Page 117 of Please Think Of Me
I can hear my own voice in my headphones, so I pull them out and shove them into my purse. A few seconds later, the door opens a crack, and I see Clover's eye peeking through it.
"Hey."
The door flies open when she recognizes me, and she jumps into my waiting arms. Her legs are dangling, so I reach down and wrap them around me. She's not a small eight-year-old, but I can hold her up for a bit. I squeeze her and rest my cheek against her head, which is buried in my shoulder. "I'm so glad you're okay."
At the sound of my voice, she lets out a massive sigh, followed by tears, which only makes me want to hold her tighter.
The party is raging downstairs. I get why she was scared. What I hope she didn't see when she tried to go down there was the paraphernalia spread across a coffee table in the living room. I only glanced at it for a moment before we went up the stairs, but it was enough to know that this isn't a safe place for her to be right now.
"Bear? Can you take her?" Clover lifts her head to look over at my companion. "Clover, this is my friend Bear. Hehas a little sister who’s about your age." I think. "He's a nice guy, I promise. Can I hand you over to him? I don't want to risk losing you when we walk through the crowd downstairs."
She hesitates for a moment, then nods. I feel bad putting her in the arms of a complete stranger, especially a man as large as Bear, but I don't want her to see what's going on down there.
I pass her over to Bear and thank the universe when she wraps her arms around his neck and drops her head to his shoulder.
"Let's go." I nod toward the stairs, and Bear leads the way.
We pass a few people on the stairs, and I'm a little alarmed by how unalarmed they are at the fact that a man is carrying a kid in a setting like this. We weave through the crowd, back toward the front door, somehow without drawing too much attention. And thankfully, Clover keeps her head down.
Just as Bear starts to open a door, someone from across the room yells at us. "Hey! What the fuck are you doing?"
I watch as Jade starts pushing past people, her face filled with fear.
I panic. "Go Bear!" I shove him out the door and slam it shut behind me. My hands press on his back. "Get in the car!"
Clover pops her head up just in time to see Jade burst through the front door.
"Hey! That's my kid!"
I take a deep breath before turning to face her. "Jade, was it?"
Her eyes bounce from Bear and me. "Who the fuck are you?"
"A friend of Kass's. He asked me to come pick her up. I promise we're not kidnapping her. Go back to your party."
I turn to leave, and she pulls my hair. "Bitch!"
Good, I'm glad she's putting up a fight for Clover.
"Let go of my hair before I throat punch you." I pry her hands off my hair and take a step back.
"You can't just take her. I'll call the cops."
"Oh yeah? And what are those cops going to think when they see what's on your coffee table?"
Her eyes grow big as saucers, realization sinking in.
"I promise you, I'm just bringing her home. She's not safe here."
She flounders for a second, but I don't stick around to hear her fucked up excuses. Before I open the car door, I turn and flip her off. I couldn't help myself. I want to do a lot worse things to her right now, but I won't with Clover in the car, potentially watching us.
Bear takes off down the street, at a reasonable speed this time, and I settle into the back seat with a shaking little girl. I scoot over and buckle myself into the center seat right next to her. She nuzzles under my arm, and I hold her.
"Where am I taking you guys?"
"Sorry. Here, I'll text you the address." I go to pull my phone out of my pocket.
Iris chimes in to stop me. "I already got the address from Fia and texted it to you, babe."
