Chapter 81

STACEY'S POV
'Open your eyes, Stace"
'Drive faster, Jay!"
There was a jumble of different commands as I heard people screaming, it was faint, but I could still hear them. With my eyes closed, I waddled through the bushes towards the voices. Were they calling out to me? Was it mum?
The house was quiet as I walked into it, I knew I wasn't supposed to go back after mum had told me specifically to run but I was tired of waiting for her to show up. Ken was a smart kid, he was going to wait for me to get back without moving.
Sneaking around in the house made me remember the first time dad had ever laid his hands on me, it was a night I knew I wasn't ever going to forget. Even more than penny wise haunted children, the sexual assault was going to stick itself to me, my stigma.
As I started climbing the stairs, I could hear voices, faintly, coming from a far away place, echoing as I waited in the hallway to see if I would catch a sight of mum. No, it wasn't the hallway, but why did it look like it? I wasn't at the mansion anymore, right?
It sounded like people were calling out to me from a distance and my eyes felt so heavy, way too heavy. Eye bags weren't literal bags, right? Why were my eyes then so heavy all of a sudden?
'Give her space, give her space, she needs air. Give her space so she can breathe"
'Steady....steadyyy....okay, lift her up!"
'Check her pulse, hurry!"
'You'd have to......"
The voices got fainter and fainter till it died off completely. My head felt woozy, my body felt like I was elevating to a height I normally wouldn't have been able to get to. Whatever was happening to me felt good and I relaxed myself and allowed my body spiral down into the abyss. It was safe and peaceful.
DANNY'S POV
One of the unspoken rule of the nerd club was to leave anyone who didn't want to hold a conversation with you, alone. Sometimes I wonder why our rules weren't a general rule that everyone else followed.
'If you're not Jay Harley's son, why do you have the same last name as him?" Maddie was questioning the 7 year old kid as Jay drove out of the school with all of us in the car. I usually would have turned on my iPad and check on my clan's group chat but Ken was using the iPad and besides, I was interested in Maddie's interrogation.
'My mum's name is Pauline Harley. I didn't even know she had a brother until this afternoon" the kid said in protest. I had initially thought he was timid but I realized he was exactly like Frankie, shy until he gets comfortable.
Maddie wasn't buying the story, 'That makes no sense. Where have you been all this while?" She glanced from the kid to Jay whose full attention was on the road. I knew he was listening in on the conversation but he also didn't look like he wanted to give an input.
As enticing as asking questions based on curiosity was, respecting people's privacy was a far better deal for me and I decided to make Maddie see the light. 'Would you stop asking questions, Madison? You're scaring the kid and we're not interested in your satisfying your curiosity" I gave her just a piece of my mind.
It could have been too harsh, I'd admit, but at least it got her to stop bugging the kid and it made us catch on Stacey's episode fast enough. It wasn't like she had a health condition that brought about her episodes but for as long as I've known Stacey, it usually took longer for her to let go of a traumatic experience. What could be more traumatizing than having your father rape and then beat you?
I wanted to get to the hospital as fast as everyone else but it seemed like I was the only one who was worried about the red lights we were ignoring and the inhuman way Jay Harley had driven all the way there. Thinking back at it, it had been hilarious as hell when Frankie had attempted to try CPR on Stacey.
I was better at gaming and drawing than all those medical stuff like Frankie but I didn't think that was how CPR was being done on a person. I didn't air out my opinions though, I just wanted Stace to be okay and whatever Frankie had done had somehow kept her till we got to the hospital.
While we waited in the waiting room for the doctors to run their tests and get back to about the state of things, I remembered there had still been no contact with our parents. What were the chances they knew about what had happened to Stacey? It seemed Jay Harley had the same thought in his mind cause he leaned closer to Ken,
'Do you know your mum's number? We should call her and let her know the state of things" I watched him whisper to Ken who smiled and started calling out the number. Our parents numbers was usually the first important numbers they stuck in our head after the pizza delivery guy's number.
Jay must have been reading my mind cause he turned on the loudspeaker as he dialed Aunt Mel's number. She answered the call a second later like she had been waiting for it.
'Hello, who's this? Hello??" Her frantic answer confirmed my suspicions. They probably had been looking around for us.
'Hi, Mel. Its Jay, Jay Harley. I got your number from Ken..." Aunt Mel cut him off with a question,
'Ken is there with you?"
'....yes, he's here with me. That's not why I called though..." He wasn't given a chance to complete his statement again.
'Are the triplets with you too?" I heard her ask and I nodded from my seated position, Jay voiced out my thoughts,
'Yes, the triplets are with me. Melissa, listen to...." the interruptions were getting annoying so I did both of them a favor.