Page 1 of Ryder

CLOSING MY EYES, I TOOKa deep breath in and slowly let it out as I told myself not to whack my idiot brother upside that empty damn head of his. “You couldn’t for once in your life just keep your frigging mouth shut?” I grumbled.

Arron shrank down in the emergency room chair, holding the icepack over his broken nose, as I held the other icepack over what I was sure would be a broken wrist.

“I promised Dad I could look after you this time. You’re seventeen years old. He shouldn’t have to hire a bloody nanny to keep you in check while he’s on deployment.”

“I don’t fucking need a nanny, or my sister who’s only four damn years older, to babysit me.” Arron’s fierce dark brown eyes that almost looked black glared at me.

“Ha! Well right now you just shit all over that, because I, your sister, who is only four damn years older than you, had to leave my new job so I could pick my brother up from school, and take him to the emergency room, because he got in a fight at school, with not one guy, but two.” Arron’s cheeks tinged with red. I sighed. Arron wasn’t one to fight people for no reason. He was a good kid and even though he used to hang out with the wrong crowd, he wasn’t one to start fights. “What did you get in a fight over anyway? We haven’t even been here for three months.”

“I hate it here. Why did we have to move again? You could have stayed in Darwin. You’re old enough to be on your own. You finished technical and further education (TAFE) and had your apprenticeship. I would have happily stayed there with you. Do you know how much it sucks to start a new school senior year? Not even the start of the year but with only a couple of months left before you do the High school certificate (HSC)?”

I could have stayed, but my dad needed me. Arron needed me, even though he thought he didn’t. We’d lived in Darwin for five years. The base was a big one and my dad went where the Army told him. I’d finished high school in Darwin and had made some great friends. When Dad told me he was being transferred, he said I could stay and finish my apprenticeship, but I knew he needed me and there were a lot of job options for me in Brisbane. Arron hadn’t wanted to leave and had begged to stay. The transfer, my dad said, couldn’t come at a better time. He hated my brother’s friends. So three months ago, we moved to Brisbane, Queensland. I loved it here straight away. I even had friends who had moved down here to go to Uni or get jobs. There wasn’t much to do in Darwin and there were so many more options here. I’d gotten a job at a hairdresser’s soon after we moved.

“I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to start later in the year and so close to your HSC, but Arron you know why you couldn’t stay.” Arron had been pissed when Dad said we were moving because he didn’t like the choices Arron was making. “Dad wouldn’t have let you stay with me in Darwin anyway. He wants you with him.”

“He’s not even around to care.”

I winced at the pain and truth in his voice. “He’s only away for four more weeks. Then he’s back for at least six.” Leaning over, I hugged my brother. I loved Arron. He was all I had besides my father. Our parents had been foster children and met at a group home event. When my mother died eight years ago from a brain tumor, my dad fell apart and sank all his energy into his work, rising in the Army ranks and taking any deployment they offered. We had a nanny until I turned eighteen. Then I took over and it became just me and Arron most of the time. “He cares. I care.” I kissed his forehead. “Wanna tell me now why you got into a fight?”

Arron’s face turned bright red and he groaned. “I can’t stand these rich kids. There’s these two Silverman guys, who think their shit doesn’t stink.” His shoulders dropped. “I ignore them most of the time, but um…er… fuck, they saw you this morning when you dropped me off to school and I forgot my bag and you came back and got out of the car. One of them took a frigging photo of you, and well, let’s just say he wasn’t being very respectful.”

Reaching over, I hugged my brother again. “I love you Arron. Thanks for being protective, but I’m a big girl. I can handle a little boy.” I winked at him. “I’m my father’s daughter after all.” Our dad had drilled into us from an early age that we needed to learn how to protect ourselves. I’d taken self-defense class every year from age eight and Arron was an awesome boxer, but he’d never used his skills outside of the ring until today. I even did some boxing classes myself and loved it. Boxing was my relax time. It was also something that helped me to meet and make new friends wherever we moved.

Arron laughed and relaxed back against the chair. “Do you think if Dad hears about this he’ll stop Micky teaching me? He’s one of the things I actually like about moving down here. He reckons I should enter some comps. Says I have a killer right hook.”

Even though my brother held an icepack over his nose, I could see the smile on his face as he talked of his new boxing coach Mitchel, Micky. Arron’s old coach had referred him to Micky and I couldn’t deny that Arron loved his new coach and had improved in leaps and bounds.

“Nah, I won’t tell him. I’d be more worried about Micky finding out you got into a fight. You know his rule. No fighting unless it’s in the ring.”

Arron went white, his eyes went wide and I saw fear. “You don’t think he’d stop training me?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Don’t worry I’ll talk to him.” Arron visibly relaxed. I’d do anything for my brother and he knew he could always count on me. If boxing made Arron happy, I’d do anything to make sure Micky understood what had happened and didn’t kick him out of his program.

Getting comfortable in the chair for what, by the looks of the packed emergency room, was going to be a long wait, I grabbed my iPad, opened my Kindle app, and started reading.

The day couldn’t get any fucking worse. My cousin Richard rang me in the morning to tell me that Bailey, his soul mate and wife, was in labor. That meant Aunt Gillian would be in a mood making sure everything went perfectly for her daughter-in law. If any of us Silvermans had a choice, we would stay away from the maternity ward until the baby was born, but we didn’t. We would all go and show our support. My mother would be the one who had to help deal and listen to Gillian complain when even the tiniest thing didn’t go as planned or she wanted.

The second thing to go wrong with my day was that I was called into the precinct because three people had overdosed and died all in one night and in different places in the city, but all from what looked to be the same drug. My Captain thought I’d be the perfect detective for the case as I’d helped Richard, who had had the problem of people overdosing in his clubs.

But instead of waiting in maternity with the rest of my family, I was standing out the front of the emergency doors at Brisbane hospital with my brother Oakley and cousin Andrew.

Glaring, I slowly counted backwards from ten to calm myself before speaking to the two idiots before me. “Tell me again why the fuck I’m taking you two to the emergency room and not calling mum and Aunty Gillian?”

Oakley winced at my demanding tone, and Andrew stopped before we could go into the emergency department. “He’s in there bro, and the kid is fucking crazy. I mean look what he did to us.”

I was looking, and I was finding it hard not to have a little respect for this kid that they were talking about. My brother had a black eye, he was limping and I’d have bet my next pay check his arm was broken. Andrew didn’t look like he’d fared much better than Oakley. He may even look worse with two black eyes. My brother and cousin had training too, so I knew they were no lightweights. I’d spoken to Philip, their security, on the drive to the hospital and asked why he didn’t step in and help my brother and cousin. He’d told me the guy who’d fought them was just a seventeen-year-old kid, a boy the same age as them. Philip hadn’t said why this kid had beat the shit out of my brother and cousin and that alone had me suspicious.

“I can see what he’s done. Why the hell do you need me with you and not Dad?”

Oakley gazed into the emergency room and mumbled, “Philip is pissed at me and I um…I don’t want Mum or Dad involved in this, especially now Bailey’s in labor.”

“Yeah,” Andrew added. “Can you imagine if I called my mother or even Dad right now? Dad needs to be with Mum or Richard will strangle Mum.”

I groaned because I could just imagine how upset Aunty Gillian would be if for any reason she had to leave Bailey. And if something went wrong she would be unbearable. Aunt Gillian was a handful at the best of times, but I knew right now she would be beyond crazy.

Soulmates, ha. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. I didn’t believe in the Silverman gypsies’ curse. Well, I hadn’t until it happened to Uncle Carl too. The tale went in the old country, we helped a group of gypsies flee, and for helping them, they gifted us with the ability to know our soulmate. But there are draw backs that they forgot to mention. Like the fact we Silvermans turned into controlling, possessive, domineering men. Basically cavemen. My parents and two uncles had fallen to the curse and this last year my young cousin Stephan and Richard too, but the shock was my uncle Carl. I didn’t believe in the curse either until my family started dropping like flies. My uncle Carl, who had avoided it to the ripe old age of forty-five, in the last ten months had found his soulmate, gotten married and had twins. One of which was a girl. Silvermans didn’t have female children.

Thinking of the supposed curse always pissed me off. I tried not to believe, and I told myself I didn’t, but I couldn’t ever stay with a woman because the stupid ‘curse’ was always there like a frigging whispering temptation telling me the grass is and will be greener on the other side, or once I’ve found my soulmate.

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