Floating in the Abyss ✔️

Chapter 27

"Show me your room." He said, getting up and waiting for me to follow. I stood up and walked with Ryan to show him what my room looked like at the moment. I didn't really understand why, since the room was in his house and I was sure he would have been in there before. We hadn't changed anything in there yet except for putting my two sets of books on the shelf and filling my wardrobe with clothes, yet I was grateful for his attention. "It looks good. I like the books." He smiled.

"You like reading?"

"Sometimes." He shrugged casually. "Have you seen my room?"

"Briefly." I nodded.

"I'll show you then." He grinned. We quickly went upstairs and into his room. I didn't know if I was ever going to be able to remember whose room was whose, but I figured I might learn over time.

Ryan showed me around his room. He had a huge double bed with grey sheets and a bookshelf even bigger than mine, half filled with books and half filled with medals and trophies.

"Woah." I said, admiring the trophies and medals. They were all so shiny.

"Pretty cool, huh."

I looked at the trophies and medals, labelled for both basketball and football as well as academic awards.

"You got academic awards too!" I exclaimed, although if I had thought about it, he of course already knew that.

"I did indeed." He laughed. "Reading helps. Maybe you'll get one too one day."

"No." I giggled softly, shaking my head.

"Why not?"

"I don't read very much."

"But you have those books."

"Yeah but I just read the same ones over and over."

"So," he shrugged. "they're still words. The more words the better." I liked that.

I finished observing everything he had, before we both decided to go back downstairs.

"Ryan!" A loud voice said, making me levitate off the floor. Before Ryan even turned to see who was there, he instantly grabbed my shoulders. I turned to see who was there and saw another guy. He looked quite a bit older than Ryan, and had a serious face, glaring at me.

"Hey Nick." Ryan said. The realisation hit me that this was the eldest of the boys that lived here. Also known as my stepbrother. "Since when were you here?"

"Why does she look so young?" The guy asked, clearly referring, but not speaking, to me.

"Nick, this is Ash. She..." Before Ryan could finish his sentence, Laura called from downstairs, right as the doorbell went.

"Ash! Can you please come down here?" Her yelling wasn't the same as I was used to. She was just speaking loudly. I needed to come up with a different word. Something to separate the two lifestyles.

Ryan let go of me and I continued walking.

"Who is that?" Nick said, not impressed that the explanation he was hoping for had been interrupted.

"You'll find out in a second. Just come down."

"Just tell me now, Ryan. I don't have time." He growled. It wasn't angry, just serious. I could tell the difference.

"Make time then." And with that I heard Ryan moving quickly to catch up to me. "Sorry." He whispered to me. "He's not always like that."

I didn't say anything when I saw almost a mirror image of myself standing in the corridor. I knew it was Austin, and I could see the boy next to him was Jonah, wearing his number 23 jersey. He hadn't seen me yet, but when he saw Ryan, and me standing next to him, he stopped talking and his face went blank.

That's when I noticed Nick had come down the stairs behind us, and Chris came out of his office. Both him and Laura seemed to have a pretty good idea of what was about to go down. Before anyone could say anything, the front door opened, and in walked another boy who looked a lot like Chris. River.

"Woah. What's going on here? New discovery?" River laughed, shutting the door behind him.

"Everyone go into the lounge room." Chris instructed, taking charge. River and Jonah looked confused, Nick looked grumpy, Ryan looked worried and Austin looked like...nothing. I couldn't tell at all what he felt, he just wasn't taking his eyes off of me.

"Sit down." Laura said, when everyone just stood there, waiting.

"Can someone please let me know what's going on here?" Jonah said.

"Shut up." Austin hissed at him.

"Austin, please calm down a little." Laura told him. He remained sitting rigid but said no more.

"Mum?" Ryan prompted when Laura said nothing else. "Are you going to explain?"

"4 weeks ago I got a call. I got a call from the police telling me that my daughter had been found, a 7-hour flight away. She had been assaulted, not for the first time, and finally, the police were able to save her from this family. My ex-husband and his wife had kept Ashlyn after abducting her from a park when she was 5. I don't want to go into detail about that part, and I'm sure Ashlyn doesn't want me to either, but when I got that call, I left instantly. I've spent the last month with her, watching as she's progressed, from being malnourished and injured enough to not even being able to walk, to her flying back here with me." Laura stopped to take a breath.

"We ran into Ryan at the sports field this morning, which got in the way of my intentions of telling you all together. I didn't know if she was healthy enough to bring her home, and I really did want to tell you beforehand, but I couldn't bare to do it. I'm sorry." Laura was on the verge of tears, and looking around at the boys faces, it looked understandable. I felt awkward, like I had done something wrong, as five pairs of eyes were constantly moving between Laura and me. I didn't want to cause any problems here, yet it seemed that my first-time meeting everyone was already a disaster, although I didn't know what else I expected.

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