Paying the Price

Chapter 11: Oakley

Sleeping last night in the house was much better than sleeping in the cave.

Of course, it was not as nice as our beds back home but the cave was the worst.

This morning I was the first one to wake up. Oliver and I had found a room with two beds in it while the girls slept together in the big bed downstairs.

I left my brother's snoring and went downstairs to check on the girls. I found them both peacefully sleeping.

I went next to June and placed my hand gently on her forehead. She was a little warm but not as bad as she was yesterday.

She woke up when I touched her which was good. She's a super light sleeper like me.

Oliver and Janae on the other hand could sleep through anything.

"Oakley?" She whispered in a weak voice.

"Yes June, it's me, how are you feeling?" I crouched down next to her so we were at the same height.

"I'm feeling a lot better I think I could make it today. I want to leave this scary house as soon as possible. Poor Janae bearly slept last night because she was so scared. I had to hold her the whole night ."

This made me upset. That I hadn't thought to leave the candle lit for my sister whos afraid of the dark.

"Is she okay?" I asked now watching Janae as she gently snored.

"Yeah, she's okay now but she didn't fall asleep until probably 3 in the morning."

"Well, what about you? Did you stay up until 3 too? You should have come and got me" I said.

"Yeah I had to keep calming her down," she said.

"Okay well, that settles it, both of you are going to be way too tired to try and leave today so I want the two of you to rest today and we will plan to leave tomorrow okay?" I kissed both of my sister's heads before covering them back up and heading back upstairs to tell Oliver.

I made my way back upstairs but stopped to look outside. The sun was coming up and it rose from the horizon of the fields. It was gorgeous. I had never seen a sunrise from outside and not from behind a glass window.

I don't understand why mother and father kept us from going outside, the world is so beautiful.

I went outside and just sat down on the grass, not caring if I was slouching or if I would get dirt on me.

My father would quite literally skin me alive if he saw me right now.

I wonder if they even know we were gone.

Probably not.

We had only been gone three days now so I highly doubt anyone really knows.

They come home at the end of the month I wonder what mother and father are going to do when they figure it out.

I just hope we are far enough away for it to not matter.

Would they even care?

I bet they will try and replace us. They had the four of us when they were 20 and 22 so I imagine that if they wanted to, they are young enough, they could replace us.

That's so odd to think about.

And kinda disgusting.

They would probably keep our poor sibling locked up even more than we were.

Father needs a perfect heir he says.

He has drilled that into me since the day I was born.

I often wish I was not the heir but then again I would never want any of my siblings to go through the same things I have.