Arabella pulls the oversize sweat jacket she is wearing closer around her body as she walked from the bus stop towards the trailer she was living in with her father. She notices that he wasn’t home yet. Arabella wonders if he was going to come home drunk again like he did last night. She quietly opens the door and enters the trailer, praying her father wasn’t home. When she noticed that he wasn’t, Arabella heads for her bedroom and sits down on the futon mattress she uses for bed and pulls her books out to start doing her homework. Her tummy rumbles likely because she had missed lunch today. Her father hadn’t given her any money to buy herself lunch. She knew there wasn’t any food in the trailer, because her father never went shopping.

Arabella pulls out a portable radio she had found and turns it on to listen to music while she works on her school work. She wishes it was an iPod or iPhone liked her friend Emily has, but she knew she would never get one. Arabella knew she was lucky to get any new clothes to wear. Arabella concentrates on her school work as she watches as the sun goes down. When she is finished doing her homework Arabella walks into the kitchen to see if there is anything to eat. As she searches for something to eat, she wonders why her mother abandoned them. Why didn’t her mother take her with her when she left?

Arabella sighs as she turns her radio off and hides it. If she was going to eat tonight, she’ll have to see if Charlie down the street would allow her to rake his yard so she could get some money. Arabella walks out of the trailer and locks the door and heads down the street to Charlie's house. As she walks up to his door, she begins to get nervous, but if she wanted to eat tonight. She was going to need some money.

Arabella felt dirty as she walks away from Charlie’s house. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she walked down towards the grocery store. Charlie had said he would give her money if she cleaned his house wearing a skimpy maid dress. She hadn’t felt right about wearing it but agreed to wear it while she cleaned his house. He had forced her to perform oral sex on him while he fingered her womanhood. He never enters into her with his manhood but fondled her as she bent over or kneeled when she cleaned anything in his house. She felt ashamed about what she did, but she had no choice in the matter. Arabella wipes the tears from her eyes as she walks into the store buys some canned soup and beefaroni as well some bread, peanut butter and jelly to make sandwiches.

By the time she gets home, its dark outside and her father isn’t home still. Arabella takes the food she bought into the house and hides them in her closet. She gets undress and grabs her worn nightshirt and heads into the bathroom to take a shower. She cries as the shower sprays down on her battered body. She still had a bruise from where her father had grabbed her arm so hard. She had red welts on her legs from the belt he had used on her, all because she had thrown out a bottle that still had some whiskey in it. She sits there in the shower crying till the water turns cold and she finally gets out and dries off before putting her nightshirt on. She heads towards her bedroom and tries to fall asleep.

During the night she tosses and turns as she wakes up in a cold sweat and looks around her dark bedroom. Arabella shivers as she lays back down and pulls the worn blanket closer around her skinny body. She manages to fall back asleep again.

In the morning time, her alarm goes off to wake her for school. As she is getting up to get ready for school, her father comes storming in and looks directly at her.

“Why are you creating so much noise?” as he picks her up by her hair and tosses her against her dresser drawer.

Arabella tries to protect herself as she is slammed against her dresser. She tries to protect herself as her alarm clock is thrown at her and hits her on top of her head.

“I’ll teach you to wake me.” As Arabella father picks her up off the floor and drags her into the living room.

“I’m sorry father, I won’t do it again.” Arabella tries to pull free from her father’s grip.

Arabella is bent over her father’s knees and held down as he begins to whip her with his hand. Her young body shakes with each strike against her bottom. She bites her lower lip to keep from crying out in pain as her father continues to strike her bottom. After what seems like ten minutes of being bent over his knee is shoved off and kicked.

“Get out of my face you worthless piece of trash.” As Arabella’s father kicks her one more time as he heads to the bathroom.

Arabella cries as she crawls into her bedroom and closes the door behind her. She could barely move from being spanked so hard. Her side hurts where her father kicked her. She uses her dresser drawer to pull herself up as she pulls a dress out of the dresser drawer to wear to school today. She moves slowly as she takes her nightshirt off and slips her dress on. It was big on her and came all the way down to her ankles. She slips her worn pair of sneakers on that have holes in the sole of them and puts on the gray worn sweat jacket she normally wears to cover up the bruises on her arms. She slips on two more pairs of panties to help ease the pain when she sits down in class today.

Arabella waits till she hears the shower going in the bathroom before she rushes from her bedroom and out the front door towards the bus stop. Arabella hangs back away from the other kids as she stands and waits for the bus to show up. She watches them play and tease one another as they wait for the bus. She wishes she could do that and felt like they did. Arabella looks up when the bus approaches. She waits till everyone in front of her gets on before she heads towards the back of the bus and takes the last seat by herself. When she sits down, pain shoots up her body as she grits her teeth as she sits in pain. She feels every bump and pothole the bus hits as it picks up the other kids. No one bothers to sit with her on the way to school. She wasn’t a popular person and she had no friends. She watches as the school bus pass other people’s farms and shops.

When the bus finally pulls into the driveway to let the students off, she waits till she is the only one left before getting up and moving carefully off the bus. Once Arabella is off the bus she heads towards her locker to switch out her books for the first half of school. Arabella was thankful that she didn’t have gym class this week. She never felt comfortable undressing in front of the other girls because of all the bruises she had on her body.

Arabella closes her locker and heads towards her first class. Her rear end was still hurting from sitting on the bus. She makes her way to class and takes her normal seat in the back corner of the classroom. She grits her teeth as she takes her seat. She wishes she had some aspirin or something, but she knew if she went to the nurse, she would want to know. Arabella tries to ignore the pain and copy what her teacher writes on the board. She plays dumb when she is called to answer a question from the teacher.

When the lunch bell rings, Arabella takes out the two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches she made before leaving home and eats them. She takes an old glass jar she cleaned out and fills it with water from the water fountain. She wipes away the tears that had leaked from her eyes as she winces as she walks to her next class. She takes the far seat in the back of the classroom and pulls out her battered broken notebook. It was held together with duct tape. She looks at all the other kids and wishes she had a nice laptop and tablet. She squints her eyes, so she can read what the teacher puts up on the board. It takes her a while to write everything down, but she manages to get all the information.

Arabella doesn’t raise her hand when the teacher asks for volunteers to read the book or answer question. She shifts some in her seat. Her butt was still stinging from the spanking her father gave her. She didn’t know what her father did to her rear end, but it was really hurting her.

At the end of class, her last teacher wanted to talk with her. She stays behind to talk with her teacher. She wonders what she wanted to talk to her about.

Mrs. Bingham waits till the last student leaves the class before she starts talking with Arabella. When she sits down in the front row, she could sense something was wrong with her.

“Arabella, the reason I asked you to stay behind, is your grades have been slipping. Is the material too hard for you?”

“No ma’am, I just have chores that keep me busy and I don’t have time to read the require material.” Arabella didn’t want to tell her that she has a hard time reading her books. It takes her longer than most students.

“Well, I need to speak to your parents, Arabella. Take them this note and have them set-up a time we can get together to speak about your grades.” Mrs. Bingham hands Arabella the note.

Arabella stuff it in her battered backpack. She looks at Mrs. Bingham “is that all Mrs. Bingham?”

“Yes, you can head to your bus.”

Arabella gets up and walks stiffly out of the room and tries to hurry to her bus before it leaves. The way she normally takes is blocked by the janitor cleaning up a mess some student left, which meant she must take another route. By the time she takes that route and gets to where the buses are. Hers was already leaving. She sighs and cries as she watches as it drives off. She was going to have to walk home, which meant she wouldn’t get home till after five o’clock.

Arabella starts walking home. Tears were streaming down her face as each step she took hurt worse than the last step. She walks as slow as possible but tries to speed up. She gets a quarter of the way from the school when the sky opens up and starts raining. There was nowhere she could take shelter and she didn’t have a rain jacket.

Gina had just left a meeting she had to attend to when the sky opened on her. She was heading home and had hoped she could beat the rain.

“Well, it looks like it is going to take us a little longer to get home Cadmus.” She reaches over and scratches Cadmus on the head between his ears. He was riding in the passenger seat.

Gina had the wipers on the hummer on fast to make it easier for her to see out the windshield. As she is driving, she notices a young girl getting soak. The poor thing was already soaked to the bone and her clothes were plaster against her body. Gina pulls in front of her and when she gets up close to the passenger window “hey, come on in and get out of the rain.”

Arabella saw a black Hummer pull up ahead of her and waited for her to get closer. She was surprised to see a huge black and gray dog and an oriental woman looking at her.

“I'm not supposed to accept rides from strangers.” However, she really wanted to get out of the rain.

“Look, I can understand that and its good advice. My name is Gina Bounty and this wolf next to me is Cadmus. My sister is a Montana K9 police officer. I promise I mean you no harm. I thought you might feel better getting out of the rain and into something warm.” Gina knew she might now, but when she was that girls age, she wouldn’t.

Arabella really did want to get out of the rain and it would be faster to get home.

“Alright.” She opens the passenger side door.

“Cadmus, back.” Gina looks towards her wolf.

Cadmus moves to the back seat. He turns to face front and watches the young girl as she climbed in.

Arabella climbs up into the hummer. She notices the seats were leather.

“Sorry for getting your seat wet.” Arabella looks at Gina with guilt on her face.

“Don’t worry about it.” Gina waits and watches Arabella buckle up before she drives off. She notices the girl had some bruising around her
neck and on her legs. The sweatshirt and the dress she could see was baggy on her.

Arabella makes sure the seat belt was on her. She could already feel the warm air from the heater warming her legs. She holds her hands out to the vents to warm them up.

“Where to?” Gina wonders who has been abusing this girl.

“Sun dust trailer park. Do you know where it is?”

“Yep, I pass it every day on my way to work.” Gina starts heading towards it.

Arabella relaxes back against the soft leather seats. She couldn’t believe how comfortable they felt against her bruised body. The seat was warm as well. She glances at her and notices the wolf looking at her.

“Gina, why do you have a wolf?” Arabella was curious.

A smile appears on her face “I’ve had Cadmus since I was about your age. He is my best friend, my bodyguard and my pet. Sometimes I think he thinks I’m his pet.” Gina glances in the rear-view mirror towards Cadmus.

“That still doesn’t answer my question.” Arabella wanted to know why a grown woman has a wolf for a pet.

“Well, I’m the head of a Private Security contracting company and he’s my bodyguard. However, when I was your age. Some bad people abused me, and my father came and rescued me. He gave Cadmus to me.” Gina glances towards Arabella to see her reaction.

“Your father gave him to you?” She wishes her father was that nice. All she gets from hers are beatings.

“Yep, he rescued me and my sister from some very bad men. After he got us home, he brought two young wolves out and they choose us. I got Cadmus and my sister got his brother Sphinx.”

Cadmus sniffs Arabella and nudges her.

Arabella had been startled when Cadmus nudge her. She looks at him “is it alright to pet him?”

Gina glances back and notices he was near her, which meant he trusted her and that something was wrong. She knew how protective Cadmus and Sphinx could be.

“Yep, he likes to be scratched between his ears.”

Arabella scratches Cadmus between his ears. She could see how he enjoyed it. She liked Cadmus and the way his tongue hung out while she starches him.

After a while, they arrive at the trailer park. Arabella directs Gina to the trailer she lived in with her father. The rain had lightened up some. It was just sprinkling when Gina pulls up in front of the trailer. She notices some of the windows were boarded up. There was garbage outside near the front door. The door itself looked like someone had burst through it and put it back on half-ass.

She looks over towards Arabella “are you going to be alright here?”

Arabella didn’t want to go inside. She spotted her father’s beaten-up pickup parked over at Charlie’s trailer.

“Thank you for the ride.” She opens the hummer’s door.

“Wait, Arabella.” Gina reaches into her purse and pulls out her business card and some money.

“Look, if you get in trouble or need help, call me. It doesn’t matter what time you call me. I’ll answer. Here are my business card and some money.” Gina hands the money and her business card to Arabella.

“Thank you, Gina.” Arabella accepts the money and the business card. She exists from the hummer and runs inside the trailer.

Cadmus growls as he watches Arabella run into the trailer.

“I agree Cadmus, I don’t trust this place. She seemed nervous when we pulled up.” Gina had that feeling she uses to get when she uses to be abused. She turns the hummer off and grab her gun from its hidden spot. She gets out of the hummer with Cadmus by her side and walks up to the door.

“HOW MANY TIMES DID I TELL YOU NOT TO BRING MUD INTO THE HOUSE!” followed by a crashing sound after that.

Cadmus rushes inside, with Gina right on his heels. They see a man with unkempt black hair standing over Arabella’s crumpled form. Gina could see where she had hit the wall with her head and there was blood under her. The guy was about to kick Arabella’s crumpled body.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Gina punches him on his jaw, while Cadmus grabbed his arm.

Robert looks down at his daughter and was about to kick her when he felt a punch to his jaw and his arm grabbed by a huge fucking dog. He was stunned from the punch to his jaw. He spots a young oriental woman wearing a black business suit standing between him and his daughter. He tries to shake the dog loose, but it wouldn’t let go of him.

He is pushed down to the floor as he tries to protect himself. The dam beast wouldn’t let go of his arm.

“Leig leam falbh” Gina was looking at the guy. She had Arabella’s unconscious body in her arms.

“Your lucky I don’t shoot you or let him finish what he was doing to you.” Gina carries Arabella out to the Hummer and put her inside. She makes sure she is secure as she whistles for Cadmus.

Cadmus hears Gina’s whistle and runs out the door towards the hummer. He jumps in and into the back seat.

Robert rushes over towards his gun cabinet and pull out his shotgun. He rushes towards the front door and spots a black Hummer. He raises his shotgun and fires at the hummer.The buck shots strike the front windshield and bounce off it.

Gina watches as Arabella’s father fires a shotgun at the hummer. She listens as the buck shots bounce off the front windshield.

“What a dumb ass.” Gina was glad her father’s old hummer was armor plated.

She backs the hummer up, as another set of buck shots hit the side of the hummer. She hears Cadmus growling at him.

“Don’t worry boy. He’s not getting through the armor of this hummer.” She floors it, just as another shot bounces off the back part of the hummer.

Robert watches as each shot from his shotgun, bounces off the skin of the black Hummer. He rushes towards his truck and chases after the hummer. He ignores the blood dripping from the wound the huge ass dog gave him.

Gina spots Arabellas father chasing after her. An evil smile appears on her face. She could slam on the brakes and let him rear-end her. It wouldn’t do any damage to the hummer, except scratch the paint. She ignores him and rushes Arabella towards the hospital. She had the gas pedal on the hummer floored. She glances at the gauges and notices the hummer was doing a hundred.

She pulls up in front of the emergency room and rushes inside with Arabella. Cadmus was behind her.

“Help! I have an unconscious girl here. She’s got a head wound.”

Several nurses rush forward to take Arabella out of Gina’s arms. They hear a growl coming from behind them. Gina turns around and notices it was Arabella’s father. She doesn’t give him a moment to do anything. She just reacts as she springs forwards and knocks him out cold.

Robert had followed the woman to the hospital and watched as she carried his daughter inside. When he went inside to stop her, he spotted the big ass dog. He stopped and just as he did, he felt the oriental woman punch him in his face. He fell backward as blackness claimed him.

“Ma’am, your dog can’t be in here.” A nurse had spotted Cadmus as he growled at Arabella’s father.

Gina looks at her “First off, he’s not a dog, but a wolf. Second off, if you can get him to go back to my hummer, I'll be amazed.”

“Ma’am he can’t be in here.” The nurse was getting agitated at Gina.

“Do you know who I am and who he is?”

“No, but…”

“I’m Gina Bounty, daughter of Jack Bounty, the man who donated a lot of money to your new wing. As for him, he’s my bodyguard, now get the fuck out of my way before I knock you out.” Gina walks past her and follows the nurses that were helping Arabella.

“God, what has this girl been through.” One of the nurses had removed the sweatshirt Arabella had been wearing and her dress. She spotted all the bruises and burn marks the girl had been subjected to.

“Who is this girl's parents?” Nurse Dix looks towards Gina.

“The sorry ass man laying out on the floor in the admittance room is her father. I don’t know who her mother is or where she is.”

“Well, that man needs to be locked up for child abuse.”

“Good idea.” Gina lets the nurses do their job, while she steps out and calls the precinct Julia works at and have them send a cop to arrest the guy.

After an hour or so, they release Arabella to her. Arabella was a little dazed as she was escorted out to the hummer. When she spots her father’s truck, she becomes nervous.

“You have nothing to be afraid of Arabella. You have been released to me and I’ll be taking care of you. Tomorrow, we’ll go to your place and get whatever you might want. However, for now, I am taking you home with me.” Gina helps Arabella to her hummer. Cadmus jumps in first, afterward, Gina helps Arabella into the hummer.

Several Weeks Later:
“Come on slow poke.” Haylee teases Arabella as she sprints towards the stables to get Evening Star. Her grandmother was going to let her ride Evening Star today.

Arabella chases after Haylee. The first few days she spent with the Bounty family, she was nervous and scared. She didn’t know how the people in the household was going to treat her, but after she saw Haylee sneak up on Mr. Bounty and tickle him. She knew no one would hurt her. She saw how much love he had for all his children and now his grandchildren.

Haylee and her have become like sisters, except Gina was her mother. Haylee’s parents were Julia, who was in LA and Christmas, who was her aunt and Julia’s wife. She was enrolled at the same private school as Haylee and her aunts.

She liked Alyona and Silvia, both girls were still getting use to being called auntie by her and Haylee. Alyona helped her with her reading after, Gina got her a new pair of glasses. She found out that she was farsighted, after Gina took her to the doctor for a physical.

As for what happened to her father. Gina made sure the man was never getting out of jail. She brought charges of child neglect, child abuse, endangerment of a minor, discharge of a firearm in public, public intoxication and physical assault.

Gina watches as Arabella chases after Haylee towards the stables. A smile appears on her face. She feels her father wrap his arm around her shoulder.

“Watch you thinking about sweet pea?” Jack looks down at Gina.

“Arabella, daddy. I didn’t think I was ready to be a mother to a twelve-year-old girl, but I didn’t want to let her go.” She looks up at her father.

“You know me, and your mom would have adopted her and made her your sister.” Jack and Debbie had talked about it.

“I know dad, and I do appreciate it, but I didn’t want to let Arabella go. I know she’s not my child, and I’m only twenty-one years old, but something about her reached out to me and made me want to care for her.”

“You mean how something about you and Julia reached out to me that day I rescued you two?” Jack holds her close to him.

“I guess so, it just feels nice and weird being called mom.” She loved being called mom and mommy. She talked it over with Arnold since they were going to get married soon and he didn’t mind being Arabella’s father after he heard what happened to her. Gina had flown her and Arabella out during a weekend for Arabella and Arnold to meet each other.

“Mommy looked at me.” Arabella was riding Gina’s horse Thunderclap.

Debbie has been working with both girls to get them up to her standards of horseback riding. She knew how much Haylee loved Evening Star.
Arabella liked horseback riding as well but wasn’t into it as much as Haylee. She was extremely good at video games and computers.

Gina just watches Arabella like a proud mother. She leans against her father and wonder did he feel the same way she did when he first saw them ride.

Jack looks down at his daughter and never thought he would be having children or grandchildren like he does now. He had his own born from Debbie. He had adopted four girls that he loved very much and now he was a grandfather with Haylee and Arabella.