Page 13 of Promise of Punishment

“You have fifteen minutes,” he says in a cold tone.

I rush over to Mom and grab her hands. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

“We have to leave. Pack everything as fast as you can.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you later. Just go pack. Now.” Mom grabs trash bags from the kitchen cabinet.

“But why? What happened?”

“Do as I say, Fable,” she snaps and hands me a few bags. “I’ll explain later. Pack everything you can and hurry!”

She starts collecting anything of importance to her, stuffing it into a trash bag.

I race to my room and do the same. My hands shake from not knowing what’s going on.

“Five minutes,” the man calls out from the doorway.

Is he seriously going to kick us out in five minutes? I don’t even have half of my stuff packed yet.

I get another trash bag and throw everything I can grab in it—clothes, makeup, toiletries, trinkets, shoes, jackets. I don’t have a lot. Neither does Mom. We came here with barely anything, but in this rush to pack, it seems like a lot.

Fifteen minutes isn’t enough to even think, let alone pack up our lives.

“Time’s up,” the man says and walks into the apartment. “I need to escort you from the property.”

Mom’s eyes are puffy, tears streaking her red cheeks. She wipes her nose and nods.

The three large bags she carries engulf her petite frame. I hold two trash bags in one hand and a filled tote from the closet slung over my shoulder, but my other hand is free. To help, I grab one of the overstuffed bags from her.

The security guard doesn’t help us carry anything as he walks with us to a large golf cart parked outside the carriage house.

Mom piles into the second row while I sit in the back, our bags secured around us.

“Mom?” I ask hesitantly as the golf cart lurches forward towards the long driveway that leads to the entrance of the estate.

“Just wait, Fable,” she says, her brown eyes filled with torment.

I bite my tongue as the cart bumps over the gravel road and stops about ten minutes later.

We climb out, bags in our hands.

The guard gives Mom a hard glare. “If you don’t want to suffer legal consequences, I suggest you don’t linger.”

She nods, looking on the verge of tears again.

I could kick gravel at him for talking to her like she’s trespassing. Mom earned her position here and has done nothing wrong. This man doesn’t care one bit that he just ripped us from our home and dropped us on the side of the road with a threat to leave. Where does he expect us to go?

Mom sets the bags on the ground and gets out her phone, typing on it.

“What are we going to do?” I whisper, even though no one is around us.

“I’m getting us a ride to a cheap hotel.”

“Why?”

She doesn’t look up, just keeps typing on her phone and wiping away stray tears.