“Promises, promises,” she replied.
The trio walked into the rink and Evan greeted his friend and introductions were made all around. He then took them to the skate rental stand and they all got skates. Sitting Sadie down, he helped her get her skates on and laced up correctly.
After putting their own skates on, both men took a hand and led her onto the skating floor. Looking around, Sadie didn’t see many other adults, all she could seem to see was kids and they all looked very young.
“I know, they are mostly kids, but just remember we are here to have fun, who cares?” Dave told her.
“Right, just have fun, okay.” Sadie smiled and took a deep breath. I can do this.
With both men holding her hands, they led her around the floor several times. Showing her how to balance and move her feet. Still holding on, they led her around a couple more times. Then suddenly they both let go at the same time.
Boom. She sat on her ass. “What the…” she said.
“Sorry, baby, I thought Dave was going to hold you,” Evan explained as he helped her up.
“Okay,” she muttered, not sure she believed him. He was grinning and had an evil look in his eyes. It felt like someone had set her up.
Dusting off her butt, she grabbed a hand from each of the guys and they started off again. She was feeling pretty good and thought she was getting the hang of it when they both suddenly let go again.
Boom, down she went. This was starting to hurt. Her ass was going to be sore if she kept this up.
“Hey, that’s not fair and I don’t have the padding to keep this up,” she whined.
“Sorry, girl. I thought Evan had you.” Dave was grinning has he helped her up and dusted her off, his hand smacking a little too hard for just a dusting.
“Look, jerk, I’m sore enough without you slapping my butt,” she snarled.
“I’ll be doing more than smacking your butt, if you don’t watch that mouth and you definitely earned one for calling me a jerk. Watch yourself, girl.” Dave looked serious, but it didn’t carry to his eyes, and he slapped her again.
Sadie knew she was being set up now, but couldn’t manage to keep her mouth shut. After falling a couple more times and telling off both of the guys, the men decided it was time to sit and talk for a while.
They took her to booth and, sitting her on the inside, Dave sat beside her and Evan sat across from her. “Okay, Sadie what’s up? You are not normally this bratty and I want to find out why you are acting this way in front of Master Evan,” Dave said as they got settled.
Sadie crossed her arms under her breasts. “It just isn’t fair. Every time I get going good, you jerks let me go and it’s on my ass I fall. I’m getting sore and I know I’m racking up a bunch of punishments for being bratty, but how am I going to learn if you keep letting me go? I’m tired of falling. I thought this was supposed to be fun for all of us. As far as I can see the only ones having fun are you two watching me fall on my ass!”
“Baby, how are you supposed to learn with us holding you up? We wait until you seem to be going good and let you go so that you can continue on your own without our support. I know it may seem cruel, but just like teaching someone to learn to ride a bike, you have to let go sometimes. If we told you we were going to let go, it would make you self-conscious and you definitely would fall. We are trying to teach you, not be mean and if you are racking up punishments it’s your own fault because of your attitude and mouth,” Evan calmly explained to her, reaching across the table and lifting her chin so that she was looking in his eyes.
“Oh,” Sadie said quietly, and looked down at the table, suddenly feeling ashamed of herself for thinking that the guys were setting her up. When she thought about it, everything Evan said was true. How was she supposed to learn if they kept holding her up? “It’s just that I thought…well it doesn’t matter what I thought. I’m sorry, Sirs, for being bratty. I’m just overwhelmed with everything that has happened in the past couple days. I mean, Dave and I were shot at last night, one or both of us could have been killed and all those kids in the complex, all it would take would be one stray bullet, and Dave was so brave and I was so scared. Now they are threatening me and what if they find out I have family? Is my family in danger? What about Dave and the people at the club, what if I’m being followed, are we all in danger? We could be in danger here and now, how do we know that someone isn’t following us and are we in danger now? I should go and stay with one of my sisters, but I don’t want my family in danger and…” All of a sudden Sadie just stopped in mid-sentence. She had turned off…again.
Evan and Dave looked at each other, “What the fuck?” they both said at the same time. “Shit, here we go again,” Dave said. “What the fuck do we do now, we have to get her reengaged, and there is no way we can put her in a cold shower here.”
“Let’s get her out to the truck and if she hasn’t come back by then we’ll figure something out,” Evan answered him.
Luckily they had removed their skates before they sat in the booth and the booth they had chosen was close to the door. They drag-walked her to the truck without too much attention. Evan lifted her up and after crawling in the driver’s side, Dave helped him get her in the truck. “Do we take her to an ER?” Dave asked Evan.
“I don’t think she would want that and they would just medicate her and probably want to keep her. We couldn’t keep her safe in the hospital. Let’s take her back to the club and I guess another cold shower if she hasn’t reengaged by then. I need to call an MD friend of mine and find out what we should be doing about this You drive and I’ll see if I can get a hold of him and get some more info.”
Evan made his call and after explaining the situation, he replied to the questions he was asked to the best of his information and disconnected the call. “Well, that was somewhat helpful, but not as helpful as I wanted. He agrees that if we took her to the ER they would hospitalize her and medicate her. He understood her and our qualms about that, but other than what we have been doing didn’t have any useful suggestions. Without seeing and talking to her, he couldn’t be sure, but he thinks it sounds like a case of PTSD. He suggested counseling, but Sadie’s already told us that did not work. He was also concerned that if she was out too long she may go into a catatonic state and be out indefinitely.”
“Shit, what do we do now? Did he have any helpful suggestions?” Dave was pretty frustrated and very worried by now.
“Not beyond what we had already discussed. If you are willing there is a creek not too far from here that we could put her in. This time of year the water should be pretty cold with the ru
noff from the snow and everything.”
“Sounds like a plan, I know where you are talking about.” Dave started driving to the creek, not knowing what else to do.
Hearing a small noise, Evan saw that Sadie was coming to. Alerting Dave so he could pull the truck over, he pulled Sadie into his arms and stroking her back whispering soothing words to her, trying to ease her back to them.