Cassie Huwit

I can barely breath in the air anymore.

There is no hole to gulp up the outside oxygen. The clock hand has moved thirty-two time. He brings me food, but I haven't touched any of it.

He leaves the flowers; a bunch sit in the vase next to me.

I lost the strength to scream, to talk or to cry. The floor is stuck with an impression of my body weighed into it. All my tears have dried up. I have nothing left to give.

I can hear banging coming through the ceiling. Shouting and the sound of cars turning off, I've never heard this much noise, it's only ever been someone walking around.

Could it be the police?

Wood breaks just outside the door. I try to lift myself up but I am too weak. Many feet run down the steps, the door rattles and I can hear men talking, shouting out, but not clear enough to understand what is said.

"Help." My voice is dry, raspy.

The door rattles again then in one swift thud, the door breaks off it's hinges, landing in front of me. I can see three men outside the room, all holding a gun. One walks in and yells, pointing his gun at me.

"Ponerse de pie!" I look up at him confused.

He walks closer to me, leans down, and grabs me by my arm. He tugs, pulling me up onto my feet. He throws me forward and pushes my back with the tip of his rifle.

"Move!" He shouts.

I take a step forward. My knees wobble. I haven't moved in... well, I don't really know how long exactly. I try to walk fast when the man pushes me with the weapon again.

Another man takes my arm and pulls me closer to him, he sniffs my hair and drags me up the wooden steps.

Just as we make it to the top, a car speeds up to the front of the house, parking on the grass.

I can't see properly as my eyes haven't adjusted to the bright, natural light.

A person gets out of the car and all the men start yelling. The man next to me curses and pulls me behind the wall.

I look over the side of the wall and see a small room, fitted with multiple screens, all of the room I was in.

A chain of gun fire commences. I duck out of instinct, the man tugs my arm again, making me hide behind the kitchen counter with him.

I can hear men groaning and screaming out then all the sounds stop. Not one person can be heard breathing besides me.

I can hear someone walking, crunching over all the shell casings, their boots appear heavy as the walk over the wood flooring.

A loud crack of a weapon then deafening ringing floods my ears. I can feel something dripping off my face and down my neck.

I squeeze my eyes shut and cover the sides of my head, trying to block out the horrid ring.

Someone picks me up by my waist, under my arms, lifting me to my feet. I look down and see the man next to me with blood pouring out around his head. A blood curdling scream breaches my throat, roaring and scratching to get away.

The hands around my waist loosen, enough for me to break free.

I run straight out the door and don't look back. I barely make it to the trees past the car on the front lawn before the hands return, this time they lift me and throw me over his shoulder.

I can't see his face.

He opens the car door and places me in the back of the car so carefully. I scramble to the other side of the vehicle in fear that he might hurt me.

He gets in the driver's seat and starts the car.

I still can't see his face and I don't know if I want to.

I lie on the seats, covering my face with my hands. I look up and see his eyes in the rearview mirror. Soft wrinkles around his dark brown eyes.

His eyes flick at the mirror and he sees me looking right back at him. I flinch but am unable to look away. He turns the radio up and looks back to the road.

I must have fallen asleep in the car because when I woke up, I was in a bed with blue covers. I pull myself up and look right to the door and then around the room.

The door is shut but the room is different, the bathroom door is in front of the bed instead of to the left of it, there are no draws now it's an open door to what looks like a walk-in closet; from my view, the colours are different and... there's a window!

I kick the covers off of me and pounce towards the window, I press my face against the glass, fogging up the view. Both my hands lay flat on the cool air coming through the bay window. There are soft white clouds and a bright blue sky, grass with little daisies growing in between.

The door opens behind me. I hold my breath and await whatever comes. A tall man that I have never seen before approaches me, holding a tray of food and a first aid kit.

He is much taller than me, if I had to guess I'd say 6'2, wavy light brown hair with soft streaks of dark blond - hardly noticeable. He has deep sea blue eyes paired with thick eyebrows. He places the tray on the end of the bed, his long black shirt moves up, enough to see the start of a tattoo peeking out.

"You must be hungry." His voice is deep yet kind; it's obvious he's toning his voice down to not scare me, like when you talk to a baby. He points to the toast on the tray, scratching the back of his head with his other hand.

"I didn't know what you liked so I did all sorts."

I could see jam, peanut butter, plain butter, Nutella, and what looked like honey.

"I'm sorry Cassie, it was never meant to be like this."

How does he know my name.

I take a massive step back, too big that I hit a basket behind me, tripping over it. I land on my butt, the boy moves closer to me with his arms out like he'll pick me up, but I crawl backwards - afraid.

He moves back.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

He places the tray on the floor close to me. He looks at me with pleading eyes. I lean forward, picking up a piece of toast with jam on it and taking a bite. It took me awhile to swallow after not eating for so long, but he patiently sat on the bed while I ate.

"I'm Liam." He looks at me so softly like I'm a lost kitten.

I just look at him, not saying a word, he sighs in response. Liam picks up the first aid kit, opening the box.

"Can I change your bandages?"

I look at my covered arm. I had completely forgotten about the glass cutting my arm, or my hand. I didn't say anything to Liam, I just stood up and took a step in his direction. He just watched as I took my time moving closer to him.

"You're going to have to take your shirt off."

I slip my arm out of the sleeve and look up at him as if it ask, 'is this alright?'

He takes my arm in his palm, undoing the white bandage. He takes out a bottle and pours a bit onto a piece of tissue. By the sting of it, I know it's alcohol.

Liam cleaned and rebandaged all my wounds, as well as cleaning up the equipment he took out of the box.

"Your stitches didn't tear, so it doesn't need much more than a clean and rewrap." He explained to me as he picked up all the used tissue.

Liam stands up and walks toward the door while I stare out to the window.

"Are you not coming?" I look at Liam's confused expression and mirror it.

"You're allowed to leave the room."

I chew on it for a second. I'm allowed to leave.

I get off the bed and follow Liam. He walks into the kitchen, leaving me to awkwardly stand around. I walk back into the room and grab the tray, I trout towards Liam, handing him the silver plate.

"Oh, thanks, almost forgot about that." He smiles at me, and I give him a brief one.

Liam cleaned up the kitchen and told me to sit with him on the couch. He brought up Netflix on the TV and asked me what I wanted to watch. I sort of just gave him a blank stare, not yet ready to talk.

"Um...ok." He places his finger on his chin and tilts his head, purposely visualising that he is thinking.

"Have you seen The Vampire Diaries?"

My eyes widened.

Maybe him and I could be friends.

I nodded, perhaps a bit eagerly as Liam began to laugh.

"I assume you like the show." His smile is so bright.

"Ye...yes." I just managed to get the word out. My voice doesn't sound like mine, I reach for my glass of water on the coffee table that Liam got me.

"Vampire Diaries it is then." Liam's eyes glimmered when I spoke, I can't help but tug a small smile on my face.

Liam is very attractive, tall and muscly, brown hair, blue eye, tattoos and scars - kind of reminding me of Sam's.

We have reached the fifth episode when the door swings open.

"Hey Liam, is she up yet?"

Sam walks in the door and I get up to run back to the bedroom when Liam holds his hand out in front of me. Why is Sam here?

"Hey, hey, whoa, it's ok, Aaron isn't going to hurt you. No one is, right Aaron?"

Aaron?

Sam, I mean, Aaron, I mean... the man, whatever his name is, just shrugs his shoulders to which Liam rolls his eyes at.

Then I smell it.

Cedar. Whiskey. Sweet nectar.

It hits me. It was Aaron.

"You... you took me. You... you broke into my apartment. You locked me in a room!" I sob in between words, shaking as I clutch my fist to my chest, pointing my finger at Aaron with my other hand.

Aaron looks over with shock in his eyes. He puts down the papers, he brought through the door, on the bench.

"How did you guess that?" He starts to walk over to me.

I scramble off the couch and make a run to the door, but Aaron catches me. Again.

I sob, hanging over his arms, Liam comes over, in front of me he crotches down.

"Cassie."

"Cassie, look at me."

I look up to see Liam peering up at me, he then looks up further and glares at Aaron.

"Let go of her, man."

"No, she'll run."

I bawl relentlessly in Aaron's arms, I wiggle to get free, but Aaron tightens his hold on me.

His touch still affecting my body that same as it did at the hospital, but I can't help but feel disgust build in my throat.

"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" I scream between tears, pounding at Aaron's flesh.

Aaron twists me to face him, but I push him away.

"Look at me!" His imperative tone makes me gradually glance up to him.

"I need you to calm down." I spit at him, my saliva beads down his cheek.

I watch as Aaron drags his sleeve across his face, wiping off my drool.

He glares at me with predator eyes. For a second, I believed he would kill me right here.

Liam sticks his arm between us, pulling Aaron off me. Aaron walks around me, picking up his jacket on the way out the door, slamming it behind him.

"Come with me, Cas." Liam guides me back into the bedroom.

He showed me where everything in the bathroom was, explained that this is my room from now on, that I can get anything from the kitchen at any time or I could ask him or Aaron for things. He paused.

"Well maybe not Aaron for now." He smiled at me and took me back to the couch.

Liam made a start on dinner after giving me a blanket. I offered to help with cooking, but he told to me to relax and that it isn't necessary for me to do anything right now.

So, I sat on the couch and ate dinner with Liam at the table when it was done. We moved back to the couch and continued the show.

Aaron never came back.

I slept peacefully next to Liam for the first time in a while.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE.

More chapters coming very soon...