HELL HAD MADE its way onto Blair Whitmore's doorstep that morning. The gut wrenching feeling had seeped its way into the car ride to the police station as well. Silence was the only thing that manifested itself between Braxton and Blair as they drove into the heart of Kildare Island and towards the unfamiliar police station.

Thoughts were still running rampant in Blair's mind. Anger had found its way into Braxton's bloodstream, on the other hand, leaving him in his father's Ford seething.

They have no right to do this to us, he had thought throughout the entire ride to the station. A sickening fury had crept its way inside of him and wouldn't release him. He had packed his bag hastily, grabbing his stash of weed and liquor, a few days worth of clothes and some shoes and stowed it away inside the car. He had even packed a few of Blair's things while she had stood on the porch with her parents, watching hell unfold before her.

Blair's mind had not left that scene, it played again and again in her mind as she drove over the speed limit in a hurry to give her statement to the police.

She hadn't he slightest idea of what she would say to them. Her father had once been a kindhearted man. He had spent many nights out on the beach with his beloved daughter watching the freshly hatched sea turtles make their trek to the ocean's edge. He had read her bedtime stories and reassured her that nothing that went 'bump' in the night was hiding beneath her bed. But something had changed in him when she had turned ten. He often came home at late hours of the night, his body rigid and his breath carrying the stench of alcohol.

Blair's phone ringing through the speakers of the car caused the abrupt pause of her thoughts.

Rafe Cameron's name was displayed across the screen of her father's truck. She looked at Braxton and they shared a moment of asking one another if they should answer it.

"Hey Rafe, what's up," Braxton had answered the phone though the screen, Rafe's voice reverberated throughout the car.

"Hey Brax, where's your sister?"

"She's right here, driving us to the fucking police station," Braxtons anger had finally presented itself as he began talking to his friend.

"What the fuck is going on," Rafe's question had been aimed for Braxton, however Blair was the one that answered.

Her voice had lost its way out her mouth once more as she tried to answer, it came out in a hoarse croak that told Rafe something was wrong, "They want to get our statements about what happened the days leading up to now."

"Dad said Thomas was in custody..."

"Yeah," Blair sighed, mustering up the courage to confirm, something that made it more real than it had been moments before, "Yeah, they've been searching the house all morning, they took Dad to the police station to be questioned."

"Isn't that some fucking bullshit," Braxton butted into the conversation.

"They won't find anything, don't worry about it," Rafe tried to sound confident in his response, but there had been a shimmer of hesitation before he had consoled the Whitmore siblings.

"Okay, well we're here, I'll call later," the stiffness in her voice had been a byproduct to all of her emotions swirling around in her body. Every inch of her yearned for his touch, to wake up in his arms from the awful nightmare that had become her life.

She put the truck into park and turned it off, a sigh escaping her lips as she met eyes with her brother.

"We tell the truth," she said as fear encapsulated them.

"We tell the truth," Braxton repeated with a grip on his legs that caused his knuckles to turn white.

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"You are aware, Miss Whitmore, that a gun was pulled last night?" Deputy Shoupe peered at Blair from across the metal desk the two were sat at.

The questions that had violated her privacy and made her question her entire life had come to a close, but the feelings of hatred towards herself and her family lingered in the stale air.

"What?"

"Your brother had a gun pulled on him last night out past the Boneyard," Sheriff Peterkin reiterated, irritation washed onto her face. She had every right to believe that the young girl sat before her was playing stupid.

"Who?," the anger that had been gradually growing inside of her threatened to spill out.

Above all, Blair Whitmore was loyal, she would have died for her brother and anyone else she so carefully chose to love. The idea of him having a gun put to his head made her absolutely infuriated.

"That information is classified, wouldn't want you doing anything reckless, now would we?" Shoupe looked tauntingly at her from across the room, his mustache hid the small smirk that played on his lips as his eyes held a haughtiness that only she seemed to pick up on.

"Reckless?" she choked out a laugh, the sarcasm that lingered in her voice was slight, but powerful, "Why would I taint my family's name more for some dumbass punk that thought it was smart to pull a gun on my brother? Why would I bring my mother more heartache by hurting someone with such a low IQ?"

"We are sure you won't do anything in retaliation, Miss Whitmore–" Sheriff Peterkin started.

"Blair–"

"Blair," she replied, "However, we are still trying to get the story straight, I recommend speaking to your brother about the altercation."

"Will do," the shortness in her voice told the police that their interrogation was through, and that Blair wanted nothing more than to get out of the small white room that was bare of any warmth.

"Well then," Peterkin began, "That's all for today, we will call you in if we need any more information or if anything else occurs."

"Thank you," with that, Blair left with a curt nod towards the Sheriff and her deputy and quickly grabbed her purse and left the room.

A suffocating feeling encased her as she exited the building as the fresh salt air replaced the staleness within the police station. A sob caught in her throat as she found it hard to fully inhale, her lungs constricting as she tried to fill them with air. The color in her cheeks turned red as her hands and lips trembled from the fear within her.

The hours leading up to that moment replayed in her mind as she found herself sitting on the steps of the station, a hand grasping at her shirt as she tried to fill her lungs with fresh air. Her mind filled with images of her father being put in cuffs before her and her mother, realizing that her brother had watched from afar out the window as their lives turned to shambles.

She remembered the night that Scooter Grubbs went missing and every single step she took that night, from returning from college to the cool night air as she slammed beers out on the dock.

Her hand felt for her phone as she continued to struggle to breathe, her eyes focused on the road leading out of the shops and downtown as she dialed the far too familiar number.

The phone rang once before a voice on the other side answered.

"Blair?" his voice sounded like heaven in Blair's ears as she felt the tears fall out of her eyes and onto her cheeks.

"Hey," once again her voice came out as only a raspy whisper, she had never been more embarrassed to be a girl from such a prominent family crying and struggling to breathe on the front steps of the police station without a ride home, or even a home to be taken to.

"Is everything okay," Rafe's voice had a tone of concern, one that humiliated Blair even further, "Are you done at the police station?"

"Actually, I need a ride, they took dad's car for evidence," another blow to her perfect facade she had been building over the nineteen years of her life.

"I'm on my way," The line went silent as Rafe hung up, leaving Blair alone with her thoughts once again.

Rafe Cameron had never been good with emotions, he never knew how to react whenever one of his sisters had went on a tearful rant about a boy who had hurt them, or when his countless one night stands had cried before they had sex because they were just so sad with how their lives had turned out. Hell, he hadn't even fully processed the emotions brought forth with the death of his mother, even ten years later. But, the pain that had been evident in Blair's voice had made a sliver of his twisted heart shatter.

As Bliar sat waiting for Rafe to arrive, a gray Jeep pulled quickly into the parking lot. You've got to be fucking kidding me, Blair thought as she recognized the blond boy with his arm out the window from afar.

"Yo, Blair!"

Another head appeared from the passenger side, a dark haired black boy with pretty features peered over Topper as the two witnessed the crumbling of Blair Whitmore and her entire life.

Blair quickly wiped her eyes and mustered up a smile, her breath finally began to return to normal as she took her time standing and walking over to the two boys.

"Hey Kelce, Topper," She smiled as she made her way over to the driver's side window, leaning against the Jeep and poking her head inside of the vehicle.

"What're you guys doing here?"

"Came to pick up Brax, have you seen him?" Topper answered while looking over the blonde's shoulder towards the entrance of the police station.

"Not since we were taken back for questioning," the lingering anxiety from the events of the past day had pulled at Blair's heart as she showed the imperfect parts of her white lie life.

The two boys in front of her had always been around, through both thick and thin. The two knew everything about her family from the whispered conversations behind closed doors that her younger brother somehow always caught snippets from, the same whispered secrets that he shared with his two closest friends.

Kelce had always been infatuated with Blair, ever since he was little he remembered the way her light blonde hair framed her face and how her eyes pierced through anything they made contact with. But she had always been his best friend's older sister, the untouchable prize that he had so desperately wanted. And when she started dating Rafe, a boy he considered his brother, she became even more untouchable, so much so that the feelings Kelce once held for Blair disappeared and morphed into a respect for the way she held herself and kept her family together, even when they were on the brink of falling apart.

Topper Thornton on the other hand had always held resentment for the eldest Whitmore, a mutual dislike that always tainted their relationship with one another. Topper saw Blair as more of a nuisance than anything else. She always seemed to hover around when Rafe, Braxton, Kelce, and him tried to have a guys' night. Even though she had never really spoken during those nights where they talked about the girls they liked and drank beers on the Whitmore's balcony, he still hated her presence. Her energy lingered in a room far after she had left it, and he itched with anticipation everytime she left and her mysterious, and intoxicating, energy left with her. Blair had done nothing to Topper, personally, she had always been courteous and civil towards all of Braxton and Rafe's friends, but what she hadn't done and hadn't said left more of a mark on his mind than what she did do or say. Her eerie silence, the confidence that radiated from her, the nonchalant attitude she arrived with even in moments of panic, had given Topper an off putting feeling about her, even when they were younger, that he could never quite shake.

While the three, mainly Blair and Kelce, talked about the hurricane and the damage left behind, Braxton Whitmore exited the police station with a pained and exhausted look on his face. The remnants from the questioning had weighed heavy on his mind, but all of the emotions written on his face seemed to disappear when he saw the familiar gray Jeep and his sister hanging onto the side of it.

"Top, Kelce, thanks for coming man!"

"Oh, anything for you," Topper quickly replied, ending the conversation Blair and Kelce had been having about Chapel Hill and Blair's studies.

"What the fuck?" Blair had remembered the moment she spotted her brother what the police had said about the night previous, her cool demeanor melted away as she watched her brother's long strides towards the vehicle falter.

"You weren't going to tell me about the gun that was pulled last night?" Fury raged inside of her, making her unaware of all the people milling around, like any other Saturday afternoon in downtown Kildare, stopping to gawk at the estranged teen yelling at her brother on a seemingly peaceful day in the island town.

"I forgot to mention it," Braxton uttered as the anger inside of him threatened to boil out, his sister was making a scene in front of God and everyone. She acted as if the gun that had been put to his head had been his fault and not the fucking pogue's that had the gun in the first place.

"Forgot to mention it," she scoffed, her hands thrashing in the air as heat rose to her cheeks.

"It's been a bit of a fucked up morning, Blair, okay? Give me a goddamned break," Braxton went to move past her before she grabbed his arm and halted any movement.

"Who did it," the glare in her eyes had been murderous, as if she was going to hunt down the person who threatened him and beat them within an inch of their life.

His arms slipped out of her grasp as his face faltered, the look in Blair's eyes had been one that he had never witnessed before. Even Blair had been taken aback by the anger that spewed out of her.

"Can we talk about this later, you're causing a scene."

"Or, you could tell me now," she challenged him, the same glint in her eyes that made the blue in them stand out stronger than ever before.

"Some stupid fucking pogue, we can talk about it later," that had settled the conversation, however it had not settled the anger that swirled in Blair's mind that knotted her intestines together and made her whole body shake with rage.

The anger that Blair felt within herself was something she had never experienced before. It was overpowering, intoxicating almost, as it filled her entire body with adrenaline and made her feel as if she was invincible. Her mind had brought forth her darkest thoughts as she relished in the fact that her entire life was falling apart. Not only her life, but her identity itself was crumbling at her feet and there was no way to magically fit it all together and glue it back to make it perfect once more. The aching feeling within her heart traveled its way into her head as she watched her brother walk away, a look of anger spread thin across his lips as he got into Topper's car and rode away.

Her entire body stood guard, as if something else that would ruin her life would happen at any moment. The emotions she had felt within the last twelve hours had left an ache across her whole body, as well as empty pit within her stomach.

Blair Whitmore's world was being destroyed in front of her eyes, and yet there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening.

━━━━━ AUTHORS NOTE . . .

ahh i'm so sorry, there's not a lot of Rafe in this chapter either but i needed to set up the storyline as well as introduce some of the character dynamics that we'll be seeing a lot! i promise this upcoming chapter has a lot more Rafe and Blair though!! thank you so much for reading, i love you always and forever!