Page 117 of Black and White, Twice the Might

“There must be, right? Why did no one come running when the barn blew up?”

“It could just be empty,” Ben says from behind us. “No, we’re not looking.”

We both spin around and see the others standing there laughing at us.

“But Greasy, it’s right there,” Temp whines.

“Really, it’s just down there. We could have a quick look and you guys can still be home in time for dinner,” I point out.

Sly glares at me. “No. I wasn’t allowed to look through the portal; you can’t look in that house.”

“Okay, you can look through the portal,” I tell him, with a quick grin.

“Not today, people. Move it, you’ve got brothers to reassure,” Ernest tries to shimmy us along.

I look at Temp. “We’ll come back.”

He nods. “We certainly will.”

CHAPTER 47

It doesn’t take as long to get home, and as soon as we walk through the door, the boys slam into Sly, hugging the stuffing out of him and peppering him with questions.

I walk to John. “Thanks for staying with them.”

“No thanks needed. I’m afraid we stopped off at the bakers on the way home, and I bought them the biggest cakes I could find,” he nods towards Sly. “Sly, okay?”

“Yeah. His family kidnapped him, but he escaped. They then tried to blow us up, but I promise Ernest and everyone else is fine, none of us were injured,” I put in quickly. “Two of Sly’s family were killed, though, and we found a weird portal that we’ll go through when we have a plan of action.”

John shakes his head. “Bad business, especially with people dying.”

Sly and the boys walk over and join us, and they hug me.

“Notice I'm home, did you?” I quip.

“We saw you, but we were more concerned about Sly,” Xander tells me.

“Not that we weren’t concerned about you as well,” Enoch puts in, “but you weren’t kidnapped and thrown into a van.”

I laugh at him. “I know.” I look at John. “Are you staying for dinner?”

John shakes his head. “I won’t if you don’t mind. Your dinner is cooking and should be ready in,” he looks at his watch. “Fifteen minutes.”

Now he’s mentioned it, I can smell something cooking.

“Thanks, John, you didn’t need to do that,” Sly says.

“The boys helped, and we had fun. Now I know you’re safe, I’m off. Your keys are on the kitchen counter.” John hugs us all as the boys thank him, and we wave as he strolls down the front path.

“Are you really okay?” Enoch asks as the front door closes.

“We can listen if you want to talk about your feelings and stuff,” Xander offers. “Our therapist said, talking about feelings was important.”

After we rescued the boys, I thought it would be a good idea for them to see a therapist. They had been dealing with and hiding so much, but Enoch confessed one day that he thought he was to blame for the abuse. Both Sly and I assured them both that they had done nothing wrong and all the blame rested with our father. Also, I wasn’t sure how I could help them. We saw the therapist as a family and worked through a lot of emotions, feelings and thoughts. It didn’t magically make everything better, but it helped and gave us the tools we needed to keep helping and supporting the boys. Plus, Sly and I both did lots of Internet research and reading.

Sly touches both their shoulders. “I promise, physically I’m fine. My feelings are mixed at the moment. I detest my family, all of them, but two of them died today, killed in an explosion. Seeing their bodies was shocking, and for a moment, I felt sad for them. So yeah, mixed feelings at the moment.”

“I’m sorry they died, death always upsets people, whether you liked them or not,” Xander comments.