Monsters' Crew (Crude Hill High 1)

If the guys could see me now, they’d think I was going crazy. They wouldn’t be wrong. I didn’t care about a girl’s bedroom.

Emily had slid onto our radar, and like my friends, I couldn’t seem to get her out of my mind. Not that I wanted to.

When I heard footsteps coming toward her bedroom, I hid in the closet, not wanting to give away my position, at least not yet. My dad told me to lay low when it came to Emily. They were working out the Crane problem. There was only one issue I saw, that he was bargaining Emily off to a stranger without first consulting his bosses. That was a bad idea.

“I checked her laundry basket, Anne. You don’t have to go in there,” a woman said.

“I have to check. You know what he’s like.” Through the doorway, I saw a redhead and a brunette enter the room. They were dressed in maid’s uniforms.

“I don’t know why. He keeps her in his office now. I can’t believe we have to bring her underwear to him. It’s freaky,” the brunette said.

“Don’t let anyone hear you say that.”

“It’s weird, Anne. Come on. If your dad asked to see your underwear at the end of each day?”

“She doesn’t know,” Anne said.

“Poor girl.”

“Look at the life she lives, Lee. She’s not hurting for a good life.”

Lee snorted. “This is a good life? Look at the way she moves her bedroom. She’s terrified. I’ve seen the bruises on her and I’ve heard her crying. She’s all alone here. We have better lives. What he makes her go through… You may not feel for her, but I do. I care.”

“Yeah, well, she’s going to be a rich wife, and we’ll be nothing but washed-up old maids. You’re right, no panties.”

“What do you think he does with the panties?” Lee asked. “Sniffs them or something?”

“Ew, gross. I don’t know. Don’t care. He’s obsessed with her staying a virgin and I hear the Monsters are sniffing around her. It has him even more pissed.”

They left the bedroom and I stepped out of the closet.

Wow. Fucking wow.

I’d been kidnapped. Trapped. Unable to get out. Tortured, close to death, but I didn’t know what was worse. Knowing I was going to die, or living a life I didn’t know if there was any out of.

Emily lived this life every single day.

She got up knowing there was going to be pain. Waiting to see what her father would do next. It was why she never had friends. She kept to herself.

I moved toward the bed, resting my feet up, and looked over at her drawer.

In my hand, I already held the blade she had used to save Gael.

Out of curiosity, I opened the drawer and found some notebooks. I picked one up and flicked it open. It was blank.

The one underneath, I opened that to find a literal diary of her day. Going to class, what she studied. It was more of a monologue of activity. I went to English. We read Shakespeare. A couple guys said something stupid. Bell rang. There was no flow, and I knew she could write.

This was clearly done because she knew even in her own personal thoughts, she wasn’t alone. Her dad had people watching every single moment. I didn’t know how she could cope with that.

Closing the book, I was about to put it back in when the recognizable point of a blade caught my attention. It was beneath a few other things wrapped in some cloth. I pulled it out and looked at it.

There was something about the blade that captured my attention. I didn’t know what it was.

She had a knife on her in school. Now she had one next to where she slept at night.

Why did she have it? For what purpose? With the bruises I’d caught sight of, she could have killed her father or brother, given the chance.

I heard the footsteps approaching, but I made no move to put the blade away.

Emily stepped into her bedroom, pausing when she saw me. Her face went pale and she looked behind her before closing the door.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, whispering.

I held up the knife. “What is this?” I asked.

“Is this any of your business?” She rushed toward me as if to take the blade off me, but I held it out of her reach.

“Don’t be a dick,” she said.

“You use some naughty words. Does your dad know how bad you are?”

She glared at me and tried to reach. I moved, nudging her hand out of the way so she had no choice but to collapse on top of me. Her curvy body pressed to mine, and I couldn’t handle it, so I rolled her until she lay beneath me.

I dropped her blade to the bed and smirked down at her. “Well, well, well, this is a rather interesting position.”