Here's a sequel to 'Come Undone' 'cause I couldn't help myself. This is a small teaser chapter hopefully to whet your appetites. :)

Beta-ed by the lovely Melanie39. Thanks Mel. And thanks also to brandywine421 for giving this a read through and encouraging me.

Breaking the Cycle.

Chapter 1.

Ryan sat back and looked at his handy work. The tree house wasn't the most elegant thing in the world but it was sturdy and cosy. He'd added a rope ladder and painted the outside a dark green so it blended in with the foliage. It was now a perfect hideaway. It would give the kids somewhere to play when the house got a bit much, although secretly he knew that he had really started the project as a wish fulfilment for himself. He'd always wanted a tree house growing up and now he had one. So what if he was too old to play in the thing now, that didn't matter. He'd enjoy sitting in the branches, thinking.

Seth had laughed at him a few days ago when he'd caught him at home in a particularly pensive mood and asked what he was brooding about. Ryan had looked at him and told him in a dignified voice that he was not 'brooding'…he officially didn't brood anymore, he contemplated. And that's what he'd done during several lost hours whilst building the tree house. He'd contemplated…not brooded ' cause he didn't do that anymore. Seth had snarked that there wasn't much difference in Ryan's brooding face and his contemplating one but Ryan knew there was a subtle difference. He was happy for the first time in God knows how long. He and Missy were good and things were going well, both at school and here at the refuge. So brooding about stuff was out…contemplating his past and present was different. Seth couldn't understand that but Ryan could.

Ryan collected his tools together and took one last look at the wooden hideaway before he made his way back to the refuge. Ryan found Missy in her office going over the weekly accounts. She threw down her pen and let rip a stream of expletives. Ryan laughed at her; it was the same every week. She would get herself worked up; suffer agonies that they were wrong.

Ryan made his way around the desk and sat down on her lap.

"Ouch…get off me you lump…you're too heavy!" She laughed.

"And I thought you believed in equality Missy! Accounts time again huh? Want me to check them?"

"Yup…I hate the accounts…seriously hate them. Can't we just cut out the middle man and you just do them for me every week?"

Ryan gave her a look. By the time he'd checked through and re calculated half the figures he'd as good as did the books anyway. Missy was great at her job but seriously poor at keeping the receipts in order.

Ryan gave her a peck on the cheek and got up, pulling her from the seat, and then sat down. Missy settled herself down on his lap and watched as he rifled through the mountain of papers on her desk and started to write in his big bold script. After five minutes Missy got up to make him a coffee. Ryan was in his element, his fingers whizzing over the calculator, pen stuck in his mouth.

Missy got distracted by one of the women in the kitchen and it was over an hour later when she returned. Her desk was neater and Ryan was now tapping away on her PC entering the figures into a spreadsheet. She watched as he sipped his steaming coffee, studying the screen for mistakes and inaccuracies. He eventually turned the screen off and swung the chair around.

"All done." He downed the last of his coffee.

"What would I do without you?"

"Hire an accountant?"

Missy sat back on his lap.

"You think you're so funny now don't you."

Ryan grinned at her.

"I try."

Missy kissed him as a way of thanks and soon they were tangled up on the floor, half clothed and panting. She always repaid the jobbing accountant this way and that's why he worked for nothing. Ryan was a pushover.

She unzipped him. This was one expense that was not going on the books.


Ryan let himself into the pool house and started to strip off immediately in readiness of a long hot shower. The combination of the day spent finishing off the tree house and the workout that Missy had given him had sapped all his energy. He stepped under the jets and let them massage the aches of the day away. He heard the muffled tone of the phone over the sound of the water cascading down but let it ring. It was probably Seth asking some inane question that he couldn't be bothered to come out to the pool house and ask in person. Ryan eventually got out of the shower and wound a towel around his hips. He walked to his bed with his toothbrush in his mouth and sat down to listen to his messages.

The first was Missy giving him one of her filthy goodnight messages. He smiled, one of these days either Sandy or Kirsten would be in the room and he would die of embarrassment.

The second was a guy from his AP math class reminding him to bring a textbook that he wanted to borrow to school tomorrow.

The third was Seth asking if he'd left his new X-Men on the bed. Ryan reached under him and pulled out the crumpled comic. Oops…Yeah Seth you did.

The fourth was a long period of silence, and then the machine beeped, signalling the end off the message.

Ryan stopped brushing and wound back the tape.

He leant in and listened again.

Ryan listened a further two times as if in hope that this time the person would magically speak. Ryan frowned and went to the bathroom to spit out the toothpaste in his mouth. Logic dictated that he just forget about the silent message. It was probably a wrong number but Ryan was by nature a worrier. He finished cleaning his teeth and got into a pair of sweats. It hadn't sounded like his mom. Even when she was drunk and left him silent messages he always knew it was her. He could always sense it, and the sound of the TV in the background was usually a giveaway. It was kind of comforting that although his mom had cut him out of her life that she still called every so often. At least it showed him that in her fucked up way she still cared a tiny bit about him. It was just a wrong number he told himself.

He lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. When the phone rang again he snatched it up on the first ring.

"Hello?"

He was met by silence again.

"Who is this?"

He heard the faint sound of a sniff on the other end, then the sound of a gasping intake of air, the sound of someone who'd been crying and couldn't get the air into their lungs. He recognised it immediately.

"Danny?"

He looked over at his clock. 12.30a.m. What the hell was a little boy of seven doing up at this time on a school night?

"Ryyaaaan." Danny's voice softly wailed.

"Danny, are you O.K, what's the matter?" He asked softly. Danny started to cry in earnest down the phone.

Ryan was just about to ask the question again when he heard another voice in the background. It wasn't Becky, it was a male voice.

i "Put the phone down now and get to bed." /i

The phone line went dead in his hand.

Ryan stared at the phone in his hand and ran his fingers through his hair. He pressed redial and the phone rang and rang the other end.

"Come on Becky. Answer the phone," he muttered to himself. He let it ring for several minutes but no one picked up.

He sat on his bed and chewed the inside of his cheek. The warning bells were starting to go off in his head.

TBC

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