Chapter 29 #2
"I'll be fine. Go!" Iris shoos him away, and he closes the door. Then I hear the faint click of the door locking.
"I think it's this one on the left."
Clover dropped a pin instead of sending the exact address, but the shadows of people milling about in the window and the loud bass sounding from inside give it away.
Bear and I walk up, side-by-side. He tries the front door, and it opens, so we walk in.
"Upstairs," I say before dragging him behind me.
As we ascend the stairs, my pulse starts to race even faster.
"I'm here. Which room are you in?"
She hesitates, trying to remember. "The back."
"Left or right?"
I try the one on the left, and it opens up to a bathroom.
"Hey!" I'm faced with a drunk guy standing over the sink with his cock in his hand. "It's occupied."
"Ew."
I turn and find that Bear's already tried the door on the right. "It's locked."
I step around him and knock. "Clover. It's B. Can you let us in?"
I can hear my own voice in my headphones, so I pull them out and shove them into my purse. A few seconds later, the door opens a crack, and I see Clover's eye peeking through it.
"Hey."
The door flies open when she recognizes me, and she jumps into my waiting arms. Her legs are dangling, so I reach down and wrap them around me.
She's not a small eight-year-old, but I can hold her up for a bit.
I squeeze her and rest my cheek against her head, which is buried in my shoulder. "I'm so glad you're okay."
At the sound of my voice, she lets out a massive sigh, followed by tears, which only makes me want to hold her tighter.
The party is raging downstairs. I get why she was scared.
What I hope she didn't see when she tried to go down there was the paraphernalia spread across a coffee table in the living room.
I only glanced at it for a moment before we went up the stairs, but it was enough to know that this isn't a safe place for her to be right now.
"Bear? Can you take her?" Clover lifts her head to look over at my companion. "Clover, this is my friend Bear. He has a little sister who’s about your age." I think. "He's a nice guy, I promise. Can I hand you over to him? I don't want to risk losing you when we walk through the crowd downstairs."
She hesitates for a moment, then nods. I feel bad putting her in the arms of a complete stranger, especially a man as large as Bear, but I don't want her to see what's going on down there.
I pass her over to Bear and thank the universe when she wraps her arms around his neck and drops her head to his shoulder.
"Let's go." I nod toward the stairs, and Bear leads the way.
We pass a few people on the stairs, and I'm a little alarmed by how unalarmed they are at the fact that a man is carrying a kid in a setting like this. We weave through the crowd, back toward the front door, somehow without drawing too much attention. And thankfully, Clover keeps her head down.
Just as Bear starts to open a door, someone from across the room yells at us. "Hey! What the fuck are you doing?"
I watch as Jade starts pushing past people, her face filled with fear.
I panic. "Go Bear!" I shove him out the door and slam it shut behind me. My hands press on his back. "Get in the car!"
Clover pops her head up just in time to see Jade burst through the front door.
"Hey! That's my kid!"
I take a deep breath before turning to face her. "Jade, was it?"
Her eyes bounce from Bear and me. "Who the fuck are you?"
"A friend of Kass's. He asked me to come pick her up. I promise we're not kidnapping her. Go back to your party."
I turn to leave, and she pulls my hair. "Bitch!"
Good, I'm glad she's putting up a fight for Clover.
"Let go of my hair before I throat punch you." I pry her hands off my hair and take a step back.
"You can't just take her. I'll call the cops."
"Oh yeah? And what are those cops going to think when they see what's on your coffee table?"
Her eyes grow big as saucers, realization sinking in.
"I promise you, I'm just bringing her home. She's not safe here."
She flounders for a second, but I don't stick around to hear her fucked up excuses. Before I open the car door, I turn and flip her off. I couldn't help myself. I want to do a lot worse things to her right now, but I won't with Clover in the car, potentially watching us.
Bear takes off down the street, at a reasonable speed this time, and I settle into the back seat with a shaking little girl. I scoot over and buckle myself into the center seat right next to her. She nuzzles under my arm, and I hold her.
"Where am I taking you guys?"
"Sorry. Here, I'll text you the address." I go to pull my phone out of my pocket.
Iris chimes in to stop me. "I already got the address from Fia and texted it to you, babe."
She looks over her shoulder to look at Clover and me, and I mouth the words thank you.
"What else was I supposed to do while sitting in here by myself?"
Despite the gravity of the situation, we all chuckle a bit. All of us except Clover, who looks like she's going to throw up. I look at Iris and give her a pleading look that has her turning to face forward, giving us the only privacy she can right now.
"Hey, Clover?"
She looks up at me, tears brimming in her eyes.
"Can I ask you some questions now, or is that too overwhelming for you?" She doesn't answer, just stares. "I get why you didn't call your dad—though you definitely should have—but why did you call me?"
Her lower lip shakes. "I tried to call Raina and Winnie first, but they're out of town on a camping trip. They didn't answer."
I remember Kass mentioning that he had a close friendship with Raina and that Winnie, her daughter, was good friends with Clover. It eases my mind a bit knowing that I wasn't the first one she tried to call.
"You didn't try to call your grandparents?" I'm trying to make a mental list of people I need to get a hold of to tell them she's okay.
She shakes her head. "They would have told my dad."
"Clover...I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to tell your dad, too."
She squeezes her eyes shut, but it doesn't stop the tears from falling down her cheeks as she sobs.
"Hey, hey. Take a deep breath, okay. I'm not trying to get you in trouble here. Actually, I don't think you're in trouble with anyone at all. We all just want you safe. But I do need to tell your dad why I'm dropping you off when he thinks you're at Jade's house."
Through her sobs, she nods her head, letting me know she understands me.
I hadn't gotten this far in my head yet. I hadn't thought through the fact that I'm going to have to see Kass, let alone the fact that I have to explain why his daughter called me to pick her up in the middle of the night.
I consider texting Kass to let him know, but we're only ten minutes from their house now, and I don't want him to panic those whole ten minutes before both Clover and I have a chance to explain everything. It'll just be easier to do it in person.