could pay for damages to the door and replace what food they ate.
On the way back to Bearing, Ben called Gwen and reassured her that he was okay. She’d been so relieved that she’d broken down. She then confirmed that it was her who’d finally called the authorities, pretending to be their mother. She said she’d also called him into school. Ben was shocked that his little sister was so resourceful, but he was thankful. He just wished she’d have thought to call Beth in to school too.
The drive was quiet, the atmosphere contemplative. Ben was sure it was because neither one of them really wanted to return to reality. But one thing he did want was some real food that didn’t come out of a can, so he stopped at a drive-thru in Clemens. Beth then asked him if he would take her to a store so she could buy some “supplies.”
“Don’t you want to wait until we get back to Bearing?” he asked, but she shook her head.
“No, I can’t really shop there. People are just… too mean. Clemens isn’t much better, but I stand a better chance here.” She’d laughed at that, but it was bitter.
Her admission had floored him. He knew that the kids and even the teachers at school had been dicks to her, and of course her family, but while she said “the whole town” hated her, he had no idea how bad it was for her.
And through absolutely no fault of her own.
He decided to make it his mission to fix that right away. He wasn’t sure how, but he would do whatever it took to right things for her. But for now, he wasn’t leaving her side. If someone wanted to mess with her, they’d have to go through him.
After he parked at Target, they walked into the store side by side, with their arms around each other. People glanced their way and several did a double-take when they recognized Beth… and him.
“Yeah, that’s right, bee-atches,” he’d muttered under his breath for Beth’s ears only, “Coach Rapist’s son and the jerk’s victim are together again.”
She elbowed him in the ribs. “Not a victim; I’m a survivor.” Ben had grinned at her.
“Damn straight, baby,” he’d said and then pulled her head closer so he could kiss her hair.
Ben grabbed a cart and pushed it behind Beth as she moved slowly through the store. He wondered if she wanted to prolong the return to reality as long as possible too. He was quiet as he watched her pick out clothes, then followed silently behind as she headed to the cosmetics area for shampoo, deodorant and other girly stuff.
As he silently watched Beth pick out some makeup, Ben started thinking that he really liked doing domestic things with her. He even started imagining a future where shopping with Beth was a weekly occurrence. And he hated to shop.
After getting a lot of stuff that he was totally clueless about — what the hell is a hair mask? — they headed to the grocery section where she loaded the cart with food.
And then she remembered she needed a cell phone.
“Uh, baby,” he said with worry in his voice as he watched while she picked out a three hundred dollar phone, “I don’t have a lot of money in my account.”
Ben could feel his cheeks heat at that admission. While he’d give Beth anything he could, the only way he was going to be able to afford all the things she was getting was by way of a ski mask and a gun.
Beth laughed. “I have my debit card,” she told him as she pulled it out of her back pocket. “I had used it at the gas station when Aleen—” her voice caught at her former friend’s name, but she cleared her throat and continued on like a trooper.
“We’d stopped for gas and I stuck it in my back pocket.” She sneered then. “Good thing, since that bitch took off with my wallet in her backpack.” A lightbulb moment hit her then.
“Oh, yeah, I need to get a purse and a wallet too,” Beth said as she turned and started to head off again.
He snagged her around the waist and pulled her close, his front to her back. “Want it to be me who provides for my woman,” he growled in her ear.
She giggled as he sucked her earlobe into his mouth. “Such a caveman,” she laughed as she pushed out of his arms so she could turn and step right back into them.
“Welcome to the twenty-first century, Og, where women have jobs and buy stuff for themselves.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her words, since she neither had a job,
nor was using her own money to “buy stuff.” In fact, the money she was using wasn’t even her mother’s, when it came right down to it.
Beth laughed. “Unspoken point taken.”
Ben still couldn’t believe how much money Beth had in her account. When she’d told him about it and how she’d taken her mom’s name off the account, he’d laughed his butt off. Served Nadine right. While it was a huge amount, he knew it wasn’t even going to be missed by the new rich bitch, but still. It was some small bit of justice for all she’d done to her daughter.
They finally headed to the front of the store to check out. Beth remembered cough drops then, so she ran off to find some while Ben moved toward the checkout lanes. There were only three lanes open, all with half a dozen customers in line.
He moved to a lane behind an older, harried-looking woman who seemed to be stocking up for the apocalypse. She glanced back and chuckled as Ben stared in horror at her cart.
She waved her hand. “Go ahead of me—” she started, but then Beth walked up and put the bag of cough drops into the cart. Recognition bled into the woman’s features and she frowned at first Beth, then Ben. She then muttered “never mind” and spun back around, putting her back to them.
Beth sighed and glanced up at Ben, the expression on her face saying, “See?” He frowned at the woman and started to say something to her, but Beth hurried to suggest they use the self-check.
“I like self-check anyway,” she said. Ben wasn’t sure if he believed her, but he wasn’t going to argue.
After they put her purchases in the back seat and were buckling up, she asked Ben to drive her to a hotel.
“There’s no way I’m going home, not after they didn’t…” Her voice caught on a sob and Ben’s heart clenched for her. He knew what she was going to say, After they didn’t even look for me.
He reached over and pulled her to him, holding her as closely as the console between them would allow. She wasn’t crying, which he was damned happy about, but he knew her heart was breaking just the same.
Again.
Over the past four days, she’d told him so many stories of the things she’d had to endure, things he’d had no clue about. She’d told him that after his defense of her in the Academy’s dining room when Alex had wanted to beat her, that the attacks hadn’t stopped; they’d only gotten sneakier.
The things Rod had told him that their mom had done to Beth didn’t even come close to all the stuff that woman had put her own damn daughter through. And Rod himself.
Ben had sworn to her, after she’d fearfully and tearfully told him that she’d overheard Nadine the week before talking on the phone saying she needed to “have a scumbag evicted,” that he’d never let her suffer alone again.
And if he could help it, she’d never suffer at all.
He held her for several minutes before she pulled away. “Console’s jabbing me in the ribs,” she laughed. Ben kept his hand on the back of her neck and stared into her gorgeous green eyes, made more vibrant due to the unshed tears she’d managed to keep in check.
“You’re not going to a hotel,” he told her, grinning at her when she frowned over his bossiness.
“You’re coming home with me. I don’t want you out of my sight and Gwen’s been alone enough already this week, so I need to get back.”
She tried to argue against the idea and Ben was a little worried that being back in his house might trigger the memories which were better off locked inside her brain. But now that she was really and truly his woman, now that they’d made plans for a future together, he didn’t want to be away from her for even a day.
There was the possibility of them all going to a hotel, getting a two-room suite or something. That way, he could be with Beth and Gwen wouldn’t have to be alone.
“How ‘bout we go get Gwen and then we all go get a hotel room?” He grinned then and added, “Well, me and you will share, obviously.”
Beth blushed and laughed. “It’s ‘you and I’,” she told him, correcting his grammar, but she happily agreed.
There were several angry notes taped on the door when they pulled into the drive of his house. He yanked them off before unlocking the door and holding it open for Beth. She stopped in the foyer and he wondered if she was remembering anything from the last time she’d been in his house.
He called for Gwen, but there was no answer.
“She should still be at school,” Beth said quietly behind him.
Ben glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just after one, but he’d figured that Gwen had called herself in, too, since she didn’t have anyone to take her to school. Unless… she could have been getting rides from Raine. He sure as hell hoped not. He didn’t want his little sister hanging around that venomous bitch.
He figured they could wait around and see who dropped her off, then they’d go get a hotel room. There were only two choices in Bearing, but there were a few more in Clemens and that’s where he planned on heading. He didn’t want Beth around the Bearing jerks any more than she had to be.
But then, Clemens wasn’t much better. He couldn’t believe the way people had treated her, like she was some sort of social disease and that she was contagious. She’d tried to tell him how she’d been treated, how she’d been ostracized, but it was hard to believe until you saw it for yourself.
It didn’t matter, he knew. Not to Beth anyway. She planned on moving to Stevens, far enough away that the crap surrounding her in the Bearing area wouldn’t get its stink on her. But he was determined to fix things for her in the meantime, if only to say “up yours” to the community.
He wasn’t exactly sure how to go about fixing it though. If only he knew who had posted the video, then maybe he could get them to release the original footage… and Ben knew he could, because he’d beat them until they agreed.
Original video… he thought about the fact that the cameras were in his house. Not just anyone had access to the house, either. Just his family, except for when his dad had parties for his players, but even then, his dad always kept the study locked. Always. And only the family knew where the key was hidden, under the vase on the table halfway down the hall from the study.
So that meant it had to be either his dad, his mom, or Gwen who set the cameras up. Since it was complete social suicide when the video was released, he knew it wasn’t his dad. Same with Gwen, since there was no way of knowing how people would react to him and his sister after the video was released.
That left his mom… but she’d been gone so much, that it was unlikely it was her. But there was really only one way to know for sure.
“C’mon,” he told Beth, “let’s go to my room.” He almost laughed at the look she gave him. Rather than correct her, he just grabbed her hand and led her up the stairs.
He walked into the room that had been a haven for the past five years. It was where he’d spent most of his time when he’d been home — which wasn’t often, thanks to his crazy schedule — and he thought for sure that he’d have a feeling of loss when he walked in there, knowing that his time in the house was short. But he didn’t.
Instead, all he could think about was the future… with Beth.
He moved to the calendar on the wall above his desk. Ben pulled the push pin out and set the calendar down on the desk, flipping back a few months. He glanced at Beth, who was standing at his shelves, looking at all his trophies.
“Uh, I hate to ask this, baby,” and damn, he really hated to ask, “but do you know what the day was that, uh, you know… the thing with my dad…”
Thankfully, she understood what he was asking without him having to give any more detail.
“March third,” she answered quietly, then stepped up to see what he was looking at. She laughed bitterly.
“You don’t forget the day that your life turned upside down.”
Ben winced. He would have offered her some comfort then, but they’d already talked so much about that night, and what happened afterwards. Now, he wanted to move
forward, and not look back. He wanted to get some justice for his girl.
He moved his finger to the date she gave him. That day, and the week before, his mom had been absent. He went back a week before that and, other than one day when she’d actually come home for dinner, she’d been gone then too.
“What are you looking at?” Beth asked. Ben pointed at his markings on the calendar.
“See the ‘MGs’ I marked on here?” At her nod, he continued. “That means ‘Mom Gone’. When we started noticing our parents missing at the same time, I started marking the calendar.” He shrugged.
“Don’t know why. Seems stupid now, but it helps us, cuz now I know that it probably wasn’t my mom who… um, who, uh, planted the cameras that took the, um, video.”
Ben frowned as he stared at the calendar. Most of the month of March… and February… his mom had been gone. She’d basically taken off without a word to anyone. In his mind, the woman wasn’t much better than Beth’s abusive mother.
“But what does that prove?” she asked. “She could have set the cameras at any time. She didn’t need to be here.”
Ben nodded. “True, but the cameras only have a one hour run time. They’re motion-activated, but when my dad is home — which is a helluva lot more often than my mom — he’s in that study. Those cameras would have had to be charged pretty often. So, it couldn’t have been my mom.”
She frowned. “Well, we know it wasn’t you. Who else had access to your house?”
Ben shrugged. “Pretty much the entire soccer and lacrosse teams. But, no one has access to my dad’s study… ever. He keeps it locked whenever he’s not in there. Sometimes even when he is.”
Beth blinked then and straightened from where she’d been bent over the desk. “That night… he closed the study door.” She turned to him with wide eyes. “I remember that! I was thinking it was weird that he closed the door, but he said it was because I was cold and… there was a fire.”
