Disclaimer: Any sexual acts depicted involve only characters ages 18 or older. This is a work of fiction.
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Aaron burst into the bedroom with Linda's cell buzzing in his hand.
"We've got trouble. What's the plan, big guy?"
Deion gave Linda a dangerous look. "When you answer, put the phone on speaker. You say one wrong word, bitch, and you're dead. Understood?"
Linda felt her mouth turn bone-dry as she took the phone with trembling fingers. She swiped to answer.
"Hi, honey."
"Mom! I'm glad you answered. Listen, I'm really, really sorry about this, but I forgot my report for Mr. Cramner's class."
Suddenly Linda remembered. It struck her like a bolt of lightning. Tara's history report on the 1920 Battle of Warsaw.
Linda could practically hear her poor daughter cringing over the phone. "I'm super sorry, Mom, but could you possibly drive it over to school before 8th period?"
Linda wracked her brain for what to say. She thought fast. She improvised.
"Honey, I wish I could. There's a leak at the house here and the whole kitchen is flooded. I need to stay here until the plumber arrives, and I'm not sure how soon that'll be. Tell you what, I'll write a note for you for the teacher and explain that it was my fault that you weren't able to bring your report with you today, and I'll make sure that Mr. Cranmer knows that you completed it on time and with no help from me."
Tara paused. It wasn't like her mom to write notes for her. It was much more Linda-like for her to demand that her daughter take accountability for her own mistakes.
Linda couldn't help it though. In the midst of her own predicament, she wanted to stay as far from her daughter as possible. She knew that these men would never take the risk of allowing her to go to the school anyway, and having someone else come pick up the report would be even worse...
As if the universe had heard her thought, Tara now spoke.
"Wait. What if I have Brandon's mom swing by and pick up the report, assuming she's free. Would that work?" Brandon was one of Tara's fellow classmates who lived a few miles down the road.
Dammit. Linda almost began to panic. Here she was, sitting naked in her bed with a rapist's cum seeping from her pussy, trying to keep her daughter in the dark. The situation would have been almost darkly comical if it wasn't so disturbing...
"Sweetheart, look, let me handle this like I said. The house is an absolute mess right now and I'd rather not have anyone over to see the flooding. I'm so embarrassed."
Tara paused. Suspicion crept into her daughter's voice. "Mom, why are you acting so weird? It's no big deal! Why can't you just let Brandon's mom come by and pick it up? Can't you just leave my report outside the front door? She doesn't even have to come inside."
Deion and Aaron were both staring at Linda very intently now - intently enough to make shivers skitter up and down her spine. Deion slid onto the bed beside Linda and draped his arm around her neck in a very loose head lock that promised to be a stranglehold and worse if she didn't figure a way out of this - and fast.
"Honey, I know this report means a lot to you. Tell you what, I'll call Brandon's mom and have her come get it for you if the plumber takes too long, OK? Either way, I'll make sure you get it before 8th period. Either me or Mrs. Knudsen will drop it off with administration for you to pick up. Stop by and check there after 7th period, OK?"
It was a lie but a good one. Her daughter seemed mollified.
"Thanks Mom. You're the best!"
"You're welcome, sweetie. I love you." Linda had never meant those words more than she did now. 'It might be the last chance I ever get to speak to my daughter,' she thought as a certain fatalism settled somewhere deep in her bones.
"I love you too, Mom."
It was times like this that Linda counted herself lucky. Despite Tara being a 14-year-old teenager 'too cool' for her mother these days, she still never failed to end a phone call with her by telling her mom that she loved her.