My Protector

Chapter 1

4 Years Later

Kayla's POV:

We have literally been on the run since that night my mother was killed. That evening my father grabbed us girls and had us pack whatever we could into one bag. We left in his car and we never looked back. My mother was just left there. She never got a proper burial. At least not one where her husband and children got to attend. Instead, after we left town, my father made an anonymous call to the police and only told them that they heard gunfire at the residence. What happened after that, we have no idea.

We drove all night that night and day until my father couldn't drive anymore. We left our small town of Eagleville which was just outside of Nashville Tennessee. We didn't stay anywhere for very long. We were in Arkansas for almost a year but we changed towns every few months. My father was paranoid that the mafia was going to just show up out of nowhere and kill him since he chose to run.

Julianne wouldn't stop throwing a fit the entire time. She eventually told my father and me that she wasn't going anywhere with us. That they weren't after her so she left us somewhere in Arkansas. I haven't heard from her since but it's not like we had any way of contacting her. Dad threw out his cell phone the moment we left our home. I think she left because she couldn't handle the fact that we no longer had a car and had to travel by bus. She complained all the time that she wasn't going to let dad drag her with him and become homeless. Being young and dumb at the time I didn't want to believe her. Turns out she was right.

We are now stationed in Texas. We've been in 4 cities now in this state and I never did finish high school. I never got a degree and I am obviously never going to go to college now. Dad says we need to try to stay south. If we are going to be homeless then we need to stay out of the colder states. It makes sense I guess but if you were running from the mafia, wouldn't you want more ground to run in?

My father ran out of money a long time ago and we have been living on the streets ever since. Even though I am 19 years old now, I can't leave my father by himself. Protecting me is what he lives for and if I wasn't around anymore I don't think he would try to keep himself alive. We are currently in a shelter in Amarillo and I just got done taking a shower. Not all the shelters have showers for you so we can only shower once in a while. Sometimes we clean off in a river but even that doesn't help much. I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would ever end up homeless but that is exactly what has happened.

We only stay in the same town long enough for us to get or find enough money to get on a bus and move again. Usually takes us about a month or more to get enough change for that. He refuses to beg on the streets but sometimes it just happens. You could be sitting on the sidewalk just to take a rest from walking and searching and people sometimes drop you a few coins.

I get dressed in the clothes I wore before my shower and walked into the room that was full of cots for people to sleep on. It was getting late so most of the beds were taken by those who were already asleep. I walked over to where my dad was sitting, trying to keep at least one cot reserved for us while I took a shower. He had already taken one and while he was in taking his shower, I lost the second cot I was trying to save for him.

A grouchy old man who smelled of booze forced me to leave the cot so we are down to just the one that we will have to share. They are barely big enough to hold one person let alone for both of us to sleep on one.

"I will take the floor," Dad said as I walked back over to him.

"Dad, no. You took the floor the last time. It's going to mess up your back again." I told him trying to get him to take the cot instead.

"No. I'm the one who got us in this mess so I'm the one that needs to be punished for it." He said.

Which is the excuse he is always telling me each time I try to take the floor instead of him when there aren't enough cots for the both of us. He tells me that when there isn't enough food for the both of us as well, it's his punishment.

I sat down on the bed beside him and looked into his eyes. These past four years have really taken their toll on him. He looks so aged with his overgrown beard and a head full of grey hair.

"Dad, it's been four years and we haven't seen them or heard of them since that night. Why can't we try to settle down somewhere and try to get off of the streets?" I asked him and grabbed his hand in mine.

'Because the moment we get our name in a town they will find us. We have to stay below the radar. We have to have no connections to anything anywhere and we sure the hell can't stay in the same place that long." He said to me and pulled his hand away from me.

"I've told you this more than once Kayla, we can never go back to the way our lives used to be. Now don't ask me again and get some rest." He said to me in an angry irritated tone and laid himself down on the floor.

I laid down on the hard cot that hurt my body because the springs felt like they were poking through and tried to get some sleep. I couldn't help but feel sorry for myself and think about how Julie was doing. Even though I had wished that night for her to leave, didn't mean I never wanted to see her again. What if she got hurt or killed and no one was there for her?

I wiped the lone tear from my eye and rolled over to my other side in hopes to be able to get the thoughts out of my head and fall asleep.

---

"Kayla! Kayla" I woke up suddenly to the sounds of my name and my body getting pushed around on the cot.

I shot up quickly on the cot and looked around. My dad was standing beside me with fear in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked and quickly stood up from the bed.

My body was so sore and everything hurt. Every possible joint that could crack, cracked the moment I moved and got off of the cot.

"They found us!" He almost shouted in a whisper.

"What do you mean?" I snapped my head in his direction.

How could they have found us? All this time we never saw them or heard them. How was this possible!

"We have to get out of here!" He urged me and grabbed my hand and pulled me with him to the wall next to one of the windows that looked down to the street below

"Look, they are right there." He said and I carefully peeked around him and looked down.

There was a black car with tinted windows parked on the street. There were two more cars just the same, one in the front and one in the back. There were guards just like that one night standing around a young man who looked like it was Jonah. After four years he really doesn't look any different. He looked very pissed off like he wanted to rip someone to pieces just for the fun of it. I guess time away hasn't given him a heart either.

"We can't stay here, he's going to find us." My dad said and pulled me away from the window.

"What about our bags?" I asked as he pulled me passed where our cot was that had our bags on the floor beside it.

"They will weigh us down. We have to get out of here as fast as we can!" He said and took me into the hallway just outside of that room.

Instead of going down the stairs he went the other way and started up the stairs.

"Dad! Where are we going? That isn't going to get us out of here!" I said in a panicking scared voice.

"We can't go down either! We have to see if we can get to other buildings from the roof."

My eyes widened when he told me his plan. The idea was something you would see in a movie, not in real life. You don't just go from one building to the next from the roof!

We got to the next floor and ran through the hallway to the next set of stairs and started to head up them.

"Look! There they are!" We heard a loud voice yell through the building.

It was Jonah and he must have seen us in the stairwell that went to the first floor.

"Hurry!" I shouted at my dad and we started to run up the stairs as fast as we could.

At the top of the stairs was a door. He grabbed it and tried to open it only to see that it was locked. He frantically looked around and ran back down the stairs.

"Dad!" I shouted in fear knowing that they were going to be closing in on us.

"Daddy! Hurry!" I shouted again.

He appeared up the stairs again with a fire extinguisher in his hands. He squeezed passed me to the door and started to hit the doorknob as hard as he could with the bottom of the extinguisher. I could hear the sounds of their footsteps on the staircase leading up to the floor below us.

"Dad, you have to hurry! They are almost here!" I whisper shouted at him.

I could feel my body starting to tremble as my heart started to race. I was feeling just as scared right now as I did that night. That night I first saw them for the first time. My knees were threatening to give out on me and I felt my anxiety levels rising.

Suddenly the loud sound of the doorknob busting off the door made an echoing sound in the small stairwell. My dad kicked it a few times and then was able to get the door to open. The bright sunlight was almost blinding after being in that dark room for so long.

"Where do you think you are going?" I heard that almost too familiar voice yell behind me.

I glanced back the moment I exited the stairwell and saw Jonah at the bottom of the stairs. My dad grabbed my hand and we took off running along the roof of the building to the closest side.

"s**t!" He yelled when we got to the edge and saw that it was the front of the building and nothing for us to climb down on.

We ran to another side and saw that there was another building nearby. There was a small gap between this building and that one but with the railing all the way around the edge of the roof there was no way you could run and jump to it from here.

"Your time is up Robert and there's nowhere to go! Why don't you just save yourself the trouble and give up!" I heard Jonah's voice again as he appeared through the broken door that lead to the shelter below.

"Look!" My dad said and grabbed my arm.

He pointed at a small shed-like building on the roof that happened to have a ladder on the side of it. It was right on the edge of the roof.

"Daddy what are you doing?" I said as he pushed me in front of him towards the ladder.

"Get up there and jump!" He shouted at me.

The idea of jumping was scaring me to death. He pushed me up the ladder and I couldn't help but follow his orders. We got to the top of the little shed and looked over where the other building was. It didn't look this far away from down there. Now it looks impossible to jump over there.

"No daddy, I can't!" I yelled at him and turned to face him.

"Please, Kayla! You have to! You can't let him get you. You have no idea who they are or what they are capable of!" He urged me.

I couldn't help but feel the tears of fear fill my eyes. I looked back over but before I really could he pulled me to the back of the building.

"Stop Robert!" Jonah yelled and we both looked over.

He was standing on the roof below the little shed-like building pointing a gun up at us. More exactly, at my father.

"Send her back down here and I promise I won't kill you," Jonah shouted up at us but I swear his expression told me he was lying threw his teeth.

His guards were also standing there behind him with their guns just waiting for their cue to let loose.

"Kayla, you have to." He whispered at me in hopes that Jonah couldn't hear him or read his lips to know what he was saying.

"Daddy, I can't leave you," I said back at him.

"Don't worry about me, I will be fine. You must do whatever you can to never let him catch you. Run baby, run!" He whisper yelled the end at me.

I looked back over to where I was supposed to jump to. The problem was, I could no longer see the building. We were far enough back that the little shed was blocking the view of the small gap of a few feet and the edge of the building.

"NOW!" He shouted and without even thinking I ran.

I ran without stopping or looking back. The sounds of my shoes on the rooftop were mixed with the sounds of gunfire shooting behind me. All I could hear was the screams of my father's pain but I couldn't stop now. I had to run. I had to make it and I had to jump. I can't let my father's or my mother's death be in vain.

The moment I reached the edge of the little shed I pushed as hard as I could. The air in my lungs was sucked out the moment my body started to fall. During that split second of being in the air, my mind was flooded with images of my life. My life before all of this ever happened. Back when my parents were happy and loved one another. Before my dad's gambling took over his life and ruined his marriage and the lives of his children. Images of my life before Jonah entered it.

My feet hit the stone gravel of the roof of the other building and my legs buckled causing me to fall forwards onto my knees and arms. I felt the sting of my skin getting peeled back from my body on my arms and legs as I slid across the stones. I coughed several times trying to catch my breath.

I looked back behind me and there was Jonah standing there on the edge of the other building. If I thought he was angry before, that was nothing compared to the daggers he was giving me now with his stare. I looked up at that little shed and could see part of my dad's lifeless body.

"I will find you Kayla and when I do I will make you pay for your father's debt!!" He yelled at me from the other side.

I looked away and pulled myself up off of the roof and started to run. It hurt so much to run and it was making me stumble. I didn't know where I was going but I had to get out of there as fast as I could. I could hear shouting behind me and when I glanced over my shoulder I saw them running back to the door that took them back into the shelter.

I had to try to get to other buildings and get inside them and hope that they don't find me. I ran across the roof and saw that several buildings were attached to each other making it easier for me to go from one to the other. I leaped over the railings and took off again till I got as far as I could get.

I ran to the edge and saw that there was nothing for me to jump to. Looking along the side I saw there was a fire escape. The only thing I can hope for is that a door or a window will open. I can't stay out in the open. Not right now, not while they are prowling the exteriors.

I crawled over and onto the fire escape and started my descent down. I tried the first window but it was locked.

"Doesn't anyone trust anyone anymore?" I said out of breath as I tried the next one and it happened to open.

"Thank you trusting person. Thank you." I whispered to myself and crawled into the building.

It looked like it was an apartment and all I can hope for now is that no one is home. It looked like it was a nice apartment. Whoever lived here looked like they had a decent amount of wealth. It looked like a bachelor pad though. There was leather furniture around and computers sitting everywhere. I couldn't help but look around a bit.

Doesn't look like anyone is here so I should be okay to see about some food quickly and then I will leave. I walk passed the room I think is the living room but hard to say since there were computers and printers and all kinds of electronics everywhere. I don't get quite to the kitchen when I hear a man's voice behind me.

"Who are you and what are you doing in here?"