by L. A. Casey
* * * *
Keela
a Slater Brothers novella
Copyright © 2015 by L.A. Casey
Cover Design: Mayhem Cover Creations
Literary Editor: Gypsy Heart Editing
Formatter: JT Formatting
ISBN: 978-0-9929849-5-3
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
License Notes
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Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
KANE - Chapter One
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Other Titles
Nanny,
I miss you. I miss you terribly. It’s been fourteen days since you left us, and I still can’t accept that you aren’t here anymore. I’m still expecting my ma to ring and tell me to get ready because we’re going up to the hospital to see you. In a way I like thinking that, I like thinking you’re up in the hospital because that would mean you’re still here, even though deep down I know you’re gone on to a better place. While I’m sad you’re no longer here, I’m so happy you’re out of pain and at peace. I’m so unbelievably happy you’re at peace. God knows I am. You’re up in the land above with Granda, Jason, Auntie Kay, and Tanya. God must not know what to do with himself with you lot up there together. I can only imagine the mischief you all get up to! LOL.
I watch the videos I took of you in the hospital every day just to see you and hear your voice. I cry laughing at them, you had us all in tears of laughter that night from the things you were saying. I’m so glad I recorded it, I would forget half the things you said otherwise. It makes me feel better to watch those videos, to remember the good times. To be honest, I thought I would be fine once you passed on. I was so sure I would be happy you’re finally resting, and I am, but I’m not at the same time. I just miss you. I can’t even talk to anyone about it because I don’t want to upset them because they love and miss you just as much as I do. It’s all a process, I know that. It will take getting used to, you being gone. It just sucks.
I know you’re with me though. You’re my number one supporter when it comes to my writing. You told everyone about my books, and you didn’t care if they were interested or not, you still told them all about my career so far and about all the signings and places I’ve been to, and places I’m going. You’re proud of me, you told me so and it was honestly the best thing you could have ever said to me. I’m now living by what you told me, you told me to go for it, and I am. I promise you I’ll go for every opportunity presented to me and grab it with both hands.
It is an absolute pleasure to call you my nanny. I don’t think grandmothers come better than you. You’re one of a kind, and I just want you to know that you’re deeply loved and I will never forget you. Not ever. You know I dedicated Frozen to you, you loved that, but it feels right to dedicate Keela to you too, even though you would lose your mind if you got to read what was on the pages of a Slater Brothers book. LOL.
I’ll love you forever.
This isn’t goodbye, it’s I’ll see you later <3
“Keela... Help me.”
I opened my eyes and sat upright from my laid down position. I wasn't in my bedroom, or even in my apartment. I was somewhere I had been before, but I couldn't identify where. It was a collection of hallways with a number of closed doors.
Fear gripped me, and I began to breathe hard as I stood up.
“Keela?”
The voice was in my ear urging me for help, begging me with each faint breath. It caused my heart to speed up. I spun around in a circle to see who needed me, but found no source of the voice.
“Where are you?” I shouted.
I heard a male cry out, and it frightened me. I knew that cry, but I couldn't think of who it belonged to. My mind was a cloud of confusion.
I started to run through the darkened hallways. I turned left then right then left again as I zoomed down the hallways in search of the person calling out for me. Each hallway wall was identical to the next, and I wasn't sure if I took a wrong turn and was somehow back to where I was when I opened my eyes. Everything was horrifyingly similar to me. I knew I walked these hallways before, but I couldn't remember when or why.
I screeched when the cream coloured hallway walls surrounding me began to change colour. I tilted my head to the side and watched as blood trails appeared on the walls in the form of human handprints. It looked like someone had placed their bloody hand on the wall and leisurely walked down the hallway smearing the deep red liquid along the way.
I screamed with fright and began to run again.
“Keela?” the voice from before shouted out.
It came from every direction like there was surround sound in the hallway.
“Who are you?” I screamed in dismay. “Where are you?”
Suddenly everything went deathly silent.
The only sound I could pick up on was that of my own hasty breathing.
I stopped moving and listened.
After a few moments of absolute silence, I heard a lock click. The sound sent vibrations through the floor under my feet, and for a moment I thought I would fall over with the force of it. The vibrations stopped as quickly as they started, and I managed to regain my balance. The creak and whine of a door being opened filled my ears seconds later and I whirled around to see who or what was behind it. I squinted my eyes when a door down the end of the hallway opened wide, but all I could see inside was darkness.
“Wh-who's there?” I called out, my voice aquiver.
I heard a male whine, then a metallic click sound—it was one that I was familiar with. It was the sound of the hammer of a gun being pulled back.
I swallowed down the bile that threatened to spew up my throat at that moment.
“Keela?” a familiar female voice whispered from behind me. “You have to help Alec.”
Alec?
I spun around, but like before, there was no one there.
“Alec?” I called out.
“Keela!” his voice screamed.
I felt myself fall into a panic when I recognised it was Alec's voice I'd heard earlier. His voice was the voice filled with pain and fear that was callin
g out to me for help minutes before.
“Where are you?” I screamed.
“In there, you have to help him,” the female voice whispered in my ear as I turned to the door that lead into darkness. Without a single thought I began to run towards the dark room, but no matter how fast I ran, the room never got any closer to me.
I screamed and jumped back with fright when a shadowy figure appeared in front of me. I fell onto my behind and screeched in terror when the figure shot forward and got in my face.
I could only see glowing silver eyes, no face or features.
“Alec will die unless you stop her,” the figure before me whispered.
“Stop who?” I screamed.
The figure faded away to nothing and I once again had a view of the darkened room, only it wasn't dark anymore. It was lit up, and Alec was in the middle of the room on his knees reaching out for me, but his head was bowed. I blinked and when I focused my eyes the shadow figure re-appeared, but it was now standing behind Alec.
“Stop her, Keela!” the female voice screamed at me from every direction. “Fight to save him!”
I gasped when the figure lifted its arm and pointed the object in its hand at Alec's bowed head. I squinted my eyes to see what it was and when the silver barrel of a gun caught my eye I jumped to my feet. I screamed for Alec to watch out as I ran towards him. This time when I ran towards the room it got closer, but even at my fastest sprint I still wasn't quick enough.
“Alec!” I screamed when a loud noise ripped through the hallway and rang in my ears.
The gun went off and Alec's body fell limp to the floor at the same time the door of the room slammed shut. I reached the door a second later and crashed into it. I felt no physical pain as I bounced off the door and fell back onto the floor. I could feel nothing over the gripping pain in my chest, and the tears streaming down my face.
I got back to my feet and tried to open the door, but the doorknob wouldn't turn. I slapped on the door with both of my hands and kicked it with my feet, but to no avail. It was locked tight.
“Keela?” another familiar voice spoke to me from behind.
I turned around and gasped.
Nico, Ryder, Damien, and Kane were stood before me.
“You have to help—”
“Why didn't you save our brother, Keela?” Damien cut me off.
I blinked. “I tried—”
“You let Alec die. You let our brother die,” Nico cut me off as he glared at me.
I began to pant as I took a small step backwards, however I bumped into the door I'd ruthlessly tried to open only seconds before.
“I ran. I tried to—”
“You let him die because you don't want him, you don't want his life,” Ryder cut me off.
His voice was a growl.
“No!” I began to whimper. “I love Alec, I want him. Please, help me help him.”
Kane clicked his tongue at me. “He loved you, Keela. He wanted to marry you, and you let him die. Why?”
I closed my eyes.
“Why didn't you want our brother?”
“Why didn't you save him?”
“Why didn't you love him?”
“Why, Keela?”
I placed my hands over my ears and screamed to block out the voices of the Slater brothers, but I heard each of them clearly in my head.
Why? Why? Why? Why?
I opened my eyes and screamed even louder when the four brothers rushed at me with extended arms. I dropped to my knees and bowed my head and waited for the pain of their attack to come, but it never did. I hesitantly looked up and cried out when the hallways dropped away along with the brothers. Everything had been replaced by a large room with a huge circular platform in the centre. Two faceless males were fighting up on it, and crowds of people surrounded the platform screaming and cheering them on.
I got to my feet as I looked around the room and took everything in. The platform, the people, the dance floor, the booths, the bar... I knew where I was… I was in Darkness.
“Keela? Come here, darlin'.”
I spun around and stared at my uncle Brandon.
“Why?... How?...”
“Shhh,” my uncle Brandon murmured as he walked over to me. “It's all goin' to be okay. I’ll make everythin’ better.”
I turned to him and hugged him, but pulled back when his hands pressed against my back and the feeling of wetness struck me. I stepped away from my grinning uncle and placed my hands on my back. I brought my hands back around to my front and stared down at them.
They were stained with a thick red liquid.
I whimpered when the metallic twang of blood filled my nose. I looked back up to my uncle, but screamed and stumbled backwards when the person in front of me was not my uncle. It was the ghost of a devil from my past.
“Marco,” I whimpered.
Marco Miles evilly smiled at me, and looked down to his hands.
His blood covered hands.
He clicked his tongue and lifted his gaze to meet mine.
“Well... isn't this interesting?”
I tried to back away from him, but multiple hands clamped down on my body and forced me down to my knees. I looked up, then to my left and right and wailed.
Nico and Damien held me down on my right, and Ryder and Kane held me down on my left.
“Now,” Nico growled. “Make her pay for hurting Alec.”
“I didn't hurt him! It wasn't me!” I screamed. “It was the shadow!”
The familiar click of a gun being cocked infiltrated my mind.
I felt the shock of a cold metal object being pressed against my forehead. I was hyperventilating with sobs as I lifted my head and stared down the barrel of a handgun. I screamed in terror when the culprit holding the gun wasn't Marco, but the shadow figure.
“You!” I bellowed as tears flowed down my cheeks. “Why are you doin' this?”
The shadow figure solidified and became a person. The person was dressed in a long black cloak with a large hood covering their face.
“Answer me,” I screamed and struggled against the brothers’ hold on me.
The shadow person lifted their free hand and tugged back the hood.
I froze as I stared at my own reflection.
It was me.
I was the shadow figure.
“You don't deserve him,” the shadow version of me said and pulled the trigger.
I awoke with a jolt, panting and covered in sweat. I needed to sit up so I could breathe, but I couldn't.
I was being crushed.
Crushed to death by a muscular sixteen stone male.
It wasn't Storm either.
My fiancé, the bear who was crushing the life out of me, easily had seventy percent of his large body spread out over me, pinning me to my mattress. I was used to this—Alec rarely let go of me when we slept, but at times when I had to wee so bad I could have cried, it was horrible.
Right now was one of those times.
I didn't want to wake Alec because he needed his full eight hours of sleep, otherwise he reverted back to a grumpy toddler. I also didn't want him to see me in my current state.
I was always a wreck after having the nightmare.
I tried to press myself back into my mattress to create a dent for some space so it would make slipping out of the bed easier. When I moved though, Alec's arm only tightened around my body.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
I had to get up.
“Alec,” I grunted.
Nothing.
“Alec.”
Not a bloody peep.
“ALEC!”
Alec jolted awake, jumped upright and brought my duvet with him in his panic. Now that I was free from his crushing weight I quickly rolled to my left and stood up off my bed and onto the floor. I rolled my neck on my shoulders and stretched my arms and legs out.
That felt better, much better.
“Are you okay? What's wrong?” Alec asked as he crawled over the bed to me in a
blind panic.
He kneeled on our mattress and placed his hands on my shoulders. It was dark in our room, but the light from the hallway shone in and helped me see Alec's handsome face. I watched as his eyes squinted and scanned over my face through the darkness. He pushed me out to arms length and looked down my body, his eyes scrutinising every inch of me. He let me go after a moment and sat back on his heels with a frown on his tired face.
“You look okay,” he muttered.
I couldn't help but smile. “I am okay.”
That was the furthest thing from the truth.
Alec stared at me for a long moment before he growled, “Why did you shout my name then?”
Because you were crushing me to death.
I shrugged. “I needed to use the toilet and you were pinnin' me to the bed so I called your name to wake you up,” I lied.
Alec deadpanned, “You didn't just 'Call my name', you shouted it like you were being murdered.”
An image of the gun going off in my nightmare struck me, but I shook it off.
“I would have screeched or at the very least given a high-pitched white-woman scream if I was being murdered. I wouldn't have shouted at all if I knew it would have upset you this much.”
Alec looked exhausted as he rubbed his hand over his gorgeous face. “Why a white-woman?”
I shrugged, again. “It's usually the white ones who scream the loudest that get killed in the slasher films.”
Alec blinked his tired eyes then turned away from me and fell back down onto his side of the bed.
Nice talk.
I turned and scurried out of the bedroom, down the hallway, and into the bathroom. I relieved myself and sighed in delight while doing so. After I finished my business I moved to the sink and washed my hands. I splashed some water on my face and stared into the mirror.
“It was only a dream,” I told myself.
When I emerged from the bathroom, I turned my head in the direction of the kitchen and sitting room and listened. I relaxed and went back to my bedroom when I heard Storm's reassuring snores.
I was like a mama bear when it came to him, even more so after he was hurt last year. Every time I used the toilet at night I always listened out to make sure I heard his snores so I knew he was still breathing. It relaxed me knowing he was okay.