Clan Fighters by Kaitlyn Garlets (dark academia books to read .txt) 📖

{~Chapter One~}


"Pick up order number seventeen!" Reece called out to the customers, who were all waiting for their food to get done.
"That's me!" A man called, who was wearing a tie and suit that looked a size too small for him. He walked over to the pick up area and grabbed his food and walked out the too crowded small restaurant.
The Small Town Restaurant was owned by Reece and her older brother Brian, who took over the business for their parents after they died tragically in a plane accident visiting their family in California. But for some reason, police think that the plane crash wasn't by accident, and they have been trying to find out who would have done that for twelve years now. But so far, the police here in the small town of can't do anything other then have a gut feeling about it.
Reece and her brother think about it all the time, and Reece has always thought that the tragic incident wasn't an accident like the police thought, but Brian thought differently.
Now that Reece was eighteen, and Brian was twenty-three, they owned and ran the Small Town Restaurant down the block from their little blue and white house with two floors, with only three rooms that they have been living in since they were little toddlers and still are now. Now they don't even go into their parents' bedroom since the incident had happened, and everything was left where as it was when they left for a trip to California two years ago.
Now that they both owned the restaurant, Reece is the one who really works and manages the place because ever since their parents died, Brian took to drinking and her and Brian became strangers living in the same house since it had happened. So basically, Brian didn't really own the place with Reece.
"Hey, Monika, can you help me?" Reece called down the walk way in the back, where it was just as busy and crowded as in the front where everyone wanted their food and to go on to whatever they were doing before they came here to get some grub.
Monika rushed up to Reece, willing to help her with everything and anything that Reece threw at her. "What can I do for you, boss?"
Monika was one of the best employees that Reece had and she was glad for that because if she didn't have her to help out and keep everyone else in line and at work, then she would have to sell the place and the house because she couldn't even pay for anything unless she had the restaurant.
"I want you to go and stock some more hamburger buns and hot dog buns on the shelf where the buns usually go and then prepare the meat to be cooked, okay?" Reece ordered, watching a smile cross Monika's face.
"All right boss! Be right back!" Monika said and jogged off to go do what Reece had told her to do. Reece laughed and went back to ordering people's food for them.
A small girl that reminded Reece of herself was standing next in line waiting for Reece to ask her what she wanted.
"Hello, can I help you? What would you like?" Reece asked in her nicest voice that she only used for small children.
The small girl blushed and looked at her mother, making Reece's smile fade slowly when she thought about how she would go places as small child with her mother. She remember one night, Reece and her mother were out, shopping when she had gotten sick from eating ice cream from a fast food place out of town that ironically shut down from salmonella poisoning a month after she had gotten sick, and her mother held her in a bathroom stall over a toilet that was so dirty, she didn't think that no matter how much you cleaned it, that it wouldn't get clean, holding her and trying to calm her down while she upchucked her meals from that day and the ice cream.
"Hello?" the mother in line said, waving her hand in front of Reece's face.
"Oh, what? I'm sorry, I was side tracked. How can I help you?" Reece said, snapping out of her day dream.
"I asked for a small orange float with a small all meal," the woman said.
"All right, that will be five dollars and fifty-seven cents. Will you be paying with cash or our special credit?" Reece asked.
"No special credit today, I will be paying with cash," she said, handing her the exact change for the meal for her daughter.
"Thank you, please wait over there, you will be order number eighteen," Reece said, pointing to the waiting area, which was still crowded from people waiting for their food.
"Okay. Thanks," she said, taking her daughter to the waiting area.
"Next!" Reece called, really wanting to go home now that she had seen a small girl that reminded her of her mother.
The next person walked up, and Reece took their orders one after another until there was only one person left. She took his order and he left with a smile on his face like Reece saw ever single day.
But today, after seeing that girl, a smile on people's face didn't cheer her up at all.
Reece sighed, wiping sweat from her face, calling Monika over to her.
"Yes?" Monika asked, setting a wash cloth on the counter next to her.
"I want you to close up and have everyone clean up before they all go home."
"What about you? You look really pale," Monika asked, worried.
"I'm fine. I just need a break. Just have everyone clean up then send them home and lock up afterwards."
"Okay, but I still think that you don't look so good,
Monika said, walking away because she knew not to argue with her boss when she wasn't in a good mood.
Reece walked over to the back room where she had her office, and she hadn't seen it since she got to the place this morning. Her office had a small TV, but she only used it when there wasn't all that much people buying food. Reece only used it usually in the winter. She also had a couch just in case she had to sleep there, but she never uses it.
She sighed again and took off her apron with her restaurant logo on it, and threw it onto her couch and grabbed her jacket and her purse, shutting her office door and locked it.
"Monika? I'm leaving now, don't forget to lock up and clean up!" She called, seeing Monika's head pop into view.
"Okay, I won't!" she said back, holding a thumbs up.
"Okay, good. See you on Thursday!" Reece said, walking out the back door to her blue mustang.
Reece unlocked her car doors with a push of a button on her key pad and stepped into her car, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Oh, honey. I thought I lost you!" a familiar voice said, coming from behind Reece, making her quite crying instantly.
"Who's there?" Reece asked, wiping her tears off her face so that they couldn't see that she had been crying.
"Its me!"
"Mom?" Reece asked, looking behind her in the back seat.
"Of course it me! But not really," her mother said, frowning.
"Huh? That makes no sense," Reece said.
"Listen, sweetie. You need to help your brother, or he will lose you and you will lose him. He is all you have left. If you don't then you will lose him. Help him. Go! Before it is too late!"
Her mother disappeared and Reece was left all alone.
"That couldn't have been real! Mom is dead!" Reece said to herself, crying even harder than she did when her mother was in the car. "I just need some sleep and then forget what happened today. None of this is real. I'm just tired and why am I talking to myself?" Reece asked herself, shoving her keys in the ignition and starting the car, making a screeching noise with her tires as she backed up and drove to her house, which she didn't even want to go home because she would have to deal with her brother Brian who was probably drinking again. But, like always, she would have to go home and deal with him.
Just thinking about Brian and his drinking made her cry harder than she had today, but she stopped as she pulled into her driveway, so Brian didn't have to see her like that and want to start a fight.
She stepped out of her car and noticed that the lights were off inside. That probably meant that Brian had crashed on the couch instead of going to bed, which means that he didn't drink today. Reece let out a sigh of relief.
As she opened her front door, a creepy feeling crept up her spine, a feeling that she was being watched. Reece shrugged it off and stepped into her house and closed the door behind her, locking the door like she did every night.
"Brian! I'm home!" she called. "Do you want to have something to eat? Brian?!" Reece looked into the living room and found that Brian wasn't in the living room. She looked into the kitchen, but he wasn't there either.
"This is odd. And strange. Brian is usually-" Reece was cut off by a man screaming from upstairs.
"Brian!" Reece raced upstairs to see Brian laying on the floor, blood gashing from his chest. "Brian! No! What happened?" she screamed, grabbing Brian's shoulders and resting him in her arms. "Who did this to you?" she asked.
Brian looked up at his younger sister, panic, confusion in his bright blue eyes. "They did this to me."
"Who?" Reece asked, holding him closer, wanting to know who had done this horrible thing to him.
"They did this to me. They did this to me. They said that they are coming for you and something about draining you from the inside out."
"What does that mean?" Reece asked.
"I have no idea, but they also told me to tell you that they will be coming for you. Soon. You must leave! Go!" Brian said, grabbing onto her shirt and pulling her so close to him that she could smell the salty blood on him.
"Where would I go?" Reece asked. "I can't just leave everything behind! The restaurant! I can't!" she said, shaking her head no.
"Yes! You have to! You have no choice! I should have told you about this long ago! Now go! In my room under the floor is things that will help you get through this. I planned to tell you long ago, but I was too fixed on drinking because of the accident! I should have never went that far. You are way stronger than you think. And you have more power than you can imagine. If you don't stop them, they will kill you and everyone you love. Find the man that will help you and guide you..." Brian trailed off, closing his eyes slowly, a single tear falling from his eye onto Reece's arm where she was holding him and seeped into her arm, making Reece gasp.
The shock of losing another person in her family was too much and came only seconds after her brother died, still gripping her