Not In The Same Way

Chapter 1 ~ want a dart?

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"Charlotte, Charlotte honey wake up." I jerk forward and look around my surroundings and slowly it sinks back in. I'm alone, my family is gone, I'm with the hillbilly's now in there hillbilly town. "You feeling okay honey?" I look back at my aunt and nod my head and push past her to get out of the truck.

The long drive way reached up to an old but modern looking farm house with no surrounding houses, except one tiny home in the back by a couple of barns. Jack grabs some of my luggage from the car and walks towards the house "so this is our home, I don't think you've ever been here before? Maybe once? But pretty much everything is up for grabs. But just a heads up the boys might beat ya to it. They have no portion control."

Jack pushes through the front door and puts my things down by the stairs. It's clean and neat, it kinda reminds me of my old home but it's different, it's homey? It's lived in but not in the bad way, it feel like a home. In the entrances there's photos all over the walls, pictures of my cousins, grandparents and others placed all over. Looking through all of them one caught my eye. It's me, we'll it's my family. It's from Christmas a couple of years ago, we were happy I guess. Mom and dad came home got all dolled up for the picture, criticized what Charlie and I wore. We took the picture and they left. "That was the last photo your mom sent us."

I turn down to look down the hallway at jack who was leaning on the wall staring at the same photo. I turn back to the photo "That sounds like her. She isn't very sentimental. I think this was the only time we took a Christmas photo, rather then getting some intern to write something in some grocery store cards." A smile tugs to my lips as I look at the picture. Even tho it was a horrible experience it sticks in my brain as a happy memory. Charlie and I got a little drunk before hand and laugh our way through it. But once again it hits me. "Wasn't. She wasn't sentimental."

Jack comes over and squeezes my shoulder "look kiddo. We don't have to do this today if you're not ready. You can go up to your new room and we can try a tour and shit tomorrow."

"No, I have to do this today." Although it's kind of him to offer if I don't do it today I'll never want too.

With one more squeeze to my should jack let's go. "Okay we'll through this hallway is the kitchen." We continue through the hallway to a large open kitchen. It was big with a island in the middle. "Through the large opening is the dinning area" there's a dinning room connected to the kitchen still large but smaller then the kitchen. With a large oak table with eight chairs around it. "Okay and that door leads outside closest to the barns. One the kids turned into a boys cave to hangout with there friends and the others are for the animals." We walk over to the door and opens it. It was bare land going on forever. "Okay and let's head upstairs and I'll-"

Ringing fills our ears, jack pulls out his phone and mumbles an I have to take this but looks up at me with a panicked expression. "It's fine, I'll go explore outside." He smiles and runs out of the room. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, there nice but for some reason I feel like I'm being smothered. I make my way outside and shut the door behind me. There wasn't really anything to explore, it was just bare land. I think jack said something about the couple of barns up front were for the animals. I walk over to the back of one of the barns missing all the mud puddles in the process. Once I'm out of sight of the house I find a couple of fold up chairs around a fireplace and take a seat. So this is my new home, I'm Definitely not in Kansa anymore. I pull out my phone, no text and to notifications. Not a shock. Frustrated I rummage through my purse and find my smokes. I pull out one and light it, the smoke fills my lungs and I close my eyes, finally I'm at peace and I feel like I can be myself.

"You know I think there are better places to smoke then on private property." I whip my head to the new voice to a random guy standing by the edge of the barn. He's tall, taller then most guys I've seen. His brown hair isn't to long but not exactly short either. He's standing towards the sun so I can't make out any of this features.

I bring my hand up to my eyes to Block the sun "And I think there's better places to question people's  habits then on private property, don't ya think?"

The guy moves towards me and sits on the chair furthest from me and I can finally see him. He's beautiful. "So I guess we can agree that this is private property, huh?" He smirks at me and if I was the girl from a couple of weeks ago I could die.

I pull my pack out of my purse and offer to him "want a dart?" He throws his head back and lets out a deep laugh. His voice is deep, yet soothing at the same time. Even tho my joke wasn't funny is the slightest I can tell it's a genuine laugh. He stands up and moves closer to me till we're about a couple inches away from me.

"Baby girl if I wanted to die of lung cancer I would be attached my mouth to the tractors tail pipe." He grabs the dart out of my hand and crushes it with his boot.

I jump up and push him back "wtf why did you do that?"

He looks at me and rolls his eyes, his expression turns dark with no trace of the guy who was just laughing with me. "like I said previously this is private property. So get out."

Who even is this guy. "I'm allowed to be here and if this is private property who even are you."

The unknown guy scoffs and moves to the side of the barn and opens the door and yells inside. "Henry come here! Some psycho says she's allowed to be here!"

I hear loud footsteps in the barn and about 4 guys all looking about my age appear. One moves to the front of the group and looks at me with a dumb look on his face and back to the mystery guy and shrugs  "I have no idea who she is."

The first guy turns to look at me and smirks "see like I said you should leave before I make you."

I let out a frustrated noise and push past the guys back towards the house to go talk to jack. The second guy speaks up again "hey you can't go in there!" Ignoring them I keep going towards the house when someone grabs my arm.

I'm about to start hitting who ever grabbed me with my purse. When I hear the door to the house opens and aunt Cristina comes into view. "What in the hell is going on here?" She looks at me and the boy "Henry why do you have your hands on your cousin!?"