TW: some mentions of blood and violence

Also a little bit of Tarryn's time in Juvie is also revealed. I know it can be confusing, but it's something that is related to future chapters, so please have patience.

+++

Sometimes breathing hurt.

It hurt to breathe now.

My heart constricted, walloping in pain that made it impossible to breath. I glanced out the window of the plane, trying to breath through my nose. Trying not to draw attention to myself.

On a plane full of men and women - including three older brothers - vowing to keep me safe, it proved otherwise difficult.

Carson kept taking my vitals every half an hour, worried about my heart. Matthew didn't help any, reminding him to do it. Skyler worked on his computer, giving his two cents whenever I complained about the other two.

I excused myself to the bathroom, annoyed.

"Are you feeling okay?" Matthew asked, glancing up from his phone when I stood up.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes."

I moved to the rear of the private plane, one owned by the Feds, towards the bathroom. Inside the bathroom, barely enough to move around, I leaned on the counter, dipping my chin against my chest. I breathed through my nose.

It hurts because sometimes the air you inhale doesn't leave your lungs, making them grow bigger, taking more space, and your heart becomes claustrophobic. It becomes incapable of beating properly, so it either holds it's own breath in, causing your whole body to ache because how can an almost silent heart beat enough blood, or it gives in to the fear and goes insane, beating faster by the minute.

I squeeze my chest because this fast beating hurts too much, and just maybe if I squeeze hard enough, I can finally make it stop, but I can't.

Soon enough, it's not only my heart that's aching. my head starts to drum to its own beat, your ears go numb with bitter screams no one can hear but my tongue goes dry, and every muscle in my body stands on alert, as if all those aching parts of me are invaders and my muscles are supposed to protect your everything. my muscles see my brain fuzzing up and beating nonsense, so they disconnect, take charge, so that I can't move my body anymore.

My tongue slips between my teeth and presses down, maybe blood will quench my thirst. It doesn't. It only fills my mouth with a awful metallic taste that makes my stomach churn. I shove myself away from the counter,

Those countless screams get counter attacked by a piercing voice making me feel like I'm going deaf for a second. Then everything, the noise, comes back and I am paralyzed with panic.

I cannot love, my chest hurts so fucking much. I can't breath, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. The marble counter fades in and out, blurring, as I clutch my neck, gasping for breath.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. I think I'm dying, it was the only thing that made sense. I'm dying, that must be it. I'm dying and it hurts. It hurts.

"Hey, hey, it's okay." Carson knelt at my side but didn't . "Take your hands from your throat, Tarryn." I try but my hands won't move. My nails dug deeper, burying themselves in my skin. My brother moved quickly and took my wrists, pulling them away from my throat. I fought him for two seconds before giving up.

"List the planets." Carson pulls me into his lap, hugging me tight. I didn't care, it made me feel
safer. "Tarryn, list the planets. C'mon bub, you can do it. Focus on remembering the solar system."

I didn't do breathing exercises. I mean, I tried them. Hundreds of times. But I could count on one hand the times it worked. Instead, my family found others ways of bringing me back to reality.

"You can do it. Concentrate on nothing else," Carson said, his voice low and soft. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to make my tongue work, my jaw stuck.

"J-Jupiter." I wheezed, my chest walls clinching. "Neptune."

My heart beat continued to thunder in my ears, but my lungs didn't hurt so much. "Mercury ..." I licked my lips. "Saturn."

I finally breathed a gulp of air, my lungs devouring it like a starving beast.

"Mars ... Uranus... Venus ..." I opened my eyes, staring at the wall in front of me, blinking back tears. I pushed against my brother and he eased his hold. I hoisted myself up and off his lap, sitting across from him. I couldn't meet his gaze. I able to breath but the dull ache still around my chest.

He didn't utter a single sound, but his eyes said enough. The weight of his worry plunged me deeper into a pit of guilt. I didn't want him to worry and since he witnessed a panic attack, he'd worry ten times more now.

+++

"Are we there yet?"

"For the five billionth time, no, we are not there yet," Skyler muttered from the front seat. Sam drove, country music playing from the radio. A black SUV lead the way, full of undercover police officers and agents.

"It'll be another hour, bub," Carson said, "why don't you try and sleep?"

"I don't want to sleep."

"If you get overtired it'll be worse."

"You mean it'll be worse for you."

"What does that even mean?"

"Nothing. Whatever."

Carson sighed. "Sleep or don't sleep, I don't care. Just drop the attitude."

I scoffed. "I don't have a freaking attitude-" He glared, making me shrink back into the seat. I squeezed my hands together, reminding myself to not be such an ass. "I'm sorry, my head is just ... all over the place. I'm sorry."

He reached out and grabbed my hand. "I know, I know." I leaned on his shoulder. Sam cursed from the drivers seat, turning down the radio.

"Something wrong?" Carson asked and I heard the ding of the gas signal.

"Yeah. We need gas. I told them to put a full tank in," he grumbled, and poked at the screen on his phone attached to the dash. "Yeah. We need to stop for gas."

"There's a station ... five miles from here," a male voice said, an unfamiliar one. A new agent on our protective detail. I heard Gilbert meowing in the background and my heart melted. "This cat is like possessed or something. I swear he looks like he'd kill us if he wasn't in his cage."

Sam sighed. "He's a good cat, just afraid."

"Don't touch him Michael-"

"Ouch, fuck, he bit me!"

"Keep your fingers out of the cage, dumbass."

"I wanted to give him a treat."

"Keep your fingers out of the fucking cage, Michael."

I tensed at their dislike of Gilbert but couldn't help but laugh at this guys misfortune. Sam shook his head. "Don't touch the cat. Goodbye."

He hung up on them. "I apologize for their unprofessionalism. Ronald handpicked them but-"

"Ronald?"

"Ronald Vazquez. He is -"

"- the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI Intelligence Branch. We've had dinner with him a few times," I said, remembering the two times my mom made a big deal about having dinner with him and his family.

"What?" Matthew hissed. "Mom never mentioned meeting anyone with the FBI, let alone have break bread with them."

I shrugged. "Seems like mom didn't mention a lot of things."

"Yeah but weren't you curious about why she met with him?"

"No ... I believed her when she said that they were celebrating breakthroughs in the Kessler case. Mom was climbing the ladder, I had no reason to think otherwise." Matthew ran his hand down his face. "Ronald wrote a letter to the judge for my case."

"Why did you need a letter from him?" Skyler whipped around in his seat, raising an eyebrow.

"I got into some trouble right before my release. I'd been ... in a fight and could have had another six months added to my sentence."

"You never told us this. Who did you into a fight with?" Carson leaned down, studying me.

"Georgia Boyd."

"You mean the girl in a gang? The one that murdered her own friends?"

"Yup. That's the one."

Stay out of trouble, Stay out of trouble, stay out of trouble; it had been the only thought for the last three weeks. It was what I recited in the back of my mind walking to the showers. One week and I'd be free of this Hellhole. I needed to be good, to stay out of trouble.

Two other inmates were behind me, walking single file, all of us carrying our bathroom caddies and towels. A guard in front of me, standing against the wall. "Good morning, Rainwalker ... Boyd ... Delores."

"Morning, Shelley." I nodded before turning into the bathroom stalls.

The moment we entered, Boyd shoved me into the wall. Pain soared through my side.

"I'm lucky Shelley was on that day, instead of any of one of the others. She witnessed Boyd beating the shit out of me. I knocked her unconscious when I shoved her into the wall but Shelley told them it was self defence."

"What does Ronald have to do with anything?"

"Ronald wrote a letter to say I had been accepted into a exclusive therapy camp." Ronald was a good guy from what I knew. He didn't judge me for what'd I'd done to be sentenced to juvie, he went golfing with Jed. "However, that camp didn't just have therapy. I learned a lot about intelligence, criminology, law."

"You mean that three weeks intensive camp of therapy was for you to learn to be a teenage intelligence officer?" Skyler hissed, not overly joyed with the fact.

"Not quite. I'm not working for the government. The camp was for seniors in high school wanting to go into criminology or psychology in university," I said, recalling the brochure when mom showed me. "We also did a lot of fun stuff too, like rock climbing, learning to code - but I knew a lot of it so I helped some of the others."

"Still ... mom and Jed, Ronald, it's like they were training you," Matthew snapped, letting out a low breath before shaking his head. "I can't believe we let them send you away like that."

"No. They wanted me to know that I had choices ... even after what I did." Mom and Jed and dad had never given up on me, they didn't give up on not even when Vinnie Zhao, a boy in my sophomore class, died at my hands.

I swallowed, pushing the memories back, not wanting to think about the incident. It would haunt me for the rest of my life, what I did. The way the boys eyes darkened when he lunged for me, the way I screamed in fear and then pushed him over the ledge. The crunch of his body connecting with the pavement below. The screams of my classmates as they noticed the blood and brains.

I shuddered and my heart thundered, as I pushed the images deep, deep down.

"Hey, you with me?" Matthew shook my arm, bringing me out of my thoughts. We had stopped at the gas station Sam mentioned earlier, Carson and Skyler inside. Why didn't they tell me they were here? They better get me some snacks.

Matthew shook my arm again. "What were you thinking about?"

"Mom and dad."

"They'll be okay."

"You don't know that," I muttered.

My brother hummed. "You're right ... but we will do everything to do to make sure they're okay."

"They didn't give up on me, and I won't give up on them."

"Neither will we, okay, bub," Matty murmured and I rested my head on his shoulder. "We won't let anything happen to you and we will find mom and dad."

+++

I was shaken awake by potholes half an hour ago. I looked around to see where we were, my jaw dropped seeing the mansion that looked in front of me. And when I say mansion, I mean a fucking mansion.

Two storeys high, columns - six in total - were in the front of the house, shrouded by shadows of looming trees and overgrown shrubs that desperately needed tending.

I didn't realize I was the only one left in the car until the side door opened and Carson ducked his head in, arm resting on the door. "I know it's a lot to take in," he said, offering a small smile. "Come on, Henrietta prepared dinner."

"Who is Henrietta?" I asked, unbuckling my seatbelt and slid out. Carson didn't answer. Instead he wrapped his arm around my waist, leading me to meet the others at the top of the steps. Trey pulled away from the group and threw his arms around me, my head smacking into his chest.

"I missed you, bubba," he murmured, pressing his lips on my forehead as he held me at arms length. "You look rough, how are you feeling?"

"I'm okay ... how are you? We haven't talked much. I wanted to talk to you and June and Joey so much. Talking Skyler and Matty and Carson is insufferable most of the times. Carson's been a real -"

"Watch it, I am standing right here," my oldest brother said, behind me. Trey chuckled and released me from his death grip, but interlocked his fingers with me.

"You will like it here," Trey said, smiling. "It's quiet and spacious."

"How long have you been here?"

"Not long, they arrived three days ago," Skyler answered for our brother.

We were met by an older lady, dressed in a mustard yellow knitted sweater and blue jeans. I guessed she was in her late sixties, and had a radiate smile as her honey brown eyes scanned each of us. "Hello, come in, come in. It's nice to see you all."

She held open the door and beckoned us in. The lights inside were dim, the wallpaper navy with daisies. Luscious, wine rugs spread over the grey marble floors to prevent scruffs and muddy shoes. In the backyard, vines crawled up the sides of the house.

"Dinner will be served in twenty minutes," Henrietta stated, heading down the hall past the staircase. "Until then, go ahead and clean up. No offence but you all look like crap."

"Offence taken," Matthew said, deadpanned. "Such a warm welcoming party."

Skyler elbowed him in the ribs, whispering shut up.

"Where is Ivan?" Carson asked, setting our backpacks down, leaning then against the wall.

She gestured upstairs. "Your grandfather is in his office, on a phone call," she said. "He'll be down to join everyone for dinner shortly."

I ventured up the long corridor, finding it hard to believe my mom grew up in this mansion and never spoke a word of it. Huge paintings of scenery hung on the wall, the artist talented. I passed a living room, the French doors wide open. I almost entered, the plush sofas and chairs looking comfy as fuck but Gilbert meowed, trotting past me.

"Hey, you little shit," one of the agents called after Gilbert. "Sam, he bit me."

I smirked, following my dear cat. He stopped at a door and rubbed his body against it, obviously wanting in. I opened the door into the sunroom and it surprised me how different it was to the rest of the house. The sun beamed through the floor to ceiling windows, plants and flowers cluttered every surface. A wooden bench with cushions was on the far wall, a small ottoman in front of it with a few books on top. Behind the door, there was a metal spiral staircase. I began to ascend, my hand trailing on the rail. Gilbert chirped, peering down from the opening as if you coax me up.

Reaching the top, I was met with a study, though it seemed unkept. Gilbert jumped onto the windowsill, his tail swinging in the air. I walked over and scratched under his chin. Classical music played in the background, just loud enough to be appreciated.

"You look just like your mom."

I startled, spinning on my heel. An older man leaned his back against the desk, the sun glaring through and hitting his silver hair. "Um, thanks. Are you Ivan?"

"Yes ... and you must be Tarryn. It's been a long time," he murmured, smiling softly. I didn't remember him, and it irked me that he remembered me. Why didn't I remember him?

"I thought you were on a phone call?" I asked, raiding an eyebrow.

"Well I was and then it finished early," he said, more defensive than both of us expected. I raised an eyebrow. He sighed and chuckled, running a hand over his beard. "To be honest, I was stalling."

"Stalling?"

He shrugged and chuckled. "I haven't seen my grandchildren in, in years ..." he trailed off and his expression grew somber. "I know, I know that sounds silly but-"

"No. It's not silly," I assured him, even if I did find his nervousness a bit comical - I wasn't one to say anything. It must be a good sign, right? A bad person wouldn't be nervous to meet - well, reunite- with his grandchildren, right? I gestured around. "This is a peaceful place."

I'll likely make this my new place to hide. Sorry Gramps.

"Hey, I've been searching for you everywhere," Mathew appeared in the doorway. He glanced to Ivan - do I call him that or Gramps or what- before traveling back to me. "Come on, both of you, dinner is ready."

Ivan and I followed Matthew downstairs. "Who is Henrietta?" My brother asked, a question I'd been wondering too.

"Housekeeper. She and her daughter live down the road, our families are close," Ivan said. We travelled down the corridor, passing half a dozen rooms, turning left and right, before reaching the dining room.

Josiah and Jude were already there too, seated at the end of the table, Josiah sitting next to Carson and Jude next to Skyler, across the table from them. Gramps made his way to the head of the table, clapping Joey on the back as he passed. I remembered then that Ivan Solomon was also his grandfather too. And we, Josiah and I, were cousins. Another secret my mother had kept.

How many were there?

Matthew gave me a gentle push forward, making me sit between him and Trey. "Where's June?" I asked, looking up at Skyler and Carson who were across from me. I noticed the look they shared, though I had no clue what they were thinking. They were the hardest to read out of my siblings.

"Bub, she's not feeling well -"

"I'm here." My head snapped towards the croaking voice that belonged to my sister. To say I was shocked would be an understatement.

"Holy fuck," I murmured, "you look like you were run over a eighteen wheeler."

Her skin had a greenish tinge and her hair was matted, like it hadn't been brushed in days - no, weeks. Her cheeks were puffy and it was obvious she'd been crying. June managed to chuckle, wrapping the cardigan tighter around her body. "Trust me, I feel much worse than I look."

Carson cleared his throat. "June, you should be in bed," he said, softly. Our sister ignored him and took the seat between him and Skyler, who looked as unsure as Carson. What were they hiding?

"Are you sick?" I asked her, leaning back, in case she was contagious. I didn't want to catch whatever she had, I already felt gross.

June shook her head. "Nah, got a bit of a stomach bug, that's all. Not contagious," she said, smiling, though it looked like it pained her to do so. "I'm happy to see you, bub. How are you feeling now?"

Carson turned his attention to me, interested in the answer. I rolled my eyes, picking up the folded napkin. "I'm okay ... alive, barely, but alive."

"And we plan on keeping it that way," Ivan chirped and my gaze slid over to him. He placed his hands on the table, calm and collected, straightening. "Your safety, all of you, is the main priority right now. I know it's unfamiliar territory, for you and I both, but together we are stronger."

"And what or who, exactly, are we running from?" I asked, narrowing my eyes slightly at him. He knew more than I did, more than Carson and Skyler. Ivan opened his mouth to answer - but Skyler interrupted him.

"We'll talk about this later, okay, bub?" He said and I glared at him. "Everyone is tired and hungry. We'll talk but not now."

I kissed my lips, annoyed. On cue, Henrietta entered, her hands full with a platter of chicken. "Good, everyone is here," she stated, another young, woman with blue hair following her with two other platters on her arm, one of vegetables and another with potatoes. "Eat. I didn't slave over the hot stove all day for it to be just stared at."

Everyone began to eat without another word, and I did too, unable to resist the wonderful smell of a homecooked meal.

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Hey guys!! Thanks for reading. Don't forget to vote and comment 🙂

Thoughts on Ivan? I am excited to write him with the siblings. Don't worry, he's good. I think. I'm gonna slow it down a few notches to get to know the characters a bit, but that won't stop the drama. Next, we'll see Tarryn spend time with Trey, June, and Ivan. She'll also learn some history about her maternal family ...

All the love, stay safe, be well - PS. Check in with your friends and family, reach out, even to the ones that seem okay - Charlie 🧡

P.S.S. I moved in with my brother.