Isla's POV

Luke pulls up to their driveway and kills the engine. We walk to their door, where we can hear screaming and things being thrown from inside. Nick reaches for the door handle but turns his head to look at me first. In a very low voice he says, "Stay behind us and if any one of us says run, then run." Nick turns the doorknob and luckily, it is unlocked. He slowly opens the door, letting us see the living room. The sight before us is more than I can bear.

The sight before us looks like a crime scene. Wait. It is a crime scene. The four of us are shaking with a fear as we slowly enter the house. Littered across the floor are broken beer bottles and fast food wrappers. Blood droplets are splattered on the walls. The house is a mess and by the looks of it, it has been for some time. My heart begins to sink in my chest. This isn't anyway for someone to live.

My eyes wander around the living room until they land on something—or should I say, someone. Killian's lifeless body is covered in blood and bruises laying on a broken glass coffee table. My feet have a mind of their own as they rush me to Killian's side. I place my two fingers on the side of his neck to find a pulse. I release the breath that I was holding as I feel his pulse. "Guys," I whisper yell. "Help. Killian's hurt."

"Killian. Please wake up," I beg. I look over his body. There is a large cut on the side of his face. His lip is busted, his eyes are swollen so badly that I don't think he could open them even if he tried. I shake him slightly hoping for some sort of response, but I get nothing. He's unconscious.

There is someone yelling upstairs. I tremble in fear, knowing we still need to find Sofia and Emma. As the screaming gets louder, Nick finally shows up by my side. "Fucking hell," he mumbles under his breath. "I need to get him out of here." Nick hoists Killian up and carries him to my SUV. I help Nick by opening the door to the vehicle. Once we have Killian laying down in the vehicle, I lock the door so no one can get in and hurt him more. I look at him again through the window to see his blood dripping on the seats of my SUV, but I don't care. That is the least of my problems. Right now, I'm worried about him and his sisters.

Nick and I make our way back into the house. As we enter the house, I hear Hayden yell, "Get the hell away from her!" Before Nick or I can run upstairs, Luke and Hayden shove a huge muscular man down the stairs. He reeks from the smell of alcohol. The man is covered in tattoos and stands tall. From the looks of it, he's probably a good three or four inches taller than Nick. and Nick is 6'4. The guy tumbles down the stairs, but quickly catches his footing. For an extremely drunk guy, he is quite graceful on his feet. Nick hastily pulls me behind him to shield me from the drunken beast. After seeing the state Killian is in, I can only imagine what he could do to me.

When the guy notices Nick, he lunges at him, but Nick punches him hard in the gut. The guy groans in pain, but rapidly recovers. "Hide!" Nick yells at me as the guy comes at Nick again. The drunken man lunges for Nick, but this time he doesn't miss him and hits Nick in the chest.

Nick doubles over in pain and I scream. The man's attention is now on me. "H-Hayden! L-Luke! H-help!" My voice echoes through the house. Footsteps can be heard running down the stairs. Luke tackles the man as he charges towards me. Hayden helps Luke grab the man and they throw him out the front door before locking it so he can't get back in.

"Open up or I will burn this house to the ground," the man rages as he pounds on the front door. Once the man has tired himself out from beating the door, he stumbles down the street, ranting on and on loudly.

Without thinking, I run upstairs, not worrying if I will find more danger or not. The only thing on my mind is I need to find Sofia and Emma. I walk into a bedroom that has two twin beds. This must be Sofia and Emma's room.

The room has been completely trashed, but unlike downstairs I can tell that this room is normally kept clean. My eyes scan the room landing on the bathroom door that is broken. I quickly make my way to the bathroom, but Luke stops me and walks in first.

Like downstairs, there is blood splattered everywhere. There's a sound coming from the bathtub, someone is whimpering in pain. "Sofia!" I cry. Like her brother she is hurt severely. There is blood running down her face just below her eye from a cut. Her arms and legs are littered with bruises and shards of glass. Unlike her brother, she is conscious. "W-who did this to you?" I ask.

She doesn't answer. She shakes her head and cries. "K-Killian, i-is he alive?"

Luke carefully picks her up bridal style. "Everything is going to be okay now," he whispers to her. "I'm going to carry her to the SUV." He says to me.

"Okay, I'm going to find Emma."

He nods his head. "Be careful. If you need help, scream for Hayden. He's downstairs helping Nick. That guy got a good hit on him."

As Luke carefully carries Sofia out of the bathroom, I open the door on the opposite side of the room, expecting it to be a linen closet, but it's another bedroom. This bedroom has only one twin bed. Walking into the room, my nose is bombarded with the scent of Killian. This is Killian's room.

Unlike the girls' room, the guy must have not been able to enter this room, because it hasn't been destroyed. The room is very organized. Carefully I look around the room until I hear crying coming from behind a door.

I open the closet door and find Emma curled up in a ball with her hands covering her head. "P-please d-don't h-hurt m-me," she cries.

I wrap my arms around her trying to comfort her. She jumps at my touch at first, but once she sees me, she hugs me tightly and sobs. "You came." She cries.

I rub her back soothing her. "Who was that man, Emma? Do you want me to call your uncle?"

Her eyes go wide. "N-no. That was our uncle," she whispers.

That was her uncle? Killian and Sofia made their uncle seem like a nice guy. "What?! Is this the first time he had done something like that?"

Emma shakes her head. "He hurts Kill every night. He wants to hurt Sofia and me too, but Killian tries to not let him."

My eyes widen. He hurts Killian daily? They can't stay here. It's not safe. "We need to call the cops and take Killian and Sofia to the hospital," I tell Emma.

"No!" she shouts. "They'll take me away. I'll never see Killian or Sofia again. Killian always says no hospital and no cops." Emma looks worried. "Please don't call the cops," she begs. "I don't want to be taken away."

The sadness in her eyes is too much for me to take. I can only imagine what I would have felt like if Isabelle and Isaac were taken away from me. It would kill me. "Okay," I say softly, agreeing with her. "Emma, I need you to pack everything that is important to you, Killian, and Sofia."

She looks at me with watery eyes. "Why?" she asks.

"Because you're not coming back here ever again. Don't worry about clothes, we will get y'all new clothes. Only get the important things, understand?"

She nods her head and starts packing. She walks into Killian's closet and pulls out a few photo albums. "Do I need to bring the peanut butter?"

"Peanut butter?"

She gulps. "Killian had to steal it so we would have food. Uncle doesn't feed us. Please don't be mad at Killian for stealing it," she pleads.

"No, you don't need to pack it, and no I am not mad at Kilian. Stealing is not good, but he did what he thought was best for y'all. I am not mad at your brother."

She smiles at me. "Good. His heart would break if his Angel was mad at him," she says. She grabs my hand. "I need help," she says as she pulls me into his closet. "I can't reach the box." She points at a box at the top of his closet." I grab it for her, and she opens it. Inside it are three homemade baby blankets. Each one has one of their names on it. There are also three stuffed animals in the box. Emma packs the blankets and stuff animals.

Once Emma is finished with Killian's closet, she walks to a wooden box and pulls out a silver chain and a silver ring and packs those also. She then walks back into her and Sofia's room. She walks over to a box on their dresser and pulls out two silver necklaces and two rings packing them as well. Finally, she walks over to one of the beds and sticks her hand between the mattresses and pulls out a white envelope. Once it is packed, she walks out of the room. "I'm ready to leave," she says.

When we get downstairs, Luke is the only one left inside. Nick and Hayden are already in the SUV. "Are y'all ready to get out of here?" Luke questions.

"Yes." I grab Emma's hand to walk her to the car.

"Wait!" she hollers. "We can't leave Killian's truck here." She runs back into the house and grabs his keys before handing them to me.

I look at Luke. "I'll drive Emma myself in Killian's truck and you can drive the SUV." He agrees, and the three of us get into our vehicles. After buckling Emma up, I pull out of the driveway, wanting to get as far away as possible from their uncle's house. What type of vile person can hurt children? How could he starve them? I fight back tears as we finally pull up to my house. Killian and Sofia have been nothing but amazing to me. That helps not only me, but also Nick, Luke, Hayden and even Tyler. They do not deserve what their uncle did to them.

Luke jumps out of the SUV and comes running up to me. "Why aren't we taking them to the hospital?" He asks.

Taking a deep breath, I explain to him how they could lose Emma if we took them to the hospital or called the cops. I've decided we would assess their injury at home and if it was something that we couldn't take care of then we would have to take them to the hospital.

After finally getting Luke to agree with me, I unbuckle Emma from her seat and help her into the house while Nick, Hayden, and Luke help get Killian and Sofia into the house.

We get Killian and Sofia cleaned up and tend to their wounds. Thankfully, none of it was too bad. Killian woke up the moment Hayden had put rubbing alcohol on one of his wounds. At first Killian looked like a rabid dog ready to attack us, but once he realized that it was us and not his uncle, he calmed down.

We're all sitting in the living room quietly talking, except for Emma, who is asleep on Isabelle's bed. "We have to go back," Sofia says sadly.

I look at her like she is crazy. "Why?"

"We have nowhere else to go and we barely have any money. We only have enough money to last us at a cheap motel for about a week. We will have to go back sooner or later," she confesses. "Plus, we have a few items that we don't want there without us being there."

"You're not going back." I say sternly. "If Emma hadn't called us, Killian..." I sigh. "...Killian probably wouldn't be alive right now."

Killian and Sofia both have tears in their eyes. "Isla," Sofia starts. "We aren't as lucky as you. What money our parents left us with, my uncle spent on beer and drugs. I know you mean well, but we don't have a choice."

"You're right," I state clearly. "You don't have a choice. The three of y'all will live here."

Killian and Sofia's eyes widen in surprise but both fill with sadness quickly. "Thank you, Isla, but you already have enough people living here. There's no room."

I stand up making sure everyone's eyes are on me. "First, there is still one more room. Second, every single person in this room is like family to me. Family does whatever it takes to help each other." Everyone looks at me with unreadable expressions. "Whether y'all want to admit it or not, every single one of us needs each other. Not a single one of us has a parent to help us. Whether they passed away or they just don't care, they're gone and we're alone." Everyone is looking down avoiding eye contact with me. I know what I just said hurts, but they need to hear it. "Since freshman year my family is the only thing that kept me going, and then I lost them. I refuse to lose y'all like I lost my mom and dad. I...I just can't," I whisper. "I'm no longer strong enough and I'm tired of pretending that I am. If I lose y'all, I will lose myself."

The only sound that can be heard is the quiet sniffles from everyone. I slump back in my chair, pull my knees into my chest hugging them as I cry. I am weak. For the first time, I have admitted that I am weak. I can't put on the façade of being strong anymore. I can't pretend that I will be okay if my friends leave me, because I won't. I'm being selfish for wanting to force them to stay but for once in my life I don't care, or maybe, it is that I do care, which is why I am being selfish.

Sofia walks overs to me forcing me to scoot over so we are sitting in the chair together. She wraps her arms arounds me hugging me as tightly as she possibly can. "You're right, Isla. We do need each other." I wipe my tears from my eyes and hug her back just as tightly.

Hayden claps his hands once and then rubs them together "Okay, Isla. So how are we going to do this?"

Everyone's attention is on me, and I smile. "Well we are going to order bunk beds for Isabelle's room. She and Emma are best friends, so I'm sure they'll be fine with sharing a room. Killian will take over my room. You're going to need a new lock." I laugh. "Sofia and I will take—" I take a deep breath trying to calm myself down before I say what I am about to say. I've only been in my parents' room twice since they passed away and I broke down each time I enter it. "Sofia and I will take my parents' room. Their room is huge, and it will fit two full size beds easily, with a ton of room still left over. We can go shopping and stuff for paint and beds tomorrow though. Tonight, I think we all just need to rest. Killian, you can sleep in Isaac's room while Sofia and I share my room."

"No," Hayden says quickly. "Sofia's been hurt badly. The two of sharing a bed tonight won't be easy on her. One of you can sleep in my room and I'll sleep on the couch tonight."

Hayden really is a great guy. "Thanks, Hayden. I'll let Sofia take my bed and I'll sleep in yours."

"Oh," I say randomly to Killian and Sofia. "Y'all are going to need to buy clothes and whatever else y'all might need." I grab the suitcase that Emma had packed handing it Killian. "I told Emma to only pack the important things."

Sofia and Killian open the suitcase and look through it before both smiling. "M&M got it all." He sighs in relief. "Thank you, Angel. For everything."

"She sure is a special one." Nick says pinching my cheeks. "Okay, I'm hungry. I'm ordering pizza, and then we can watch movies all night. I was thinking 'Toy Story' the first, the second, and the third." He smiles sheepishly. Everyone groans at him. "What? It's for Emma." Nick says. Yep, Nick always says he's picking cartoons for the kids, but we all know he just likes cartoons.

I have a huge smile on my face as I look at my friends. This is my family. We all now live under one roof and I couldn't be happier.

--------------------------------------------------

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to @JasmyneRice Thank you for voting on every chapter. You're amazing!

Also, thank you to everyone who has been reading this story. Don't forget to comment, vote and follow me! Also check out my other stories. ~KJ <3~