Now, the kissing thing was new and exciting, but the two of them made a point about not telling anyone else. If they told them, the teasing would be never ending and unbearable. So, the two of them would sneak behind doors after checking the hallway and they would jump apart whenever they heard someone coming towards where they were tucked away. The most common place that they would hang out was out back by the far shed where one of the benches was, nobody really went around there very much so the two of them would sit out there and use Ophelia's juul and make out.
A few days after the new development in their relationship occurred, there was an impressive storm raging outside of the Dumping Ground. It hammered against the windows and pounded at the door, everyone was huddled up in their warm clothes as they sat around waiting the storm out, nobody had really gone outside that day – apart from Gina when she went to go and get some food for everyone. When Gina came back, she was drenched to the skin and had to take a shower to make sure that she didn't catch a cold.
Most of the house spent the day either in their rooms or in the lounge, they had played basically every single board game in the house (including a game of monopoly that was still resting on the ground from where it was flipped off of the table.)
When the evening around, a lot of people were bored out of their minds. Gina had already gone home, and Tracy and Mike were left alone on night shift. As the evening wore on, the storm got worse, thunder and lightning were now being included in the line-up.
Liam, Frank and Ophelia were sat on the sofa watching the England game, Frank was very excited while the other two were watching it to make sure that Frank was happy enough. Just as the game got underway, the power went out.
"Ugh, what?" Frank complained as he got up from the sofa and headed towards the TV to see if he could turn it back on.
The electricity didn't come straight on, so everyone in lounge moved into the kitchen where they knew Tracy was along with Gus and Carmen. They all sat down on the stools as they watched Tracy pull out a few lanterns and set them down onto the counter. She handed one to each of the kids and they all turned them on. Of course, someone shone one in someone else's eyes straight away. Which was basically law when given a lantern.
"We can get emergency takeaway pizza!" Tracy chimed as she handed out a few pizza delivery pamphlets to each of the kids, they handed round a piece of paper to write down what they wanted.
Johnny tried to get people to play him in pool, but nobody would, which led to Tyler spooking him with some doll that he must have found in the junk cupboard. They all looked at each other to convey how weird Tyler is, but before they could talk about it – the alarm at the door went off. Ah, pizza. All of them jumped up from where they were sat and made their way down towards the kitchen.
Ophelia headed over and helped Tracy pour some juice into some cups, "I really hope that that's the pizza, I'm starving."
Everyone else charged into the kitchen and Liam took some cups from Ophelia and put them onto the table, he gave her a little wink when he mimed pouring one onto her. He got a good smack on the arm for that one.
When Gus walked back into the kitchen empty handed, Tracy asked where the pizzas were. Turns out, it wasn't the pizza guy at the door, and it was actually the electricity guy, who for some reason Gus didn't let into the house. Most of the house rushed back towards the front door to see if they could usher the guy back, obviously he was already long gone.
So, instead of pizza, they ate whatever they could make without using electricity. Which was an odd mixture of cereal, sandwiches, cold soup and dessert. Ophelia opted to eat some cold soup, which was an odd experience, but it filled her up, so it didn't really matter.
After they ate, all of the kids moved back into the lounge and Ophelia pressed herself to Liam's side and he put his arm around the back of the sofa to make room for her. Johnny took it upon himself to tell a ghost story.
"Then, someone banged on her window hard- "Johnny had gotten part way into his story before he was cut off by a taunting Tyler.
Tyler had stood up from where he was sat on the pool table and walked towards Johnny slightly, "We've heard this a million times, can't we get something different? Don't you know anything not completely overused Johnny?"
That set Johnny off, who was already angry at Tyler for earlier when he embarrassed him. Johnny launched towards Tyler and started slamming him against the pool table, of course the rest of the kids only encouraged this as they shouted 'fight'. Ophelia and Liam got off of the sofa quickly, Liam grabbed Johnny from behind and pulled him away from Tyler while Ophelia stood between the two fighting boys and dodged the kicks that Johnny was trying to throw at Tyler, who was hidden behind Ophelia.
"Stop it!" Tracy ran in and pulled Tyler away from where Liam was holding Johnny back.
When Tyler carried on talking about the story that Johnny was telling, Johnny went for him again, which was silly as Tracy was still holding him back. Tyler then told his own story, about an electrician that came to his house one stormy night, it definitely scared Johnny which was quite funny.
After that lovely story, Tracy told them all to head upstairs and go to bed. Ophelia slipped on a big hoodie and a long pair of pyjama pants, it was cold in the house without the heating and if she wore anything less, she would have frozen.
Just as she was heading downstairs to grab a glass of water, she noticed Liam and Frank stood in front of the front door, and it was wide open.
"What's going on?" Ophelia questioned right before Liam shouted for Tracy rather frantically.
The care worker came down the stairs very quickly and looked towards the door, she was shocked, "But I shut this before you all went to bed!"
Tracy rushed forwards and shut the door and bolted the latch, all the commotion had brought the rest of the residents downstairs – all of them were wearing their nightclothes and a confused expression.
"Who did this? Has someone gone out?" Tracy questioned everyone as she walked back towards them and shone her torch onto each of them.
"No one got out, who got in?" Johnny helpfully questioned what everyone was thinking, note the sarcasm there.
Ophelia rolled her eyes, "thanks Johnny, way to go getting everyone freaked out again."
Of course, Johnny didn't like that so he snapped back as lowly as he could, "yeah well at least I'm not the one who has a breakdown over everything, maybe they should have sent you away with Kitty."
The young girl hated this insinuation that she was out of it enough that she should be sent to a special care unit, clearly not a lot of the other residents were impressed with Johnny's comment either as they all hissed at him. But, before someone could speak and probably shout at the young boy for that comment, Ophelia lunged forwards and shoved him harshly onto the sofa.
Johnny being Johnny, wouldn't exactly lay down and take this. He pulled down on Ophelia's drawstrings of her hoodie so that he could kick her harshly on the shin. The two of them fought for a few more moments before Ophelia was pulled off of where she was hitting Johnny harshly on the stomach by Liam, who was talking in her ear desperately trying to get her to calm down.
It was rather ironic really, two victims of the same type of abuse fighting using violence.
Ophelia struggled against where Liam was holding her back, he was the only one who stepped in to stop the fight - the others seemed to think that Johnny was quite deserving of what he got and hadn't made any effort to stop them.
"You absolute wanker Johnny!" Ophelia shouted as she continued to harshly struggle against Liam's grip on her, "you take that back right now."
Johnny had sat up on the sofa, "as if! Even If I did take it back it won't stop you from crying all night to Liam about it. Boo hoo Johnny made fun of me."
This time, Ophelia managed to pull herself and Liam forward a little closer to where Johnny was now stood up. When she saw an opportunity, she kicked Johnny in the stomach and he recoiled back down onto the sofa, partly in shock that she managed to get that in, as he hadn't seen it coming.
Clearly, Tracy had had enough of the squabbling and got herself between them, "really you two? Right, Johnny apologise right now."
A squawk of indignation arose from Johnny, "Why should I? She's the one who started beating me up."
"Uh, what you said was bang out of line." Lily piped up; multiple sounds of agreement followed her statement.
Johnny huffed and crossed his arms before he let out what had to be the weakest, "sorry" in existence.
Ophelia wasn't going to even acknowledge it, but Tracy gave her a sharp look, so Ophelia mumbled out an acceptance of his apology. Liam's arms were still wrapped around the teen girl, as there was every chance that she could go for Johnny again, well, that and the fact that he was enjoying the warmth that the girl gave off. Tracy shot Liam an appreciative look when he moved himself and Ophelia away from Johnny and put some of the other residents between the two.
As the commotion died down, the questions started back up.
"Maybe someone's broken in?"
"What if that escaped prisoner got in?"
"Maybe Mike came back and forgot to lock the door?"
All of the questions piled up, most of them to do with robbers and the prisoner. Tracy tried her best to reassure them with most of them, like the fact that the door wasn't forced open and that they would have noticed if someone had come into the house.
"So, who did it?" Tracy questioned. There was a beat of silence before everyone turned to make their torches illuminate Elektra, no surprise there then.
Clearly, Elektra wasn't surprised either, "wow, what a shock." She said in the blandest voice known to man. "Something happens and naturally everyone blames me."
"Because it normally is you." Liam and Ophelia said at the same time, one tone in a boring acknowledgement of fact and the other in a 'are you serious' tone.
As Carmen was still nervous about someone being in the house, they devised that it was best for them to do a search of the house to put everyone's mind at rest. They decided to split up. Tracy immediately decided that there was no way that Ophelia and Johnny were going to be let anywhere near each other, so Tracy would take Johnny for the search while Ophelia would go with some of the other kids. The girl ended up searching with Carmen and Lily, the three girls were tasked to check all of the rooms in the far left of the house and unsurprisingly, there was nobody hiding in any of the bedrooms.
All of the kids assembled on the stairs when they had finished searching and Tracy addressed them all, "there is no one in the house, all of the windows and doors are locked. Someone here opened that door, so just go to bed and stay there."
Ophelia trudged back up to her bedroom. Even though her rational side was saying that there was nobody in the house and there was nothing to be afraid of, she was still afraid of being alone that night. She knew that Tee was going in with Lily and Carmen for the night so that wasn't an option as she would have to sleep on the outside of them and not in the middle of the girls beds as that's where Tee was set up.
For a moment, she stood on the landing alone before she moved towards Liam's room. She wrapped her knuckles on the door gently before she pushed it open, she saw Liam lying in bed on his phone (which wasn't allowed in the bedrooms) and he was looking towards the door, almost as if he was expecting Ophelia to come into his room. Ophelia stood at the doorway for a long moment before Liam extended his arms in a hug gesture.
Grinning, Ophelia swung the door shut and climbed into Liam's bed with him, she cuddled up into his arms after she took her big hoodie off and settled down with her head resting just a few inches away from his.
"Hi." Liam whispered softly as he squeezed Ophelia's waist gently.
Ophelia smiled, "hi."
The two of them breathed together for a long moment before Liam spoke up again, "you okay? You really went for Johnny earlier."
"Yeah, I'm fine. He just got on my nerves." Ophelia reassured him as she leant into the gentle touch that he gave her.
"It's Johnny, he always gets on everyone's nerves." Liam whispered with a hint of a laugh in his voice.
She hummed as she let her eyes close slightly, Liam took this as a cue and kissed her lips gently. A small smile pulled at her lips as she kissed him back, their lips slid together in a dance that only the two of them knew. Ophelia drew herself closer to Liam and placed her hand onto his face and smoothed over it slightly.
Ophelia let out a low keen when Liam teased his tongue past her lips, she separated them for a moment just to sit up and place herself back down onto Liam's lap. Ophelia leant back down and re-joined their lips; they were breaking the rule through the main reason about why girls and boys can't be in a bedroom with the door closed. Liam's hands rested on Ophelia's waist and he was rubbing up and down her sides softly until her tee-shirt caught on his hands and he touched the bare skin of her waist.
Liam rolled them over and pressed Ophelia down on his bed, he separated their lips and instead he kissed down her neck until he reached her collarbones. He caught her skin and started leaving a trail of hickeys in his wake. Just as Ophelia was giving him some back on his lower neck, there was a scream from down the hallway – Carmen.
The two of them jumped up, but before they could leave Liam's room, they recalled the trails of purple on their skin. Ophelia pulled on the first hoodie that she saw, which was Liam's she would later realise, and made sure that the marks were fully hidden. Luckily, Liam's were already covered by his pyjamas.
The rest of the house were also running towards Carmen's room, everyone walked inside but they couldn't see the pink clad girl anywhere. After a moment of looking, they found her crouched in the corner mostly out of view.
Tracy crouched down to comfort Carmen after the young girl said that there was definitely a stranger in her room. People tried to convince her that maybe she imagined it or maybe she was dreaming but Carmen was sure that she had seem someone come into her room. It was then that Tee and Lily returned from wherever they were, they feigned going downstairs to get a drink, which was an excuse that Tracy saw right through and definitely didn't believe. Then, Tracy ordered them all to go to bed and to stay in bed but given how long that order lasted last time it seemed unlikely that there wouldn't be another incident that night.
Now that Carmen had said that she had seen someone come in, a lot of people were making camps in other people's rooms, if Elektra went into Carmen's room with the other girls no one was going to mention it for fear of death.
Ophelia stayed in Liam's room and this time all they did was fall asleep – too tired for much thought on anything else that they could have been doing. For a few hours, must have been around two hours, they got undisturbed sleep and just remained tangled up together.
As ever, this peace doesn't last very long as this time they are all awoken by Gus screaming. They all ran over quickly as Gus wasn't one for dramatics so something must have actively been wrong, this was proven correct when they saw that Gus's room had been absolutely wrecked. No wonder he had been set off.
Understandably, Tracy was furious about someone messing up Gus's room, "Right! Who did this! You better own up now."
Surprise, surprise, nobody owned up and instead they found a note scribbled onto one of Gus's notebooks 'beware the electrician.' Everyone turned their torches towards Tyler – which was again, a fair assumption.
Before Tyler could be properly grilled on what was going on, there was a crash downstairs. Everyone froze. Cautiously, the whole house moved downstairs to try and see what was going on and they found a set of dirt trodden footprints leading down towards the kitchen.
Tracy urged everyone to head upstairs so that she could check it out.
"Uh, we aren't leaving you to get shanked by some prisoner." Ophelia whispered furiously as she gripped her torch.
Liam and Elektra agreed with her. The three of them armed themselves with rudimentary weapons including; an umbrella, a toy axe, a plastic rounders bat and a broken plastic guitar toy. Ready for battle, or death, one of the two.
The attack party of four quietly snuck around the hallway and down towards the kitchen, luckily the thunder that was still shouting away outside masked the sound of their footsteps as they approached the kitchen door. Elektra looked around the corner to the kitchen and saw a figure stood there, this was then confirmed when Tracy looked around the corner and saw the same thing. Nobody wanted to be the one who went out into the dim light first, so rather bravely, Tracy pushed Elektra to go forwards.
One going forwards gave the others enough confidence to do the same, all of them ran towards the figure and started hitting them with the item in their hand. They carried on until Tracy recognised that it was Seth, someone who occasionally helped out at the care home – obviously they had no idea that he was coming. Elektra gave him a good few more smacks even after she knew that he posed no threat.
The commotion caused the other residents of the house to come back downstairs, from where they were all perched on the landing huddled together listening for whatever they could, and to check what was going on. Tracy led them all to the lounge and they listened to Seth explain what was going on.
"The storms caused chaos, roads closed, trees down and there's no buses or cabs. I had to walk all the way here, that's why it took so long." Seth explained while he was draped in a fluffy pink towel that someone had found for him.
"And you're sure the door was open?" Tracy double checked; he had mentioned the detail earlier on how he got in without forcing the lock.
That meant someone opened the door, again. Great.
After a brief squabble between Tyler and Johnny, Tracy ordered everyone to head back to bed, again. Seth and Tracy wished them all good night, and everyone bounded up the stairs as nobody wanted to be the last one up.
But before they could all split off into their respective rooms, Elektra stopped them all, "Tracy may have let you off easy but that doesn't mean that I will. Whoever's been messing around here better watch out, as when I found out who it is – well you'll be sorry."
Liam snorted with laughter, "oooh, I'm shaking."
Elektra just snarked right back at him before they all split back up and headed to bed. Every time one of the scares of the night were over, Ophelia would lose all her adrenaline and would get very sleepy very quickly. So, she mindlessly let Liam lead her back into his room and tuck her back into bed. She was out like a light.
Nobody noticed Tyler and Johnny making a plan to 'catch Elektra out' as Johnny had worded it.
Everyone noticed it when Harry was screaming and waking up Tracy, this time Ophelia just continued to lay in Liam's bed while he went to go and see what was going on. When Liam returned only a couple of minutes later, he recounted it to her quickly (basically Johnny had been behind most of the stuff that had been happening in the night). Ophelia barely caught the end of his explanation before she was asleep again.
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Morning brought with it both the sun and many broken things from the storm. Most of the kids were up very early due to the restless night that they had, Ophelia was up extra early to make sure that nobody saw her sneaking out of Liam's room. Nobody recognised that she was walking in and out of Liam's room last night with all the confusion, which was partly a miracle.
Ophelia slipped into a pair of baggy jeans along with a solid black sweatshirt that covered her collarbones well, she didn't really have any plans for that day and was pondering about what she could get up to. Maybe once the electricity was finally turned back on and she charged her phone, she would decide. Luckily, she didn't have to wait for too long as the electricity guys must have swung around and fixed it. As soon as her phone had some percentage, she started scrolling through anything that she may have missed. Not a lot.
She walked downstairs and found everybody in the lounge crowded around the TV, "what's going on?"
"We get to watch Tracy when she was little." Frank filled her in, amusement obvious.
All of them laughed when a girl with very curly hair popped up and said that her hobbies include both listening and playing classical music – an obvious lie.
Everyone laughed andlaughed.
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[UNEDITED]
Hope you enjoyed this chapter! It is a little less plot driven but the next one will definitely make up for it, promise.
We have nearly reached the end of this story, I never intended it to be very long and my plan for that still hasn't changed. There will be maybe two or three more chapters more and then that's it for this book before it heads into the editing stage.
Hope you enjoyed!
Love,
Ellie x