Sequel: For Better or Worse ›
Status: Complete. Thank you for reading. :)
For the Best
Expendable
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
^*Zacky’s POV*^
“Can you please speed up?” I asked Brian for the fiftieth time. We were headed home, with no recollection of why Matt didn’t pick us up at the bar last night.
“Shut the fuck up and stop whining.” Brian snapped, not in a good mood at all. I sighed, resting my head over against the window. “Why didn’t Matt pick us up?” He asked after a moment, his mood lightening and mine darkening.
“I don’t know, he could’ve fallen asleep, or we may have never even called him.” I muttered, feeling terrible, and he sighed.
“Shouldn’t we call him now, though?” He began to sound slightly worried. “I mean, what if something bad happened? He’s always worried about us enough to usually come pick us up when we need him, whether we call him or not.” Brian had a good point, but anything could have happened. With Saylee’s psychotically over-protective parents and uncle on a wild hunt for her, and wanting to get Matt locked up behind bars, literally anything could have happened.
“Just wait until we get back to your place.” I said, not wanting to risk waking Matt up, and getting him all pissed off. “If he’s there, then he’s asleep and there’s no use in calling him and waking him up. The last thing we need is to be greeted with a fire poker to the face because we disturbed his beauty rest.”
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
^*Saylee’s POV*^
“Saylee, you sure you’re alright?” Benji asked me once more and I nodded, taking a deep breath as I pushed my breakfast around my plate, my fork breaking the yolk of the egg and it bled out onto the plate into a yellow puddle. I kept stabbing at the egg, not feeling like eating. “You just gonna…sit there and …murder the poor egg?” Benji asked, and his words did bring a smile to my face. It faded after a moment, and Benji stayed silent for a minute until he sighed. “I’ll go talk to your parents today about Matthew, alright?” I looked up at him at his words. “I don’t like seeing you this way.”
“Benji, it’s no use, Matt and I are already over.” I said, and he shook his head, putting his napkin down.
“No, you guys can’t be over. I don’t like the guy one bit, and I think he’s bad news, but you’re…you’re so attached to him, that I can’t take seeing you like this over him. I’ll talk your parents down into getting him out, and you guys are gonna work shit out, because you’re mood’s killin’ me.” He said, and sighed again. “See what I go through for you? I’m willing to face my brother again after he tossed me down the road, and get your good-for-nothing boyfriend out of the slammer, and you won’t even eat my cooking.” He smiled as he stood up. “So hard to please.”
“Thank you, Benji.” I said, standing up and hugging him.
“No problem, sweetheart. Let me go take a shower and I’ll be out of here in thirty minutes.” He said and pulled away from me.
“Shave that dead animal off your face as well!” I called as he walked towards the stairs.
“My baby?! You’re crazy!” He chuckled, and I shook my head with a smile as I gather our plates. He knew I hated the fucking beard that he never wanted to cut. It made him look like a guy that had been living in the mountains for sixty years, and lived off of the land. But, it was who he was, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I scraped my uneaten food into the trash and put the dishes in the sink, and just before I turned the water on to start washing them, my phone rang. I reached into my pocket, but didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?” I answered curiously.
“Saylee!” I was greeted with Brian’s relieved voice. “Are you alright?”
“Yea, I’m fine-”
“She’s okay, Zacky, she’s fine.” Brian said quickly, and then came back to the phone. “Saylee, where are you? Is Matt with you? Is he okay?”
“I’m at my uncle’s place.” I answered, my voice getting quiet.
“Do you know where Matt is?”
“Yea, he’s in jail. He got pulled over last night.”
“Zacky, Mat’s in jail, he got pulled over.” Brian told Zacky on the other end.
“That’s why he didn’t come pick us up.” I heard Zacky’s voice faintly.
“Actually,” I began. “He got to the bar, but Brian, in your drunken state, you told Matt about Zacky and I.” Brian went completely silent as I said this.
“Oh my god.” I heard Zacky’s voice first. “Oh my god.” Zacky’s voice got even quieter.
“Saylee, I am so sorry, I’m so… I would have never-” Brian began, but I cut him off.
“It’s okay, Brian. He would have found out sometime, and…I guess it was better that way.” I whispered, feeling the tears in my eyes.
“Where are you, again?” Brian asked once more.
“I’m at my uncle Benji’s.” I answered again.
“Where is that? We need to talk.” Zacky’s voice was back, but it was louder, meaning he had the phone now. I thought for a moment, not sure about giving him the address. Did I really want to face him right now? I mean…after all, he was half of the news that broke Matt and I relationship off, me being the other half. And Benji…how would he react? I didn’t want to be alone right now, though, and Benji couldn’t give me the comfort that I needed, because he wasn’t very good with comforting a person. I gave Brian the address, and he said that he and Zacky would be over in thirty minutes. I quickly washed the dishes, and as I got done there was a loud thud from upstairs.
“DAMMIT!” Benji screamed, sounding half in pain, and half pissed.
“Benji!? Are you alright?!” I asked, walking out of the kitchen.
“THE DAMN SHOWER- F-” His voice cut off and there was the sound of someone slipping and then the sound of something metal falling to the tile. “I’M FINE, ONE SECOND!” He yelled after a second, and I stopped halfway up the stairs, hearing shuffling, and then the door opened, and Benji ran out, in his jeans. “I need your help, the shower’s all fucked up!” He yelled urgently and I ran on up the stairs as he darted away. I ran to the bathroom to see him holding up a towel to the shower faucet that continued to spray water everywhere, because the shower head had somehow gotten ripped off. The water was spraying really hard, making it almost sting as it hit your skin, and nearly impossible to get near enough to shut it off.
“Benji! Just go shut the water off!” I yelled and he nodded, and stepped back, handing me the towel, and I kept it up as he ran from the room. I kept trying to inch my way forward, but each time the water would begin soaking through the towel and spray me, and soon I just said ‘fuck it’ and ran forward, clamping the towel over the opening, and just as I did, the water stopped, and slowed to a drip.
“DID IT STOP?!” Benji yelled up from the basement, and I heard his feet running out.
“IT STOPPED!” I confirmed, taking the towel down, and dropping it as I wiped my wet hair back from my forehead. Benji appeared in the doorway, still soaked as well. “What the fuck did you do?” I asked, turning towards him, and he stepped in.
“The shower head just busted in two, and flew off.” He said, picking up a shattered piece of shower faucet.
“Good lord…” I muttered, looking down at myself. I was covered in not only water, but some kind of black sludge from the inside of the wall as well.
“Well, I can’t turn the water back on, so it seems like you’ll be showering in the backyard.” Benji grinned and grabbed a towel from the cabinet that wasn’t soaked and threw it to me. I just glared at him.
“I should shoot you in the foot.” I told him, failing at trying to keep a smile off of my face, and he just laughed as I grabbed the body wash and shampoo and walked off to my room, grabbing some clean clothes. I made my way down the stairs and through the kitchen and into the backyard and over to the water spigot. Benji had the three wall of an outhouse up around it, because a few months ago something had happened to the water and he had to shower outside. I walked over and put my clothes on a stump on the dry side of the wall, and picked up the sprayer attachment. I stepped behind the makeshift wall that he had bolted to the ground, and turned on the water, and twisted the sprayer on before I locked it to continuously spray and then fixed it atop the wall to rain down. It was redneck as all get-out, but it would have to work, and maybe I could get out before Zacky and Brian got here, though as I grabbed my shampoo bottle, and in the process slipped down in the newly forming puddle of mud, I doubted it.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
^*Benji’s POV*^
I had gotten the bathroom mopped up, and everything cleaned up. I just had to go get a new shower head, and knobs. As I walked out of the laundry room from putting all of the wet towels in the washer, I heard a knock on the front door, and automatically assumed that it was Saleigh, so I quickly jogged to the front door, and opened it with a smirk, but that quickly faded. I recognized one of the men in front of me, but only one; Zachary. Standing beside him was another man maybe a little taller, with black spikey hair, and tattoos covering his arms.
“The hell do you want?” I spat, a glare in my eyes, fully prepared to slam the door in their faces.
“Benji, uh…we just came to talk to Saylee. Her and Matt’s relationship is fucked up, and it’s kind of my fault.” Zachary said, and I slowly nodded.
“Who’s your friend?” I asked, gesturing to the other guy.
“I’m Brian…I just came because I was concerned.” The other guy spoke, and I thought for a second.
“And you two are here…?” I trailed off.
“We wanted to talk to Saylee, and make sure she’s okay, and see if we can try to fix shit.” Zachary said.
“Alright.” I stepped aside and they came in, and I walked towards the couch, sitting down and patting the empty spots beside me. The two slowly stepped over from the door, Zack on my left, and Brian on my right. “So, what do you know?” I asked, looking between the two.
“Well…I kissed Saylee, and Matt’s got a warrant out for his arrest, and last night Brian and I went to a bar and when Matt came to pick us up, Brain accidentally let it slip that I had kissed Say, and Matt got pissed, and sometime in his speeding to get home, he got pulled over and arrested.” Zack spoke really fast, sounding nervous and unnerved by just being so close to me.
“And we woke up this morning at the bar, went back to my place, found that Matt and her were gone, and Zacky found Saylee’s cell number, and we called her, and she gave us your address. We were worried.” Brian sounded genuine.
“Well, I have to go to her parents’ house, I was going to talk to them and see if they’d maybe just talk to Matthew, and let him out with promises of simply staying away from her-”
“But you can’t do that to them, they-” Brian cut me off, just to be cut off.
“Loved each other, Brian. Loved. I screwed that up, remember?” Zacky cut Brian off, and I sighed.
“As I was saying,” I began sternly, cutting the two of them off. “I was going to go pick up Matthew, bring him back here, and have them talk it out. If shit went downhill, he’d go out, and if things went okay, I was going to let him stay here. When her parents would call and question me about Saylee and Matt, I’d tell them that I hadn’t seen Matthew since they broke up, and that Saleigh was fine, just not wanting to come home, or if they came over, I’d send Matt out back, or over to the lake for a while, and things would work out.” I took a deep breath, hating the plan I had come up with my short time in the shower, but also just wanting Saylee to be happy again and not so down all the time. “I don’t like seeing my little girl broken and I’ll go the distance to keep a smile on her face.” I said and they both looked at me, their expressions softening.
“So you’re on our side?” Zachary questioned and I nodded.
“I don’t have much of a choice.” I stood up. “I need to get over there and talk to her parents now before Matt gets ripped to pieces down at the station.” I turned and looked at them. “I’m trusting you two here alone, in the house, with a girl I like to think of as my daughter.” I said, spacing my words to make sure they understood me. “When I come back, if there’s a single scratch on her, I’ll cut the both of you up, and scatter your body parts around five different states, and feed whatever’s left over to the fish out back in the lake. If I come home and find either one of you within one foot of her, I’ll follow through with that plan. There will be no touching, no kissing, no hugging, and, you know what, don’t even breathe in her direction, because I’m afraid you might’ve drugged yourself in order to drug her. One more time, no kissing, no hugging, no touching, no breathing, and stay at least a foot away or you’ll be fish bait.” They just stared at me as they slowly nodded. “You two are meaningless to me, all you’re here for right now is to help her and comfort her. But I will kill you. Both of you.” I told them, and then began walking to the door after they nodded.
“W-where is Saylee?” Brian asked after I got to the door.
“She’s out back taking a shower because the faucet in the bathroom upstairs exploded. And if you harm her you’ll explode into a million pieces while I laugh in the background.” I answered, and walked out of the house, and as I walked past their SUV, I bent down, pulling the caps off of both of the front tires, and letting the air out before I looked inside, grinning when I saw the keys. I opened the door, reached in, and grabbed them. I guess letting the air out of their tires wasn’t needed after all, but I wasn’t going to let them kidnap her. They had taken her away once with Matthew’s help, and I wasn’t letting that happen again.
^*Zacky’s POV*^
“Can you please speed up?” I asked Brian for the fiftieth time. We were headed home, with no recollection of why Matt didn’t pick us up at the bar last night.
“Shut the fuck up and stop whining.” Brian snapped, not in a good mood at all. I sighed, resting my head over against the window. “Why didn’t Matt pick us up?” He asked after a moment, his mood lightening and mine darkening.
“I don’t know, he could’ve fallen asleep, or we may have never even called him.” I muttered, feeling terrible, and he sighed.
“Shouldn’t we call him now, though?” He began to sound slightly worried. “I mean, what if something bad happened? He’s always worried about us enough to usually come pick us up when we need him, whether we call him or not.” Brian had a good point, but anything could have happened. With Saylee’s psychotically over-protective parents and uncle on a wild hunt for her, and wanting to get Matt locked up behind bars, literally anything could have happened.
“Just wait until we get back to your place.” I said, not wanting to risk waking Matt up, and getting him all pissed off. “If he’s there, then he’s asleep and there’s no use in calling him and waking him up. The last thing we need is to be greeted with a fire poker to the face because we disturbed his beauty rest.”
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
^*Saylee’s POV*^
“Saylee, you sure you’re alright?” Benji asked me once more and I nodded, taking a deep breath as I pushed my breakfast around my plate, my fork breaking the yolk of the egg and it bled out onto the plate into a yellow puddle. I kept stabbing at the egg, not feeling like eating. “You just gonna…sit there and …murder the poor egg?” Benji asked, and his words did bring a smile to my face. It faded after a moment, and Benji stayed silent for a minute until he sighed. “I’ll go talk to your parents today about Matthew, alright?” I looked up at him at his words. “I don’t like seeing you this way.”
“Benji, it’s no use, Matt and I are already over.” I said, and he shook his head, putting his napkin down.
“No, you guys can’t be over. I don’t like the guy one bit, and I think he’s bad news, but you’re…you’re so attached to him, that I can’t take seeing you like this over him. I’ll talk your parents down into getting him out, and you guys are gonna work shit out, because you’re mood’s killin’ me.” He said, and sighed again. “See what I go through for you? I’m willing to face my brother again after he tossed me down the road, and get your good-for-nothing boyfriend out of the slammer, and you won’t even eat my cooking.” He smiled as he stood up. “So hard to please.”
“Thank you, Benji.” I said, standing up and hugging him.
“No problem, sweetheart. Let me go take a shower and I’ll be out of here in thirty minutes.” He said and pulled away from me.
“Shave that dead animal off your face as well!” I called as he walked towards the stairs.
“My baby?! You’re crazy!” He chuckled, and I shook my head with a smile as I gather our plates. He knew I hated the fucking beard that he never wanted to cut. It made him look like a guy that had been living in the mountains for sixty years, and lived off of the land. But, it was who he was, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I scraped my uneaten food into the trash and put the dishes in the sink, and just before I turned the water on to start washing them, my phone rang. I reached into my pocket, but didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?” I answered curiously.
“Saylee!” I was greeted with Brian’s relieved voice. “Are you alright?”
“Yea, I’m fine-”
“She’s okay, Zacky, she’s fine.” Brian said quickly, and then came back to the phone. “Saylee, where are you? Is Matt with you? Is he okay?”
“I’m at my uncle’s place.” I answered, my voice getting quiet.
“Do you know where Matt is?”
“Yea, he’s in jail. He got pulled over last night.”
“Zacky, Mat’s in jail, he got pulled over.” Brian told Zacky on the other end.
“That’s why he didn’t come pick us up.” I heard Zacky’s voice faintly.
“Actually,” I began. “He got to the bar, but Brian, in your drunken state, you told Matt about Zacky and I.” Brian went completely silent as I said this.
“Oh my god.” I heard Zacky’s voice first. “Oh my god.” Zacky’s voice got even quieter.
“Saylee, I am so sorry, I’m so… I would have never-” Brian began, but I cut him off.
“It’s okay, Brian. He would have found out sometime, and…I guess it was better that way.” I whispered, feeling the tears in my eyes.
“Where are you, again?” Brian asked once more.
“I’m at my uncle Benji’s.” I answered again.
“Where is that? We need to talk.” Zacky’s voice was back, but it was louder, meaning he had the phone now. I thought for a moment, not sure about giving him the address. Did I really want to face him right now? I mean…after all, he was half of the news that broke Matt and I relationship off, me being the other half. And Benji…how would he react? I didn’t want to be alone right now, though, and Benji couldn’t give me the comfort that I needed, because he wasn’t very good with comforting a person. I gave Brian the address, and he said that he and Zacky would be over in thirty minutes. I quickly washed the dishes, and as I got done there was a loud thud from upstairs.
“DAMMIT!” Benji screamed, sounding half in pain, and half pissed.
“Benji!? Are you alright?!” I asked, walking out of the kitchen.
“THE DAMN SHOWER- F-” His voice cut off and there was the sound of someone slipping and then the sound of something metal falling to the tile. “I’M FINE, ONE SECOND!” He yelled after a second, and I stopped halfway up the stairs, hearing shuffling, and then the door opened, and Benji ran out, in his jeans. “I need your help, the shower’s all fucked up!” He yelled urgently and I ran on up the stairs as he darted away. I ran to the bathroom to see him holding up a towel to the shower faucet that continued to spray water everywhere, because the shower head had somehow gotten ripped off. The water was spraying really hard, making it almost sting as it hit your skin, and nearly impossible to get near enough to shut it off.
“Benji! Just go shut the water off!” I yelled and he nodded, and stepped back, handing me the towel, and I kept it up as he ran from the room. I kept trying to inch my way forward, but each time the water would begin soaking through the towel and spray me, and soon I just said ‘fuck it’ and ran forward, clamping the towel over the opening, and just as I did, the water stopped, and slowed to a drip.
“DID IT STOP?!” Benji yelled up from the basement, and I heard his feet running out.
“IT STOPPED!” I confirmed, taking the towel down, and dropping it as I wiped my wet hair back from my forehead. Benji appeared in the doorway, still soaked as well. “What the fuck did you do?” I asked, turning towards him, and he stepped in.
“The shower head just busted in two, and flew off.” He said, picking up a shattered piece of shower faucet.
“Good lord…” I muttered, looking down at myself. I was covered in not only water, but some kind of black sludge from the inside of the wall as well.
“Well, I can’t turn the water back on, so it seems like you’ll be showering in the backyard.” Benji grinned and grabbed a towel from the cabinet that wasn’t soaked and threw it to me. I just glared at him.
“I should shoot you in the foot.” I told him, failing at trying to keep a smile off of my face, and he just laughed as I grabbed the body wash and shampoo and walked off to my room, grabbing some clean clothes. I made my way down the stairs and through the kitchen and into the backyard and over to the water spigot. Benji had the three wall of an outhouse up around it, because a few months ago something had happened to the water and he had to shower outside. I walked over and put my clothes on a stump on the dry side of the wall, and picked up the sprayer attachment. I stepped behind the makeshift wall that he had bolted to the ground, and turned on the water, and twisted the sprayer on before I locked it to continuously spray and then fixed it atop the wall to rain down. It was redneck as all get-out, but it would have to work, and maybe I could get out before Zacky and Brian got here, though as I grabbed my shampoo bottle, and in the process slipped down in the newly forming puddle of mud, I doubted it.
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
^*Benji’s POV*^
I had gotten the bathroom mopped up, and everything cleaned up. I just had to go get a new shower head, and knobs. As I walked out of the laundry room from putting all of the wet towels in the washer, I heard a knock on the front door, and automatically assumed that it was Saleigh, so I quickly jogged to the front door, and opened it with a smirk, but that quickly faded. I recognized one of the men in front of me, but only one; Zachary. Standing beside him was another man maybe a little taller, with black spikey hair, and tattoos covering his arms.
“The hell do you want?” I spat, a glare in my eyes, fully prepared to slam the door in their faces.
“Benji, uh…we just came to talk to Saylee. Her and Matt’s relationship is fucked up, and it’s kind of my fault.” Zachary said, and I slowly nodded.
“Who’s your friend?” I asked, gesturing to the other guy.
“I’m Brian…I just came because I was concerned.” The other guy spoke, and I thought for a second.
“And you two are here…?” I trailed off.
“We wanted to talk to Saylee, and make sure she’s okay, and see if we can try to fix shit.” Zachary said.
“Alright.” I stepped aside and they came in, and I walked towards the couch, sitting down and patting the empty spots beside me. The two slowly stepped over from the door, Zack on my left, and Brian on my right. “So, what do you know?” I asked, looking between the two.
“Well…I kissed Saylee, and Matt’s got a warrant out for his arrest, and last night Brian and I went to a bar and when Matt came to pick us up, Brain accidentally let it slip that I had kissed Say, and Matt got pissed, and sometime in his speeding to get home, he got pulled over and arrested.” Zack spoke really fast, sounding nervous and unnerved by just being so close to me.
“And we woke up this morning at the bar, went back to my place, found that Matt and her were gone, and Zacky found Saylee’s cell number, and we called her, and she gave us your address. We were worried.” Brian sounded genuine.
“Well, I have to go to her parents’ house, I was going to talk to them and see if they’d maybe just talk to Matthew, and let him out with promises of simply staying away from her-”
“But you can’t do that to them, they-” Brian cut me off, just to be cut off.
“Loved each other, Brian. Loved. I screwed that up, remember?” Zacky cut Brian off, and I sighed.
“As I was saying,” I began sternly, cutting the two of them off. “I was going to go pick up Matthew, bring him back here, and have them talk it out. If shit went downhill, he’d go out, and if things went okay, I was going to let him stay here. When her parents would call and question me about Saylee and Matt, I’d tell them that I hadn’t seen Matthew since they broke up, and that Saleigh was fine, just not wanting to come home, or if they came over, I’d send Matt out back, or over to the lake for a while, and things would work out.” I took a deep breath, hating the plan I had come up with my short time in the shower, but also just wanting Saylee to be happy again and not so down all the time. “I don’t like seeing my little girl broken and I’ll go the distance to keep a smile on her face.” I said and they both looked at me, their expressions softening.
“So you’re on our side?” Zachary questioned and I nodded.
“I don’t have much of a choice.” I stood up. “I need to get over there and talk to her parents now before Matt gets ripped to pieces down at the station.” I turned and looked at them. “I’m trusting you two here alone, in the house, with a girl I like to think of as my daughter.” I said, spacing my words to make sure they understood me. “When I come back, if there’s a single scratch on her, I’ll cut the both of you up, and scatter your body parts around five different states, and feed whatever’s left over to the fish out back in the lake. If I come home and find either one of you within one foot of her, I’ll follow through with that plan. There will be no touching, no kissing, no hugging, and, you know what, don’t even breathe in her direction, because I’m afraid you might’ve drugged yourself in order to drug her. One more time, no kissing, no hugging, no touching, no breathing, and stay at least a foot away or you’ll be fish bait.” They just stared at me as they slowly nodded. “You two are meaningless to me, all you’re here for right now is to help her and comfort her. But I will kill you. Both of you.” I told them, and then began walking to the door after they nodded.
“W-where is Saylee?” Brian asked after I got to the door.
“She’s out back taking a shower because the faucet in the bathroom upstairs exploded. And if you harm her you’ll explode into a million pieces while I laugh in the background.” I answered, and walked out of the house, and as I walked past their SUV, I bent down, pulling the caps off of both of the front tires, and letting the air out before I looked inside, grinning when I saw the keys. I opened the door, reached in, and grabbed them. I guess letting the air out of their tires wasn’t needed after all, but I wasn’t going to let them kidnap her. They had taken her away once with Matthew’s help, and I wasn’t letting that happen again.
♠ ♠ ♠
Thanks to all of the readers, subscribers, and special thanks to the commentors:Synus Sneezus
SuicideCommando
amodernmyth88
NME_foREVer_6661
xoxo, Saleigh