"Come back inside and let's talk. We'll keep trying her phone and I'll have the boys still go around searching because you never know."
"I can't," she sighs heavily, combing her fingers through her hair. The cool breeze flashing her skin, tossing her hair, but mostly it fanned against her teary eyes.
"Yes, you can." responds her uncle, "We just need you to calm down, for her."
After much contemplation, Raye decides to concede and follow her uncle's request. She quietly strolls back into her apartment, being greeted by four pairs of concerned eyes. They were all still saddened by Craig's untimely demise of course but also worried beyond words for Brienna. They were questioning silently if she was okay but Raye couldn't face them to let them know what was going on inside her head. The girl had no clue how she was going to face the rest of Brienna's loved ones, especially her friends.
She inevitably strides over to her room and locks herself away, quickly resurfacing her phone, dialling her girl's number again. The call went straight to voicemail quite like the numerous times before, sinking her beating heart even further.
What if Quinn had his men hurt her already? What if she was dead already, beaten? What if they defiled her body?
Raye fought against the urge to bawl her eyes out but it didn't stop her tears from flowing. She slumped against the floor, her back touching the bed and she plumped her head into her hands.
The thoughts in her head tormented her. They mocked and danced around her like clowns in a circus. They left her feeling inadequate, she felt like a failure. Raye had gambled with the one thing she loved the most in the entire world. She didn't work harder to protect the girl and she felt the brunt of it.
Sobbing quietly in the room, she cradled get head in her hand, the other held the phone tightly. She waited on standby for something, anything. She sat there for hours until she heard her uncle's voice at her door saying he and Charlie were going to make sure that the Paulsons made it home safely. Once they were gone it was just Raye and her paralyzing thoughts of doom.
* * *
"I thought I'd never get to hear your voice," a voice but of a deep timbre spoke, inciting Raye to jump out of bed. Her hand gripped her cellphone tighter, her eyes wide from the fear and adrenaline that mixed like spices within her system. The girl had been awake all night long, incessantly redialing Brie's phone hoping for a breakthrough and it finally came.
In the background she could hear the faint humming of indistinct music, filling her ears. "Where is she?" She questioned in a cool tone, doing her best to not leave Quinn aware of the fact that she was petrified and shaking as she paced the room. She was nervous, her stomaching tightened and danced from the anxiety that seeped through her bulging veins like an incapacitating drug.
"I don't know who you're talking about."
Quinn's tone was filled with amusement, he even chuckled before filling his mouth with peanuts and chewing, causing the girl to hear the crunch.
When the lines both went quiet due to their silence, he chuckled once more leaving Raye's anger to boil thick like molasses. "She isn't much of a talker." He said trying to be amusing. "But what I can tell you is that she's quite the looker. No wonder you were smacking dickless men around for her and if I were you, I'd do the same."
"Did you hurt her?"
He clicks his tongue twice at the question, amused once he heard the fear and frustration in the girl's voice. "I may be known as a savage in the streets but I don't desecrate the body of my foe's woman. At least not yet. She's fine but certainly wants to talk to you. Here," Quinn says, riping the phone from his face and placing it on speaker. Brienna looked up at him with googly eyes as if to confirm it was okay to speak. She was nervous, scared, uncertain and he enjoyed it. The scent of her fear was almost inebriating.
"Raye?" Brienna whispers and on the other end the girl sighs from relief, clutching her chest with her free hand.
"Baby, I'm so sorry."
"No, I'm the one who's sorry. He took me because I stopped at this store on the way home. I.. I wanted to surprise you with some things and before I made my way bac-"
"Brienna, stop. It's okay. It isn't your fault okay baby?" Raye was calm, she needed to be for the girl. She could hear the distress in her tone and it worried her and though Brie couldn't see Raye's face she could hear the anger in her tone and could mentally able to picture it. Stone cold brown eyes, inanimate and soulless. Firm jaw and lips sat in a thin line. Furrowed brows drew deep together. She'd seen the girl like that countless times in the past.
"I'm scared." She confides.
"I know and you have every right to be. Did anyone touch you?"
Gazing up at Quinn, Brie swallows the bile in her throat, disgusted at the smirk on the man's face. "No," He then chuckles at the response, moving away with the phone.
"See, I'm not such a bad guy after all. I'll never lay a hand on a lady and I swear b-."
"What do you want?" Raye cuts him off and he titers again, rubbing his bearded chin. He contemplates. Money was always a necessary evil, but knowing that he'd taken and possibly murdered the paramour to that pressed-a-chin bitch would leave him with a satisfaction that was unsurpassable.
"Hmm," he murmurs, pacing the floor to his private room. "I don't know what I want yet. Give me a few hours and I'll come back with something."
"Wait, wai-"
He cuts the phone off before Raye could say anything else, causing the girl to squeeze her cellphone so hard it cried out beneath her grasp. Raye wanted to sail it through the air but controls the urge. She was tired. Her lids felt heavy, but sleep would never going to come now when Brienna wasn't next to her.
Pacing her room frantically the girl that of many things. How was she going to fix this? What did Quinn want? How was she going to face Brie's friends and family? How could she have let Craig down like that? Why didn't anyone protect him more? Why did she ever drag Brie and her family into this?
She had no answers for those questions except for the latter. She loved Brienna and it's why they were caught up in the things she was apart of. She loved that woman so much and it was why her family were going through this and it was never going to stop so as long as they stayed there in the epicentre of their troubles.
Ch. Forty- One
Start from the beginning
